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Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

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Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#151

Post by mindcrime »

markrages wrote: post #21

As of my order last week, Mouser no longer offers economy shipping. Most of my orders from Mouser are things that are out-of-stock at Digi-Key. Maybe this is how they lose and join the also-ran, only-for-big-companies distributors like Allied and Newark.

only-for-big-companies distributors like Allied and Newark.

Huh? I'm strictly a hobbyist and I order from Newark all the time, and have never had any issues with them. If anything they are my first "go to" site to check for parts, or possibly it's a "1A / 1B" thing with them and Mouser. Nothing about my interactions with Newark have ever given me a "only for big companies" vibe, FWIW.

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#152

Post by montecarl »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #139
teraflop wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If nothing else, Mouser has one enormous usability flaw (which has been an issue for years): you can't sort by price. Or rather, they will let you sort by the "pricing" column, but the effect is to sort parts by their unit price at whatever the minimum quantity for that part is . But some parts are orderable in single quantities, and others only in large trays or reels. Even if you manually filter out those packaging…

The big problem with Mouser is that you can't sort by quantity in stock. That's a very useful cue, one that DigiKey has always supported, and it has absolutely resulted in sales going to DigiKey over Mouser when in the planning stages of a new project.

I will heavily second this opinion. I'm not an electrical engineer, but I do prototype some electronics that eventually become products. One of the most important factors to me when selecting an individual component is that it will be available in volume in 6 months time and I don't know of a better way to estimate that than to look at the current quantity on hand. If I'm comparing two similar looking parts and one has 8000+ on hand and the other has 68, then I'm going for the 8000+ part.

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#153

Post by xony »

m00x wrote: post #126

Even if it's cheap, never go with an untracked shipping option if you're expecting any kind of quality of service. It sucks that mouser added it without really considering the implications. Any time I've used untracked shipping, the carrier loses it or gives 0 shits about how they handle it. I've used Mouser every other month for the last couple years, using the $120+ CAD free shipping option, and I've always gotten…

[dead]

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#154

Post by crooked-v »

munificent wrote: post #116
crooked-v wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also: Professional chefs with extremely expensive personal knife sets alongside basically disposable $8 tongs and $20 pans.

There are a also a lot of professional chefs rocking Victorinox Fibroxes which are quite cheap. People like to fetishize knives, but for almost all uses, they really are pretty pedestrian and utilitarian. You don't need some $1,000 Japanese santoku forged from a meteorite to chop a bunch of veg well. You just need a comfortable grip and a little practice putting a good edge on the blade. That being said, if nice kniv…

Sure, but looking them up, even those knives are noticeably more expensive than the rest of the individual items you'd find in the kitchen, just not by orders of magnitude.

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#155

Post by steve_adams_86 »

topspin wrote: post #143

It's not a secret but few people appear to know this: Digi-Key has an order process with free shipping anywhere in the US. Fill out their order form[1] and mail it in with a check and, as per their "terms and conditions"[2], shipping is free. Great deal if you're not in a hurry. I've read that this is intended for hobbyists and others that need small quantities; Digi-Key started out selling to hams and other low volu…

And Canada! I had no idea. Thanks for posting this. I usually don’t need things urgently, and shipping seems to add up really quickly with digikey. I could easily handle the added wait times.

The other day I was thinking of ordering an $18 microcontroller and the shipping was $8. It doesn’t seem worth it, and it’ll be a while before I can justify ordering $100 of parts to get free shipping.

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#156

Post by trogdor »

WalterBright wrote: post #101
WalterBright wrote: post #19

When the cable guy came to add another outlet to my previous house, I watched what he did and chatted a bit about his tools. He was using Digikey tools. I then ordered identical tools. For my later house, I installed all the cables and outlets myself, with the Digikey tools. All I can say is two thumbs up for them. Quick and easy, and not a single bad connection. I did this because of my troubles soldering, which all…

I also watched an electrician do some wiring. He used a Milwaukee right angle drill to thread the wire through the studs. I bought one, and used it to do the low voltage wiring in my house.

What low voltage wiring do you have in your house?

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#157

Post by markrages »

mindcrime wrote: post #151
markrages wrote: post #21

As of my order last week, Mouser no longer offers economy shipping. Most of my orders from Mouser are things that are out-of-stock at Digi-Key. Maybe this is how they lose and join the also-ran, only-for-big-companies distributors like Allied and Newark.

only-for-big-companies distributors like Allied and Newark. Huh? I'm strictly a hobbyist and I order from Newark all the time, and have never had any issues with them. If anything they are my first "go to" site to check for parts, or possibly it's a "1A / 1B" thing with them and Mouser. Nothing about my interactions with Newark have ever given me a "only for big companies" vibe, FWIW.

Maybe I was thinking of Arrow.

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#158

Post by fps-hero »

I’m surprised they accidentally sent you your sales data. Honestly a 50% margin is nothing. We were connected with a FAE who started offering us direct sales in low volumes. Most of those parts had a 80-90% margin on digikey.

The problem is now there is invisible price colluding, you can upload the same BOM to digikey and mouser and the prices are within 5%. If you did that 5 years ago individual parts would have 20% swing. There isn’t any point shopping around any more, everyone is gouging. In our ERP we have prices going back 10 years, some parts have gone up staggering amounts.

Digikey were always the more expensive normally, but in the last year prices have gone up another 20% but they offer a discount to high volume customers. It’s funny the difference between “my price” and the normal list price has been as high as 75%.

For what it’s worth, the last RMA I did with Digikey didn’t go through. It was $5O in spacers that they miscounted, not a deal breaker but I had to put another order in for the missing spacers as it was easier than dealing with support. I didn’t realise ignoring RMAs was an option!

My biggest practical issue with Mouser at the moment is they removed the ability to sort by quality available. Do they even realise the biggest struggle at the moment finding available parts to complete a design?

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#159

Post by CamperBob2 »

macjohnmcc wrote: post #121
nebula8804 wrote: post #2

Wow I am going through the same thing as the author right now. I recently placed an order with Mouser doing side by side comparison shopping with Digi-Key. The last time I used Mouser was 12 years ago in my college days. I thought hey they were good back then let me just compare the prices and Mouser came ahead this time due to the shipping cost. I am just ordering replacement capacitors for an old PC motherboard tha…

And back in the peak covid days they asked for donations to keep them alive and operational. They wanted the community to support them based on goodwill and now they seem happy to burn that goodwill to the ground.

Huh? Mouser has never asked for donations. Are you thinking of OSH Stencils?

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#160

Post by hammyhavoc »

tomatocracy wrote: post #82
Osiris wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 weeks? You would have gotten them faster directly from China and probably for a lot cheaper. The only reason for me to order from a US based company is faster shipping.

Depending what you're ordering, in my experience Chinese sellers on AliExpress can have issues with counterfeits or with chips obviously removed from old boards being sold as "new". If I want to ensure genuine parts I'll go to Farnell, RS, Mouser, or DigiKey.

Yes, holy shit. Empty IC shells are super common in counterfeits. If they aren't counterfeit then QC is a nightmare, if you need consistency and spot-on values, they're dire.
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