Why I Love McFeely's
Posted: Tuesday, July 21, 2026 at 06:04 PM
Categories: Supplier
I don't remember how I discovered them, but back in 2013 I placed my first wood screw order from McFeely's. Over the years, I've purchased a lot of screws from them and a few tools as well. I decided to write about them here for two reasons:
- They offer an amazing assortment of products, I use them primarily for fasteners (screws); I never fail to find the screw I need in their catalog.
- They usually deliver an amazing customer experience.
McFeely's is a small woodworking supplier in Aurora, Indiana. From their site:
McFeelys is a profitable and ethical retailer of tools, fasteners, and supplies in our specialty market. We will first serve the client’s needs in an environment that supports the golden rule. We encourage open communication, continuous learning and improvement, and educational materials serving vendors and clients. We will raise the bar by sourcing, evaluating, and providing innovative and quality products within an efficient distribution system.
Over the years, I found myself purchasing a variety of wood screws in a variety of sizes. I have this box on a shelf in my shop that contains nothing but boxes of McFeely's screws. I use their stainless steel pan head screws, washer head screws (stainless or black oxide), and more.
Customer Service
The thing I love the most about them is their customer service. When you email them about a problem with an order (either caused by me or by them), they always answer and they answer pretty quickly. Usually in a single day: I email them in the morning, I hear back from them in the afternoon.
I had an issue one time where they sent me the wrong screws. To let them know, I sent them a quick email with a description of the issue along with a photo of what I received and within hours a replacement shipment was on its way to me. I didn't have to call them and I didn't have to send back the incorrect parts. They simply made it right, very quickly.
Phone Support
This week, I was looking for a replacement box of #8 stainless steel wood screws at 3/4 inch length. I looked around on the site and couldn't find what I needed, even though I knew they had them, so I sent them an email from the contact us page. Within a couple of hours, I received the following response:
Hi John,
Here are a few options for you. https://www.mcfeelys.com/8-x-3-4-in-pan-head-black-square.html,
https://www.mcfeelys.com/8-x-3-4-in-pan-head-zinc-square.html,
https://www.mcfeelys.com/8-x-3-4-in-pan-head-wood-18-8-ss-square.html.
There are a few more options, but these are the basic and all square drive.
If you have any questions, feel free to call M-T 8-5 F 8-4 EDT. 800.443.7937
Thanks,
Bob
The third link appeared broken, their website returned a 404 (not found) page, so I gave them a call to ask for help. Who answered? Bob did. 45 seconds on the phone and I had my answer. Someone answered in seconds and I didn't have to go through a long series of menus to get to someone. When you call, someone answers the phone. How cool is that?
The issue with the link? Somehow Outlook included the trailing period in the last link and that's why it failed. I removed the period and the link worked.
A Couple of Issues
I do have a couple of issues with McFeely's that I wish weren't there.
Minimum Order
First of all, McFeely's has a $20 minimum order policy. If you need just one box of screws, you're not going to get them unless you exceed the $20 threshold. Now, if you just placed an order and forgot an item, I imagine they'll drop that limit for you. Just give them a call or send them an email and watch what happens.
They're charging me for shipping, I'd prefer that they take my order no matter what the size.
Screw Packaging
With my last few orders, I noticed that they switched to much larger and thicker boxes. I don't see any need for thicker boxes and they seems to have a smaller number of size options, so I get bigger boxes now and the boxes aren't full. With the older boxes, they were always full when you got them and they didn't take up any unnecessary space. I'm not happy with this change.
For the first many years I did business with them, they sent their wood screws in small, compact boxes. I loved them. The boxes took up just enough room to hold the product and because of that, I was able to keep all of them in a box and quickly find what I was looking for. They even had a kind of built in scoop you could use to tease a few screws out of the box.
The brown boxes are the original packaging, the big white ones are new.
Image 1: My box of McFeely's screws
As I mentioned, the new boxes are... bigger. They also have that tab that, I guess, makes it easier to ship them without the box falling open, but makes it harder to open.
Image 2: The new packaging
When you look inside though, a lot of empty space. I think they have a smaller number of sizes available, so you'll get a box that's half empty. I don't like this.
Image 3: A half empty McFeely's screw box
Another issue with the new packaging is that its really easy to tear the closure tab. The boxes are made of actual corrugated board, so they're ticker and stiffer, but that makes it easier to tear the tab.
>The original boxes were made of thick paper, so they held together better. And, did I mention that I loved the little shute they included to make it easy to pour screws out of the box.
Image 4: A Torn McFeely's Screw Box
Postscript
The reason I wrote this post was because I ran out of some screws and needed to place an order with the folks at McFeely's. That started me thinking of how much I liked doing business with them and the rest you know.
When I received my order, I was surprised and happy to see that they ditched those heavy, cumbersome boxes I complained about earlier in the post. They went back to simple thick cardboard with no extra closure that can tear like I showed in Image 4, here's a pic of the new box. Much better.
Image 5: The new and improved box
I did figure out why they implemented that minimum order nonsense they have in place today, because they, for some bizarre reason, use a ridiculous amount of packing in the box, see below.
Image 6: Packaging overkill
Its big, thick and heavy and, I assume, dramatically increases the shipping cost.
Take a look inside, see how small the boxes of screws are? Those two boxes of screws are only a small portion of the weight of the packaging.
Image 7: More packaging overkill
They could have used a much smaller shipping box with just a few sheets of crumpled paper to protect the product and saved themselves, and me, increased shipping cost. This just doesn't make any sense to me. There's just no reason to increase the weight of a package multiple times (3x? 4x? 5x?) just to send me a couple of small boxes of screws. I hope they fix this.
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