McMaster-Carr won’t sell to small companies, my friends and I have tried several times, only to have orders cancelled for the above-mentioned reason. It’s a shame because their website has a wealth of information (CAD drawings, measurements, etc.), one of the best I’ve seen.
What exactly have you tried to order? I've been ordering from McMaster both to a fairly small business and my personal home address with absolutely no issues for over 8 years.
Are you in the US? If you're trying to buy those tubes, are you trying to order very long lengths? UPS apparently has a limit of 108" total length, and a sum of 165" for length + "girth".
As for McMaster overall - I agree with some other sentiments here that they're great, though I do admit the "McMaster tax" (paying 10~200% what you could find the identical part somewhere else for) can be annoying at times, but is worth it when you want a reliable supplier with almost universally good quality products.
I would try the recommendation there of ensuring you have a business name on the order, or, contact their support - I've had to contact them a couple times and they were generally quite helpful.
The website and all the part details are amazing. I've made many purchases from McMaster for personal / hobby use so I'm surprised to hear about difficulties purchasing from them.
We are in Ontario, Canada, if it matters. I know Quinn from blondiehacks orders from them without difficulty, so I’m not sure what it is about us that they don’t like. They tend to be very curt/nearing unfriendly in their responses.
There may be difficulties shipping cross-border (customs is hell) - so maybe you "need" to find an address just over the border in the US to ship to instead?
Those also don't usually allow "package" delivery (think UPS) but maybe something can be worked out. Some small post offices will accept a UPS delivery to "unit PO BOX number" but I don't think they're supposed to.
Since you're in Canada too, my experience might be relevant. My first McMaster order last year was cancelled with the following response:
"Due to the cost and complexity of shipping our products to Canada, we are only able to accept orders from businesses and schools. We’ve canceled your order. If this material is not for personal use, please resubmit your order online using the business or school name."
After that, I added my company's legal name to both shipping and billing address, put "Please note: this order is for business" in order comments the first couple times, and had no problems since.
I wish we had something similar in Canada that has a good selection and isn't a pain to deal with, but as it stands, McMaster is too good to give up on.
ETA: Having read your other comment, it appears they might have restricted their policy since then, but grandfathered existing clients. That would be really sad for Canadians.
I am a business of one and I've bought from McMaster-Carr often. A long time ago (like 25 years ago) it was harder to buy from them as a tiny company, but these days they take credit cards on an online shopping list like everyone else.
I just ordered 40 SS J Bolts from them for my home project after spending a couple of weeks fruitlessly trying to get them from a local company. I placed an order on the website and they showed up in 2 days.
We only ship to large businesses and schools in Canada. We can't accept your order. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. You might want to try Fastenal or Motion Canada.
I can pretty much guarantee that this is due to customs/import charges. Consumers will cancel orders over a surprise bill from that, a big business won't care at all or will have their own broker.
Were you ordering as an individual? They definitely ship to small businesses on both sides of the border, but might be leery of an individual handling the customs stuff properly. Maybe solve that with a UPS account?
idk. they made me get a commercial account. and their stock for my local shop leans heavily towards grade-8 construction fasteners and not the smaller machine screws that I generally use.
Aircraft spruce sells tubing in a variety of lengths, and ship to Canada. They're a good source for tubes that don't fit normal framebuilding supply inventories. They ship to Canada directly:
