Farnell website is very slow in UK...why?

[ocset]

Hi,
Why is Farnell so slow in UK? We need to use Farnell because its one of the only ones that do next day delivery to UK.....but its horrendously slow. Do you know why this is?...is the Farnell site getting hacked?
We buy many electronic scomponents from Farnell.
Digikey website is quicker but we have to pay £15 postage and it takes three days to get  here.

[Mr. Scram]

Hi,
Why is Farnell so slow in UK? We need to use Farnell because its one of the only ones that do next day delivery to UK.....but its horrendously slow. Do you know why this is?...is the Farnell site getting hacked?
We buy many electronic scomponents from Farnell.
Digikey website is quicker but we have to pay £15 postage and it takes three days to get  here.

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

[ocset]

Thanks yes...i have worked in 30 different electronics co's throughout uk, and always find, whichever computer i use, Farnell is always slow.....even when i worked at Dyson, Farnell there was slow.
Digikey and mouser are never slow.
RS is a bit quicker but RS doesnt  offer as effective search choices as Farnell, and doesnt seem to have as much in stock

Farnell we like because of the huge choice of components, the good "search criteria" and the next day delivery, but the slowness is horrendous.

This must be costing business in UK (and whichever other country have slow farnell) millions of pounds per year.

[Sparky49]

Farnell just have a slow website... Every time they 'upgrade' they either make it slower, or harder to navigate, or both. Compare this to the likes of Digikey who have a plain, simple site that loads fast... Unless I _need_ next day delivery I always order from Digikey as the Farnell website is just that off putting.

To be fair, I think the most recent update has made it a bit faster than it was, but that is like saying it's gone from the speed of a slug to the speed of a tortoise.

Often Farnell will ask for feedback on their website, but either I am the only person who says please make it faster rather than flashier, or they just ignore their feedback altogether.

[Mr. Scram]

Thanks yes...i have worked in 30 different electronics co's throughout uk, and always find, whichever computer i use, Farnell is always slow.....even when i worked at Dyson, Farnell there was slow.
Digikey and mouser are never slow.
RS is a bit quicker but RS doesnt  offer as effective search choices as Farnell, and doesnt seem to have as much in stock

Farnell we like because of the huge choice of components, the good "search criteria" and the next day delivery, but the slowness is horrendous.

This must be costing business in UK (and whichever other country have slow farnell) millions of pounds per year.

I mean have you tried turning the website off and on?

[tom66]

Farnell's website is just terrible.

RS website is not much better.

Digikey's website is a great design, fast to load, uses JavaScript only where appropriate (unlike Farnell which uses way too many server side requests which makes it very slow) and keeps the styling to a minimum.

[ocset]

thanks, yes turning the farnell website on and off makes no difference.

Its scandalous...and is an example of how British Engineering managers simply dont care about things that affect all British companies the same.....British Engineering managers dont want to bother speeding Farnell up because it would help their British competitors...and no British Engineering co wants to help a fellow Brit....i bet in Germany/France etc the Farnell equivalent is not this slow. German/French companys would have got it sorted and been glad to help their fellow German competitors.

[doobedoobedo]

It's a conspiracy against you treez. It's really fast for everyone else.

[Mr. Scram]

It's a conspiracy against you treez. It's really fast for everyone else.

Don't spoil it! After all that effort we put into the car charger conspiracy you decide to spill the beans.

Wait, this isn't the right thread. Please ignore the previous message!

[tggzzz]

It's a conspiracy against you treez. It's really fast for everyone else.

That first statement is a boring truism

The second statement is wrong for me, today. But that doesn't justify treez' rant.

[Ice-Tea]

No need to fetch the tinfoil hat: Farnell is slow, full stop.

[ocset]

Do you think there  is some way of helping them to  speed up?

[Gyro]

Yes, not using them - It will reduce load on the site.

[ocset]

Thanks, yes i suspected they lack a big server farm..probably digikey have a big server farm....though maybe its just that farnell uk is getting hacked?

[HwAoRrDk]

Hacked or DDoS-ed? For several years running? Unlikely.

I suspect the problem lies in the database backend that is providing the data used to fulfil product searches, etc. Their web servers seem to have no problem serving up static content (product images, etc.) pretty quickly, but it's mainly product searches that take forever. It's not surprising static content is quick, considering uk.farnell.com is pointing at Akamai's global CDN. I bet all the 'dynamic' pages (e.g. product search results) bypass the CDN caching though, and get routed through to Farnell's own anaemic servers. They probably either have a seriously under-powered DB layer, or it's not optimised as well as it should be (or at all). They could probably do with some more heavyweight or numerous server iron, and/or the services of a really good DBA.

[nctnico]

It's really fast for everyone else.

Not always but I suspect they do maintenance during the evenings and weekends.

[HwAoRrDk]

Oh, by the way, the website is powered by IBM WebSphere Commerce. That runs on Java EE, and can use DB2 or Oracle as the DB backend. Make of that what you will.

Perhaps they just need to pay their IBM consultants some more to 'scale' it better.

Not always but I suspect they do maintenance during the evenings and weekends.

Yes, at the most inopportune times! On several occasions I've been looking at the website late at night, wanting to check the price or availability of one last component when - bam! - "our website is under scheduled maintenance". Gee, thanks, so much for 24/7 e-commerce. This 'maintenance' is probably just them rebooting the servers...

[vk4ffab]

element 14 website in Australia was hopelessly slow last week when i was on there searching for parts. In the end i ended up on RS and bought from them. They really need to fix it up. 20 + seconds lag anytime you clicked or added a filter.

[mk_]

Hi,
Why is Farnell so slow in UK? We need to use Farnell because its one of the only ones that do next day delivery to UK.....but its horrendously slow. Do you know why this is?...is the Farnell site getting hacked?

Bash them, send emails and do something on their channels not here.
I really do not understand how farnell can succeed with such a crappy site compared to digikey or mouser.
As long as nobody complains them directly and face to face at shows like electronica or via email they won`t move....

the only reason why I still buy from them is shippingtime. Seraching something is still horrible.

[ocset]

Bash them, send emails and do something on their channels not here.

Thanks, i have emailed Farnell multiple times about slow speed of their website and nothing happens.
I understand people having to use RS, but i find RS doesnt stock as many components, and the actual search engines on RS, are inferior to those on Farnell...
Its harder on RS to narrow it down to the products you want.
I wouldnt rule out the Farnell website being hacked.........by whoever gains financially by Farnell not working properly......that could be multiple people......it would certainly help Far Eastern exporters of electronics if Europaean electronics companies were not able to use Farnell quickly, because there operating costs would go up, and it would mean it being easier to import Far Eastern electronics into UK.

I  mean, if you are a British “middle man” importer of Far Eastern electronics into UK, then you are going to benefit if Farnell doesn’t work well, because the fellow  British companies that you are competing with are going to be struggling more.

I am certainly not saying the Chinese are doing anything wrong here….its the British “middle men” who are getting minted  shipping the Chinese stuff in that are likely to be the ones up to it.
And i am certainly not blaming Chinese workers.......i hear stories of them not being payed and literally starving.

What is happening is actually slavery, but the slaves are working over the other side of the world.

[tom66]

Do you think there  is some way of helping them to  speed up?

The problem with Farnell is that the people working there are chasing the next big thing - element14, Altium partnerships, Eagle/Cadsoft (hah), etc - rather than focusing on the core business (which makes them £b a year).

If they actually did look at their website compared to the competition they would see why so many people refuse to use it.  Most of our supply chain is based in Digikey because our engineers use Digikey first as it's easier to use, and parts get spec'd as from Digikey.  Surely that alone is costing them several million a year.

For my personal projects I essentially completely avoid Farnell.  The only time I order from them is if Digikey doesn't have stock.  Most quantities I order I tend to go over the free shipping threshold for DK so it is a no brainer.  And DK's customer support is far better than Farnell.  I called them at midnight GMT once and they picked up and worked me through a small bug in their system.  Farnell seem to give up after 8pm.

The server farm isn't the issue.  Farnell is slow because it is over-reliant on all this Web 2.0 stuff.  Which is fine if you are doing a dynamic website but there is no need for a parts directory to behave like that.  The content should be static and there immediately.  When you select an option on Digikey's website,  is it pulling the request over AJAX/etc?  No,  it is refreshing and reloading the page and just doing it the "good-ol fashion way", which works fine.

[dmills]

Farnells web site has always been a bit sluggish, not hacked, just not well done.

Nobody building volume shops at Farnell/Mouser/Digikey/RS/TME or the like, that is not what those people exist for, these companies exist so that when we are prototyping we can easily get 1/2/100 quantities, occasionally I might order a full reel, but yea, generally small quantities for prototype and preprod builds where frankly NOBODY really cares about the price. If I spend 10 minutes price comparison shopping on a prototype I had better have knocked a few tenners off the price, or it was not worth the aggro, and generally it is not worth the aggro.

If I need it tomorrow I will deal with Farnells web site, but that is **USUALLY** a sign of bad planning, most of the time it can go on the weekly Digikey/Mouser order (Which is generally worth enough to get the free shipping).

Regards, Dan.

[MK14]

Thanks, i have emailed Farnell multiple times about slow speed of their website and nothing happens.

Sorting it out, would probably be a big, expensive and time consuming affair.
Needing a big/fundamental change in the IT department(s) and/or business(s), they use to get it created and maintained.
The internal politics of a big existing company, the complicated politics of a company which has been made up of mergers and takeovers and stuff, the huge IRON FIST of power, wielded by the top IT manager/director and/or the reluctance or complete refusal, from the Big BOSS of the company to spend anymore £/$'s on improving the website and its infrastructure.
All lead to things just carrying on, as bad or worse as they have been, year on year.

E.g. Look at the huge IT meltdowns, that British Airways, or TSB etc. Experienced in fairly recent times.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/15/it-meltdown-cost-british-airlines-80m-so-far-willie-walsh-iag

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jun/06/timeline-of-trouble-how-the-tsb-it-meltdown-unfolded

tl;dr
Your email, or several may not be enough.
If you really want to sort it out. Raise $10,000,000,000 or so, and buy out the entire company.
Then replace the existing IT department, external IT business(s) and the entire IT server equipment, with a decent team and decent servers.
Give them 6 months or a few years, then it will have a great/fast/reliable website.

[mikeselectricstuff]

The problem with Farnell is that the people working there are chasing the next big thing - element14, Altium partnerships, Eagle/Cadsoft (hah), etc - rather than focusing on the core business (which makes them £b a year).

If they actually did look at their website compared to the competition they would see why so many people refuse to use it.  Most of our supply chain is based in Digikey because our engineers use Digikey first as it's easier to use, and parts get spec'd as from Digikey.  Surely that alone is costing them several million a year.

I've told various Farnell reps over the years that for production orders I usually start with Digikey because the website works so much better - it's clear from their reaction that they've never sat down & compared the two.
I've pretty much given up telling RS and Farnell what's wrong because nothing changes, or if it does it takes literally years.
If I can be bothered I tell them one thing : take a BOM of a dozen or two generic parts ( Not their ow order codes) and order it from the 4 main suppliers and see how long it takes. 

[mikeselectricstuff]

Hi,
Why is Farnell so slow in UK? We need to use Farnell because its one of the only ones that do next day delivery to UK.....but its horrendously slow. Do you know why this is?...is the Farnell site getting hacked?
We buy many electronic scomponents from Farnell.
Digikey website is quicker but we have to pay £15 postage and it takes three days to get  here.

Only of you order less than £33 worth, otherwise it's free. 3 days is unusual - pretty reliably 2 days for me