Ordering components in Europe, digikey and import tax

[Koen]

You'll pay VAT whatever option you choose, either while ordering or before delivery.

[oldway]

For orders higher than 50€, you can buy directly from Farnell (Grace-Hollogne).
You must use 906002 as number account.
Very fast, easy and cheap.

[janoc]

Let me rephrase that, I meant ordering from US companies. Ordering from Mouser/DK US or EU is the same, it comes form the US with US pricing. The point is that European-based distributors will usually have higher prices on the same things even after all respective taxes and fees are considered e.g for that same part Distrelec (€2.01 without tax), Conrad (€4.31 with tax), Farnell (1.86€ without tax), RS components (site down, can't check...) etc. That's what the OP's question was about.

Actually, for me RS is usually the cheapest out of these, then Farnell or Mouser. Conrad is hopeless, they are basically a consumer electronics store that also carries (some) components.  Kinda like european version of RadioShack.

I have used Distrelec only in Switzerland, because at the time none of the major distributors were willing to deal with private clients. Most of these companies are only reselling parts sourced from the US distributors, only very few talk to manufacturers directly. And, well, then there are also the various EU-specific fees and expenses that the US companies simply don't have.

[pelule]

I followed the discussion here a while and like to make a statement as a typical German customer/seller.
I did a comparison of an bay-offered VISHAY S102K 1K .01% PRECISION RESISTOR (Y00621K00000T9L).
(Note: Bürklin does not offer that part, at Arrow I simply wasn't able to find it).
Ebay US offers 2pcs for US $12,95 plus US $19,40 shipping. For Germany you need to add 19% VAT and 7% custom.
Taking 10 pieces as a typical amount of order to get free shipping (DDP) at Digikey, Mouser and RS-Components.
My finding:
  173,03 EUR @ RS-Components
  169,22 EUR @ Farnell 14
  158,87 EUR @ Mouser
  156,37 EUR @ Digikey
    96,80 EUR @ Ebay
Taking into account not all parts are available at the bay, DigiKey hits the race of a typical bying.

Note: DDP means delivered duty paid, thus all inclusive no tax or VAT added later on.

PeLuLe

[janoc]

Um, you can't exactly compare a bunch of resistors from eBay with something sold by the major distributors. It is not a fair comparison by any measure. You are comparing a price of a resistor sourced in  China of unknown origin (you can only dream that it is Vishay ...), sold by a vendor who has perhaps 1/10th operating expenses due to not having to pay employees western salaries and you are not paying any tax on it neither - something the official vendor cannot do, because it is, surprise, illegal. 

So the 2x price difference is quite normal and to be expected. I am not sure what did you want to demonstrate by it. I can likely find even cheaper on AliExpress or Taobao - the eBay sellers are mostly just reselling that anyway.

BTW,  your DDP just means you have bought it with the VAT included in
the price already. That is how VAT is collected - it is part of the price to the final customer, it is only written out on the receipt separately for legal reasons.

[b_force]

If you wanna make a fair comparison, you'll need to compare multiple products with different amounts.
I don't know why, but some distributors are cheaper with IC's others with passives and the third with transistors etc etc

[setq]

RS looks like a mugging on paper until you consider that you actually get some support with it. Having been screwed by Element 14/Farnell more times than I can remember, from things missing, incorrectly picked parts, packages doing a european road trip with UPS and being returned to their distribution centre and then getting ZERO support other than some vague promises from someone who has no power to execute them, you have to consider this. RS have screwed up a couple of times but resolved it next day unconditionally.

[Assafl]

In Israel there is a minimum price above which you pay VAT and a higher sum where customs comes in.

So I sometimes take a larger order an divvy it up between 2 or more shipments.

I do it always with China and UseGoodBooks since shipping is free. In the case of mouser and the like sometimes paying double shipping is more than the tax. So it makes sense to check exactly what it would cost.

[Watth]

I order most of my comps from RS.
If you are an individual, there is a dedicated website http://www.rs-particuliers.com/ and if you order on week-end, S&H are FREE.
Note that the not pro website is a bit shitty, it's dumbed down so that you can't access all criteria to find parts.
What I do is browse the pro site, and copy-paste order # in the particuliers site.
A few items are not available for individuals.
As for pricing, in my modest experience, generally RS is cheaper than Farnell.

[Osirison]

I am from Holland and always order from Mouser without any trouble.
Their website is presented in Dutch and I believe their local office located in Eindhoven.
Prices on the webpage are without VAT but this is calculated at checkout.
I have never had any extra costs or import charges, even with packages shipped from Mexico, although most parts are shipped from the German warehouse.

[janoc]

I order most of my comps from RS.
If you are an individual, there is a dedicated website http://www.rs-particuliers.com/ and if you order on week-end, S&H are FREE.

Ah, neat - didn't know about the free S&H over weekends! Thanks for the tip.

Note that the not pro website is a bit shitty, it's dumbed down so that you can't access all criteria to find parts.
What I do is browse the pro site, and copy-paste order # in the particuliers site.
A few items are not available for individuals.
As for pricing, in my modest experience, generally RS is cheaper than Farnell.

Yeah, I am doing that too. The "hobbyists" website is really terrible, basically only a shopping cart. And same experience with Farnell and Mouser pricing - RS is usually cheapest, even without the free S&H.

[Watth]

RS for individuals could really be a better seller, with only a few improvements.

They have a lot of references, but you can't sort them out (without resorting to the pro site); and their customer assistance is nil.
They only help to process orders if needed, but you won't have a technical assistance to find parts. (Add to this the fact that some individuals spend more money on RS than some professionals do).

I wanted to order their cheap multimeter RS-14 http://fr.rs-online.com/web/p/multimetres-numeriques/8937896/ (seen here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/rs-14-multimeter-review-an-peek-inside/msg950638/#msg950638).
For some unknow reason it was not available for individuals.
I e-mailed the customer support, and argued that individuals are interested in cheap DMM with those features, and don't always care about brands; furthermore it's not like some products for which sell are restricted to pros...
They replied that too bad, no cheapo DMM for you; and it's not planned to be sold to individuals.
A few weeks later it was available for individuals  , after I had bought an AM-500 from Farnell.
(I still bought the RS-14 as a second DMM).

[Iwanushka]

Hi,

My 2 cents, if you buy from mouser eu you will pay only VAT like with every shop in EU if you do not have VAT number (not a company). If you buy from digikey you pay VAT + customs crap which is fixed amount which is 30-40eu +VAT again, so if you buy 5$ part from digikey you will pay at least 40eur in taxes, on the other hand if you select free shipping via fedex on mouser eu, mouser itself will pay all customs crap in Germany and you only pay VAT. If you order from EU shop you pay VAT only like with mouser.

Conclution there is no point in dealing with digikey unless part cannot be found elsewhere

[sparx]

Have you looked at CPC (http://www.cpc.co.uk)?

They're based in the UK, but do say they will ship internationally. Should be no VAT issue as inside the EU. May not have all the parts you need though.

[Watth]

Have you looked at CPC (http://www.cpc.co.uk)?

They're based in the UK, but do say they will ship internationally. Should be no VAT issue as long as inside the EU. May not have all the parts you need though.

FTFY

[sparx]

Have you looked at CPC (http://www.cpc.co.uk)?

They're based in the UK, but do say they will ship internationally. Should be no VAT issue as long as inside the EU. May not have all the parts you need though.

FTFY

Minimum of 2 years once Article 50 invoked 

[janoc]

Have you looked at CPC (http://www.cpc.co.uk)?

They're based in the UK, but do say they will ship internationally. Should be no VAT issue as long as inside the EU. May not have all the parts you need though.

FTFY

Minimum of 2 years once Article 50 invoked 

Well, I think we are fairly safe for the foreseeable future, especially if the talk about the year 2019 is true

But the website reminds me quite a bit of German Conrad.com

[setq]

They're actually a store front over Element 14 (Farnell) and sell some of the same lines. They're cheaper and far more competent than Element 14 though even on their shared lines!

[Monkeh]

They're actually a store front over Element 14 (Farnell) and sell some of the same lines. They're cheaper and far more competent than Element 14 though even on their shared lines!

Unless you expect ICs to be properly packaged, or for orders or tens of hundreds of parts not to be individually bagged. Or for stuff to get shipped the same week. Or for a literal handful of parts to come in reasonable packaging, not a giant box the Royal Fail will happily leave in the van and make you pick up.

CPC are even more half-arsed than Farnell most of the time. They do have better prices on small quantities quite often, though.

[setq]

Ah yes that is true. The bagging is TERRIBLE. I ordered 100 mmbt3904s from them, bear in mind they are supplied in min multiples of 10 and every damn one came in its own bag with one individual transistor's cut tape rather than one whole cut tape per ten transistors. Same with 50 bloody zener diodes, all neatly cut with tape ends and bagged.

They usually send UPS to me and gets shipped the same day though.

Although I tend to just use RS who seem to fuck up less orders than all of them even they are 3x the price.

[janoc]

They're actually a store front over Element 14 (Farnell) and sell some of the same lines. They're cheaper and far more competent than Element 14 though even on their shared lines!

Unless you expect ICs to be properly packaged, or for orders or tens of hundreds of parts not to be individually bagged. Or for stuff to get shipped the same week. Or for a literal handful of parts to come in reasonable packaging, not a giant box the Royal Fail will happily leave in the van and make you pick up.

CPC are even more half-arsed than Farnell most of the time. They do have better prices on small quantities quite often, though.

Eh, you haven't seen how RS ships stuff yet Can't complain about things being improperly packaged, but I have received several times a large box containing a smaller box that contained individually bagged parts cut off from the tape - transistors, inductors, LEDs ... So buying 50 LEDs means you get 50 individual baggies. Not always, but tends to happen a lot. And almost every order gets split into several packages for whatever reason (different warehouses?). Sometimes they arrive on the same day, sometimes not.

[setq]

Indeed. I just ordered 11 line items items from RS and they sent 5x 10n polybox caps in a separate consignment... they're all crap!

[Srbel]

Have you tried Comet? This is a Serbian website, but they are Bulgarian company (and based in Bulgaria, where their main warehouse is). I assume that they will ship to Netherlands. Comet is the biggest component distributor in this part of Europe (Balkans).

http://store.comet.rs/en/Catalogue/ 

[setq]

Indeed. I just ordered 11 line items items from RS and they sent 5x 10n polybox caps in a separate consignment... they're all crap!

Replying to myself here. They weren't polybox - different order but they sell these in multiples of 5 min. This is what turns up, in a separate consignment WITH the main one this morning.



Baaaarghghghg!

[janoc]

Have you tried Comet? This is a Serbian website, but they are Bulgarian company (and based in Bulgaria, where their main warehouse is). I assume that they will ship to Netherlands. Comet is the biggest component distributor in this part of Europe (Balkans).

http://store.comet.rs/en/Catalogue/

Well, that is likely a bit impractical for people from EU (with Serbia not being EU member yet). Is there a free trade agreement with Serbia already? If not, people would have to pay customs/duties on top of their orders.


Do'h, should learn to read.    Bulgaria is in EU, so that makes my comment moot.

Thanks for the tip, will check them out.