Positive experience with Mouser Electronics

Hey der, PM. I wanted to share a positive experience with Mouser Electronics. Placed an order. Just after I hit the "Commit Order" button I realized that I'd forgotten some items. Called customer service and they stopped the order, added the items and replaced the order. For a couple of bucks worth of capacitors and resistors*.

No interest in Mouser, just thought I'd relay a positive story (which, unfortunately, is notable because of its rarity).

*Making some factory suggested changes to reduce hum and a relay "pop" in my Fender tube amp.

started buying from Mouser about 40 years ago. Back in my electronics days I bought quite a lot from them. They never screwed up once.

to those who think this is just normal, here is a story about recent experience with Farnell:
to be fair to them - prior brexit they were simply fantastic, I could order something in the morning today and it will be delivered to my door the next day after noon, that is 500-2500km away, from either Finland or UK warehouses, US warehouse it was +couple days to a week max

post brexit:
I place an order of around 140EUR worth of parts on July 1st, all from UK/EU stock, everything was in stock, pack-and-ship, capacitors, sensors, nothing special, I receive UPS tracking number meaning that shipment is already handed over to UPS, and tracking shows it is stored at UPS facility
Few days go by, nothing has yet showed up, I check tracking number - says shipment held till confirmation from sender, I check Farnell website - sorry, new rules since July 1st, all shipments to EU will be delayed few extra days, ok fine...
Now around 10 days have gone by - still the same status on the tracking number, I decide to call Farnell and see whats what, I open up website, now there is a banner saying - minimum order 150EUR, service lady, after long waiting time, finally explains that I wasn't supposed to be able to place the 140EUR order on July 1st, and it will have to be canceled, everything reordered and shipped anew, since they can't apparently add items to my 140eur order for it to be above the 150 and be released for delivery from UPS, ok fine, weird, but ok fine...
I make a new order of 170EUR, 100EUR of the items from the past order, but some have since been sold and unavailable any more, including a special sensor that I couldn't find anywhere else... (now I'm starting to get a bit pissed), but fine, shit happens, oh, and the lady said that the canceled order will be issued as a credit for the new one, so I'll just have to pay the balance, new order finalized and placed, shipping info received, and got delivered 4 or 5 days later (no more next day delivery... even above 150EUR)
then the fun happens - I receive invoice with a credit note of just 40ish EUR, and partially my original shipment also shows up on my door... so now I have payed the 140eur original invoice(that was supposed to be canceled and refunded), 170eur the next one, and a credit note of those 40ish eur, so 310eur out of my pocked and a voucher for 40 towards next order....

this is BREXIT for you...

Farnell used to be my 1st choice for electronics and other small stuff, it was usually not cheapest, but service was great, now it is the last place I look for parts

:-) Well if we're playing "Can You Top This", 70 years ago the only places to get electronic parts was Allied and some place in New York that I can't seem to remember. :-)
...lewie...

Thanks for this it is useful info.

AS a side note, I have had Mcmaster combine orders placed within minutes of each other, without me saying a thing

Some of these places know how to run a business.

bosleyjr said:

Called customer service and they stopped the order, added the items and replaced the order. For a couple of bucks worth of capacitors and resistors*.

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The same order enhancement was done for me several times by Newark, and some of their people in India ...

I have had nothing but good experiences with both Mouser and Digi-Key. Amazing that they can somehow manage inventories of hundreds of thousands of items and still provide accurate and prompt shipment. Similar to McM-C in the mechanical world. Good companies have earned our respect and patronage. It can’t be easy.

Denis

bosleyjr said:

Hey der, PM. I wanted to share a positive experience with Mouser Electronics. Placed an order. Just after I hit the "Commit Order" button I realized that I'd forgotten some items. Called customer service and they stopped the order, added the items and replaced the order. For a couple of bucks worth of capacitors and resistors*.

No interest in Mouser, just thought I'd relay a positive story (which, unfortunately, is notable because of its rarity).

*Making some factory suggested changes to reduce hum and a relay "pop" in my Fender tube amp.

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Ya know it should be standard practice to allow you to change the order, on the website, before it gets to the shipping dept. No reason not to, It is just lazy programmers, most of the larger websites run on top of standard eCommerce platforms. Not many support order changes.

jz79 said:

this is BREXIT for you...

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I don't want to start a big argument, and I really don't have a dog in this fight, but, respectfully, this is not Brexit, this is clearly Farnell.

Whether or not Brexit added a level of complexity that was not there before, there is no reason Farnell can't figure that out and do what they tell you they would.

Digi-Key is geared to the environment where something is being developed and the technical support is supposed to be deeper. So it has been mentioned.
I found a $350 crimp die head for crimp tool at Digi-Key. Not sold anywhere else. I didn't buy it yet.

Lewie said:

:-) Well if we're playing "Can You Top This", 70 years ago the only places to get electronic parts was Allied and some place in New York that I can't seem to remember. :-)
...lewie...

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"70 years ago"? Ok, Lewie, you win the "Can You Top This" prize! Congratulations on your longevity. Your post was a real breath of fresh air.

I used to use Digikey almost exclusively for many years for prototypes. You could place an order in the early evening and still get it on the West Coast the next day. But over the last year I kept running into Digikey taking 5 days to ship the parts. Mouser had stock and would ship it out same or next day. So now I use both. Digikey has the superior website but mouser sometimes has more in stock and is usually a little cheaper.

jariou said:

I don't want to start a big argument, and I really don't have a dog in this fight, but, respectfully, this is not Brexit, this is clearly Farnell.

Whether or not Brexit added a level of complexity that was not there before, there is no reason Farnell can't figure that out and do what they tell you they would.

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It's Brexit, it's become very difficult to send stuff to the EU, it's not just Farnell.

Why has EU trade and customs become so difficult?

dgfoster said:

I have had nothing but good experiences with both Mouser and Digi-Key. Amazing that they can somehow manage inventories of hundreds of thousands of items and still provide accurate and prompt shipment. Similar to McM-C in the mechanical world. Good companies have earned our respect and patronage. It can’t be easy.

Denis

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I have found that all of these well run businesses have very motivated people that understand the need for good customer service.

I had to do a will call for a sensor at Mouser. The lady that waited on me ran the will call counter. I was waiting for around 15minutes for them to bring the sensor up to the counter. The lady, who was about 70, checked on why they didn't have at the counter yet? Couldn't get a straight answer so she personally walked all the way to the back of the warehouse and got the sensor and had a few words with the stock pullers. She must have had to walk 1/4 mi. each way to get to the sensor location. Returned to the counter and apologized for the delay.

I was just happy to have the sensor but her attitude was very refreshing.

Having worked in electronics, I have purchased from both many times. And I have never had any trouble with either of them. And they have very similar web selection processes - you can start with almost any spec. you wish and drill down from there. Also it is easy to see them by price at any point in the selection process: usually low to high is my choice. They both also show the available stock levels.

Lately I find that Mouser often has better prices than DigiKey. Sometimes this is for the same quantities and sometimes Mouser will sell a smaller number of an item while DigiKey offers quantities like 50 or 100 at a minimum. When I compare prices I usually wind up buying from Mouser.

Of course, there are others: Newark, Allied, Arrow, Jameco, etc. But I have to say that Mouser and DigiKey are the best as far as the selection process is concerned.

thermite said:

Put my first order into Digi-Key their first year in bizness , 1972.

Never have had a bad experience. Just moved-over to Mouser several year back because Digi-Key's website got to be SO complex I mought fall asleep before I got even HALF done entering specifications in their idea of a "chooser".

Mouser's parts selection is waay faster and simpler. Same goods.

Price vs Digi-Key?

How could I even KNOW if I can't GET to an actual Digi-Key selection?

I guess that's a second plug for Mouser?

Stuff comes in as-ordered, fast, and affordable.
Order copy and shipping updates hit the email.
Spam selling does not.

That works.

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dcsipo said:

Ya know it should be standard practice to allow you to change the order, on the website, before it gets to the shipping dept. No reason not to, It is just lazy programmers, most of the larger websites run on top of standard eCommerce platforms. Not many support order changes.

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In regard to making a change on an order via website, at least in the case of McMaster-Carr, if you need to make a change, better call within 3-4 minutes after order is placed on web. That organization seems dedicated to getting orders cleared out of the system. I have had many occasions where 10 minutes later, I call to make a change, and "my order was already shipped". I suspect "shipped" is a category, rather than actual departure, but there it is. Can't complain about their performance in any case.

We have had good success with both Mouser and DigiKey as well, and I would agree that Mouser seems to be a little more flexible and slightly less expensive sometimes. They do have good mechanisms for tracking and communicating order status and changes thereto, as well. Trying to find parts on Digikey's website using their filtering scheme is pretty daunting, and often fruitless for those of us who are never quite sure what we are looking for, and what is "normal" in the industry...

jariou said:

I don't want to start a big argument, and I really don't have a dog in this fight, but, respectfully, this is not Brexit, this is clearly Farnell.

Whether or not Brexit added a level of complexity that was not there before, there is no reason Farnell can't figure that out and do what they tell you they would.

Click to expand...

Brexit: food and drink exports to EU suffer ‘disastrous’ decline | Food & drink industry | The Guardian

thermite said:

Lafayette Radio, Jericho, LI. I still have the old address. They had moved. And an LT425 tuner that needs new caps. A...

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Jericho Turnpike, Soyossette LI. Also they had a branch in Paramus NJ on RT 17. This was the mecca for buying radio stuff when I was a kid. There was also Gem Electronics on the other side of the highway, next to a HoJo.

The RT17 store was alongside a giant shoe warehouse store. So I could browse to my hearts content while the driver (either my mom or my grandmother) browsed the shoe store. Genius marketing that. I think I still have an LRE catalog in my stash somewhere, also an Allied catalog. These were books so critical to my existence that they outshone the Sears Xmas catalog.

Well,that and the Benton Harbor, MI catalog!

LRE: my first test instrument, a $20 VOM, then there was a code practice oscillator on a board (masonite, with crimped-over eyelet connections), and an ExplorAir regen receiver.

Lafayette KT-135

I have ordered with them before also and always had great customer service when using their tech line. Good company to deal with, quick shipping, and knowledgeable staff.