Author Topic: Farnell / CPC utter incompetence (Read 14205 times)

bd139 · « **Reply #25 on:** October 27, 2018, 03:57:05 pm »

I’d rather hammer some 8 pin dips into my testicles than use edge.

MT · « **Reply #26 on:** October 27, 2018, 04:02:01 pm »

Quote from: wraper on October 27, 2018, 03:25:44 pm

I don't recall MCUs in pink bags, however it's fine if multiple pink bags were put into a larger ESD shielding bag.

We do , many times, while no times in multiple pinks. So thats Farnell alright sloppy handling.

HwAoRrDk · « **Reply #27 on:** October 27, 2018, 05:01:40 pm »

It's not even as if the warehouse staff have to intuit or guess at whether a part is ESD-sensitive. The despatch notes have a little ESD warning note (that common 'hand in a triangle' logo) on relevant line items, so their stock control system knows, so the staff shouldn't be getting the bagging wrong.

TERRA Operative · « **Reply #28 on:** October 27, 2018, 05:17:36 pm »

Quote from: Monkeh on October 27, 2018, 12:04:38 am

Actually, that error is from Akamai.

My bad, been too busy to keep the maintenance ticket count down...

Hydron · « **Reply #29 on:** October 27, 2018, 05:45:56 pm »

Farnell and CPC are worst in terms of the website going down completely, either the "access denied" thing, simply not loading, or for maintenance. Farnell also seems significantly less reliable than RS in terms of getting stuff delivered next day - they always seem to use UPS who are absolutely awful (most RS stuff gets to me by royal mail by ~midday, vs late afternoon or a day late for UPS). And yeah, CPC tends to completely ignore ESD - if I buy expensive parts half the time I end up emailing them for a refund due to no ESD packaging, but they never seem to learn (at least I get to keep the parts though - OK for hobby projects as long as they still work!). CPC also managed to associate my private account with my employer (who I used as a delivery address a few times), and started issuing my refunds to them!

RS on the other hand used to just drop me back to the main page regularly - I think it's improved now but also slow. And so many simple things are in huge pack sizes, at least put a bloody quantity selection or a total price _including_ minimum order quantity sort thing so I don't need to get past the 100 reels with low unit prices to find the 2 pack that I actually need. This goes for Farnell too, though they seem less bad at it.

As for Digikey, I often use it simply for parametric search to find a part, then check with local suppliers if I'm not going to meet their minimum order quantity. They are kinda expensive sometimes but assuming I meet minimum order size for free shipping I feel I get more for the money than with RS/Farnell simply because the good website saves me so much time and anguish.

alpher · « **Reply #30 on:** October 30, 2018, 09:48:28 pm »

Just now, "Access Denied
You don't have permission to access "http://canada.newark.com/w/c/cooling-thermal-management/fans-blowers/axial-fans?" on this server.
Reference #18.48ff4f17.1540935829.445d419
"

wraper · « **Reply #31 on:** October 30, 2018, 09:49:56 pm »

Quote from: alpher on October 30, 2018, 09:48:28 pm

Just now, "Access Denied....

Link works fine for me.

Mr. Scram · « **Reply #32 on:** October 30, 2018, 09:54:06 pm »

Quote from: alpher on October 30, 2018, 09:48:28 pm

Just now, "Access Denied
You don't have permission to access "http://canada.newark.com/w/c/cooling-thermal-management/fans-blowers/axial-fans?" on this server.
Reference #18.48ff4f17.1540935829.445d419
"

I'm getting loads of those lately, though things occasionally seem to randomly work.

Hydron · « **Reply #33 on:** October 31, 2018, 12:35:20 pm »

Access Denied
You don't have permission to access "http://cpc.farnell.com/TL0558961" on this server.
Reference #18.d5921602.1540988836.cd36e62

bd139 · « **Reply #34 on:** October 31, 2018, 01:29:05 pm »

Hey I've got something nice to say about CPC. They sent me a credit note for an order they delivered, twice

At least the fail went in my favour this time.

Ice-Tea · « **Reply #35 on:** October 31, 2018, 04:22:29 pm »

Same here. Only on Firefox, but as I couldn't be bothered to look up username + pass to be able to order through IE, I went ahead and used Mouser.

For the second time this week.

Wilksey · « **Reply #36 on:** October 31, 2018, 06:15:12 pm »

I've browsed on both CPC + Farnell at various times today, not seen any errors my end.

hans · « **Reply #37 on:** October 31, 2018, 06:45:10 pm »

Huray, now it's my turn

Other Farnell domains, like UK, don't even connect to the server.

I can't even begin to start describing my disgust.

alpher · « **Reply #38 on:** October 31, 2018, 06:46:04 pm »

Quote from: Wilksey on October 31, 2018, 06:15:12 pm

I've browsed on both CPC + Farnell at various times today, not seen any errors my end.

OK, I've tried once more,.
This time everything went well, till I added items to cart, after a couple of min of watching a spinning thing a surprise!!
"Access Denied
You don't have permission to access "http://canada.newark.com/w/c/cooling-thermal-management/fans-blowers/axial-fans?" on this server.
Reference #18.a7392b17.1541011215.692f80a0"

Fuck it!

, even though they cost over 4 buck more each I'll buy these fans from mouser or somewhere else.

Ice-Tea · « **Reply #39 on:** October 31, 2018, 06:46:10 pm »

Quote from: hans on October 31, 2018, 06:45:10 pm

I can't even begin to start describing my disgust.

Please try.

Ice-Tea · « **Reply #40 on:** October 31, 2018, 06:51:21 pm »

Also: information on their Twitter account about this:

hans · « **Reply #41 on:** October 31, 2018, 07:58:43 pm »

Quote from: Ice-Tea on October 31, 2018, 06:46:10 pm

Quote from: hans on October 31, 2018, 06:45:10 pm
I can't even begin to start describing my disgust.

Please try.

My rage was too short lived for this.

I blocked cookies from Farnell and the issue cleared up. Funny, since I wasn't even logged in, yet almost 25 cookies were stored..

HwAoRrDk · « **Reply #42 on:** November 02, 2018, 09:23:04 pm »

I found this article on the Akamai support website that is quite informative:

https://community.akamai.com/customers/s/article/Why-is-Akamai-blocking-me?language=en_US

So, basically, Farnell have cocked-up the security policies that are applied to their Akamai caching.

bd139 · « **Reply #43 on:** November 02, 2018, 09:26:40 pm »

Good bit of debug there

Send them a solution and the invoice or post it on element14 forum

ocset · « **Reply #44 on:** November 03, 2018, 11:18:52 pm »

If poss, please sign the petition on Reply #29 of this...
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/farnell-website-is-very-slow-in-uk-why/

Then we can get Farnell as good as Digikey

Wilksey · « **Reply #45 on:** November 03, 2018, 11:46:14 pm »

I'd be very surprised if Farnell listen to a petition, they don't listen to what their customers tell them as it is!

hans · « **Reply #46 on:** November 04, 2018, 06:51:58 am »

Quote from: treez on November 03, 2018, 11:18:52 pm

If poss, please sign the petition on Reply #29 of this...
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/farnell-website-is-very-slow-in-uk-why/

Then we can get Farnell as good as Digikey

That's assuming a good website is fully in their control. If that were to be the case, things would have been different.

Farnell has struggled with their site functionality, bugs and speed for years now. In terms of functionality it's reasonably easy; add more code to the current platform.
But bugs and speed may require a complete rethinking of the eCommerce platform, and I've heard some stories that this in particular hasn't been the possibility. Because after all, we only see so much of their ecommerce system (the customer frontend)..

I can understand that they use Akamai for caching.. but also wonder how much caching you can do for webpages that need to be rendered for each customer: almost all elements on the site are interactive.
For sure you could cache static content, but IMO a static.farnell.com domain would have made more sense.

bd139 · « **Reply #47 on:** November 04, 2018, 09:44:18 am »

They don’t need Akamai for their scale and solution at all. I think they had an astronaut architect in there that sold it to them because their Java EE backend is probably too expensive to fix. Caching at that level is fine for very simple content like news / static / downloads etc but not for dynamic content.

To be honest their catalogue model feels fine, just the front end stinks. Probably don’t know how to scale it out. Elasticsearch FTW here.

ocset · « **Reply #48 on:** November 04, 2018, 10:38:07 am »

It sounds to me like many people here know exactly what Farnell's problem is.
I would prey that someone can put together an email to the Farnell management on this...(now Avnet?)
If the letter is not heeded, then the British Minister for Industry shoudl receive this letter.
I seriously have spent ages clicking and waiting on farnell over the years.

You have to go farnell because its the only reasonably well stocked one that has next day delivery in uk.

RS doesnt seem to stock as much and doesnt have as good search engines.

Digikey/mouser is great, but doesnt do next day delivery to uk...and they charge for delivery to uk

bd139 · « **Reply #49 on:** November 04, 2018, 11:08:12 am »

Screw all the UK companies. I got to LCSC first. Don't mind waiting a week for reliable stock.


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Author Topic: Farnell / CPC utter incompetence (Read 14205 times)

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