Well I'll not be using Farnell again

[Simon]

I bought some parts from Farnell, 25 4.7V zener diodes for £0.10. They turned out to not be 4.7V but 4.1V (with 20mA going through). So I rang up and complained and asked for replacements as I had nothing to order and was not going to pay more in shipping than the parts cost. As the original part was not in stock I had to pick some replacements as the person i spoke to was non technical and had no clue what i was talking about.

So replacements have arrived, worked fine. But i just got a statement, they have credited me for the parts but charged me the difference. The replacements which where the cheapest available cost £0.25 each. I have contacted them and they are adamant that they want the difference.

Well i will not be using Farnell again. It is not my problem that the original parts were now out of stock and they are the ones that sent me the wrong stock in the first place. What if I had bought an entire real of the damn things.

As I am buying things by the reel full I might as well go to mouser as the order value of 3 reels often gets free shipping and everything I order for my business or my employer I order by the reel full so that i can give stock to the assembler if needs be.

So ye be warned, if Farnell cocks up, you pay.......

[Monkeh]

This is.. fairly normal practice, you pay for the product you receive. They are not a high margin consumer electronics store.

I imagine you still got to keep the other zeners...

[Simon]

I don't really care what the margin is. Apparently when they mess up I have to pay twice not to mention the nuisance of building stuff with the wrong/faulty parts. If i mess up I apologise and replace the goods, not tell the customer that I just put the price up and now they owe me more money.

[Simon]

the old zeners are useless to me.

[nctnico]

Why are you wasting your time for a couple of pounds? Your time must be worth more!
Yes, Farnell screws up every now and then but in my case they always got it sorted.

[Simon]

Well I am not wasting time. I contacted them to find out why i received an unexpected bill. They took the trouble to not charge the carriage. Seems like they are wasting more time than me and I do need to "waste" my time paying them. If this was a reel full worth hundreds of pounds would it be worth my time then?

[hans]

I find it peculiar you even pay for shipping, actually.

Nonetheless, this is a bit of nitpicking from them, but it's quite a populist thing to say "I'm not ordering here anymore!". That will only work if the competitors are doing a better job, and I simply think that is not true. There are things that can be said about every component distributor...

[Neilm]

Would the Distant selling regulations not apply?

[Monkeh]

I don't really care what the margin is. Apparently when they mess up I have to pay twice not to mention the nuisance of building stuff with the wrong/faulty parts. If i mess up I apologise and replace the goods, not tell the customer that I just put the price up and now they owe me more money.

They didn't have the applicable replacement. You chose to switch to a different part number at a different price instead of waiting for the part you ordered to be available.

Would the Distant selling regulations not apply?

Farnell are not a consumer retailer. They are a business to business company and are exempt from those particular regulations.

[Simon]

I find it peculiar you even pay for shipping, actually.

Nonetheless, this is a bit of nitpicking from them, but it's quite a populist thing to say "I'm not ordering here anymore!". That will only work if the competitors are doing a better job, and I simply think that is not true. There are things that can be said about every component distributor...

Oh they waved the shipping, that is the strange thing, they took all this trouble.

Well Farnell are already out of my favour as their websites stock system does not work and I am sick of ordering parts that show in stock only to find that someone got there 2 hours earlier. On top of that now if I order a reel of 5000 parts that today cost £0.01 only to find they sent me the wrong stuff and someone else has since bought what is left, I could be left to find the equivalent parts that could be £0.03, at a reel of 5000 parts that is some difference.

I have always found RS to be better in service although still flawed but if they say they have it, they do have it, they also use a carrier that will leave my parcels in walking distance.

The mouser and digi key searches work fine and they have the stock they say they have. Only farnell has lied about it's stock and managed to send me the wrong stuff. I guess that Farnell are marginally cheaper, i guess they push their staff harder.

Farnell_errors++;

[chris_leyson]

If I want it next day it's Farnell or RS, otherwise Mouser and Digikey if I don't mind waiting a few days. Been there with the "in stock" then suddenly out stock thing but the parts eventually get shipped. It's annoying if I've got a deadline to meet so it usually means a quick RS order. These things happen but luckilly not very often.

[Gyro]

Oh they waved the shipping, that is the strange thing, they took all this trouble.

It seems to me that Farnell may have rid themselves of an irritating low volume customer. I think made a reasonable attempt to resolve their error. I've had RS do exactly the same thing to me... and they took exactly the same action. In one case, with a slightly higher value part (wirewound resistor), they actually wanted me to ship the wrongly supplied part back to them!

If you get that worked up about every little error, then you'll soon run out of suppliers. 

[shteii01]

Now that Simon shared a little more of their experience with Farnell, they make sense.

hans made a good point about Farnell competitors being better.  That is not proven.  However, now that we know about the failed inventory tracking system at Farnell, it actually makes Simon's case stronger.  Think about it... what is "sexier": claim that you can show inventory or have a message that say: "call us before you order to make sure that there is inventory available"?  So Farnell has a visual eye candy of inventory to look like they are in step with the times and their competitors while in fact they are not!  To me those are management decisions.  Someone decided that we need a system that makes our customers feel good while they order stuff, once customer is separated from their money, we will let customer service department deal with any problems that show up later.  That is not good management, that is not well run company.

Simon.  I have a suggestion.  Since you already had the experience dealing with Farnell customer service, next time go through credit card company and get your money back.  Bypass the whole "customer service experience".  Just get your money.

I find it peculiar you even pay for shipping, actually.

Nonetheless, this is a bit of nitpicking from them, but it's quite a populist thing to say "I'm not ordering here anymore!". That will only work if the competitors are doing a better job, and I simply think that is not true. There are things that can be said about every component distributor...

Oh they waved the shipping, that is the strange thing, they took all this trouble.

Well Farnell are already out of my favour as their websites stock system does not work and I am sick of ordering parts that show in stock only to find that someone got there 2 hours earlier. On top of that now if I order a reel of 5000 parts that today cost £0.01 only to find they sent me the wrong stuff and someone else has since bought what is left, I could be left to find the equivalent parts that could be £0.03, at a reel of 5000 parts that is some difference.

I have always found RS to be better in service although still flawed but if they say they have it, they do have it, they also use a carrier that will leave my parcels in walking distance.

The mouser and digi key searches work fine and they have the stock they say they have. Only farnell has lied about it's stock and managed to send me the wrong stuff. I guess that Farnell are marginally cheaper, i guess they push their staff harder.

Farnell_errors++;

[tszaboo]

This is.. fairly normal practice, you pay for the product you receive. They are not a high margin consumer electronics store.

I imagine you still got to keep the other zeners...

No, they are a HUGE margin electronics component store. Whoever knows the proper pricing of electronics components, knows this.
Take for example their re-reeling fee of 7 EUR. If you need some 10 resistors 0402 for prototypes, I told purchasing to just buy the complete reels from the regular suppliers, because that is cheaper than having that (150 instead of 10) resistors on a reel.

[Monkeh]

This is.. fairly normal practice, you pay for the product you receive. They are not a high margin consumer electronics store.

I imagine you still got to keep the other zeners...

No, they are a HUGE margin electronics component store. Whoever knows the proper pricing of electronics components, knows this.
Take for example their re-reeling fee of 7 EUR. If you need some 10 resistors 0402 for prototypes, I told purchasing to just buy the complete reels from the regular suppliers, because that is cheaper than having that (150 instead of 10) resistors on a reel.

Yes, re-reeling is expensive.

So is paying British (and Belgian) people to walk around a warehouse collecting individual line items for your £5 order to be delivered next day by UPS, internationally.

What parts cost direct from China and what they cost from a local warehouse are two very different things.

[BravoV]

So is paying British (and Belgian) people to walk around a warehouse collecting individual line items for your £5 order to be delivered next day by UPS, internationally.

Curious how much would that cost for a Brits to do that ? Assuming at minimum wages, say that will take about 15 to 30 minutes ?

[Monkeh]

So is paying British (and Belgian) people to walk around a warehouse collecting individual line items for your £5 order to be delivered next day by UPS, internationally.

Curious how much would that cost for a Brits to do that ? Assuming at minimum wages, say that will take about 15 to 30 minutes ?

£7.83 an hour + materials + margin to make up for free shipping abuse + margin for errors (wrong part, spilled parts, etc)..

[Tandy]

They are far from huge margins on branded products. As someone who has negotiated with some of the large semiconductor manufacturers interested in becoming an official distributor for them I can tell you the margins are tiny and the outlay is enormous. You have to stock thousands of unpopular lines that rarely sell in order to get access to a few hundred popular parts.

[Simon]

If I want it next day it's Farnell or RS, otherwise Mouser and Digikey if I don't mind waiting a few days. Been there with the "in stock" then suddenly out stock thing but the parts eventually get shipped. It's annoying if I've got a deadline to meet so it usually means a quick RS order. These things happen but luckilly not very often.

Really, when was the last time you ordered parts? Many items are listed on backorder for the next two years!!!!!!!!!! Farnell show items in stock when they are not because the website stock lags actual availability by a couple of hours as confirmed to me when I rang up from work when all 4 "in stock" items on my order were suddenly not in stock. They confirmed that this is a known issue.....

Passive are becoming scarce at the moment and people, me included are buying frantically which only exacerbates the situation...

I have had this happen several times and thought it was me, nope every time i order stuff that is in stock. RS never has this issue, they may make mistakes but I have not had issues yet.

[Simon]

They are far from huge margins on branded products. As someone who has negotiated with some of the large semiconductor manufacturers interested in becoming an official distributor for them I can tell you the margins are tiny and the outlay is enormous. You have to stock thousands of unpopular lines that rarely sell in order to get access to a few hundred popular parts.

Which is why i gave up distributing parts from a bedroom.

[Kjelt]

They are far from huge margins on branded products. As someone who has negotiated with some of the large semiconductor manufacturers interested in becoming an official distributor for them I can tell you the margins are tiny and the outlay is enormous. You have to stock thousands of unpopular lines that rarely sell in order to get access to a few hundred popular parts.

Depends on your deal, i know a company that always gets the highest staffelprice whatever the amount.
That makes the big difference if you order 20 pieces and you get the 25000+ staffelprice it saves at least half. Farnell is very expensive for small amounts, it is three times what you will pay from the distributor in large quantities.

[Tandy]

The point is that handling small numbers is not cheap. Say you get a bag of 500 TO-92 transistors but someone wants 5, someone has to split that pack and re-packege into smaller numbers.

So say for example the 25000 price is 30% cheaper than the 500 price it doesn't really help with the order for 5 or 50. There is a fixed cost associated with employing the person to handle the products. So it is fine when someone orders 500 and you are getting the cost price is 30% less as the time taken to put the bag of 500 in a package is small and therefore has minimal cost. But even then if that bag of 500 sells for €10 and costs €1 to handle you are left with 20% margin that does not account for the fact that capital is tied up in stock and in some cases there will be a low value order with free shipping. It means that some low value orders are sold at cost or even a loss and profit is only made on larger orders where several product lines are sold in complete reels, bags etc.

A 30% gross margin may seem a lot but it really isn't when you have the overheads of warehouse space, staff and other expenses such as insurance, utilities etc. I'm sure that the likes of Farnell get better deals from manufacturers due to their size and vast customer base but still there must be a lot of stock that doesn't make them any significant profit.

[james_s]

The only thing I find odd is that they didn't mention at the time that they would charge the difference. Otherwise it seems pretty reasonable. I suppose the other option is they could have simply refunded the original order price and not sent anything.

[Monkeh]

The only thing I find odd is that they didn't mention at the time that they would charge the difference. Otherwise it seems pretty reasonable. I suppose the other option is they could have simply refunded the original order price and not sent anything.

Perhaps they thought it was implied in a question along the lines of "Would you like to order a different part?"..

[all_repair]

I don't think Farnell is wrong on this.  But your request likely need at least a manager or above to override as they would not be able to square the differences in their account.  This shall be a big problem to their department and auditor.   You shall have to ask to speak to higher level if you want it adjusted. Farnell is E14 here (Singapore). They are not competitive, their price is higher by quite a bit compare to Mouser or Digikey, and range smallers, and delivery is longer if I put in a local for Thursday or Friday than an order to the US.  Lately, they didnt get to process my order for 10 days, I got to call to remind them, and after they could not bill as there was some problem with their system.  So they could not send because they could not bill, and so more wasted time.