Nooo! RS components what have you done. Ruined my dev. with new delivery charge.

[nali]

TLDR: RS components' pricing and delivery fees are well worth the time you'll save by *NOT* having to follow up orders with CPC!

I can't say I had much of a problem, but I suppose it depends really on what you order & when you ordered it. I never used CPC for components aside from maybe some connectors but mostly things for field engineers e.g. cables, crimps, speakers, mostly AV stuff. OK, this was in my previous job so more than a year ago. In all I was responsible for purchasing for a few £10k per annum and I wouldn't say CPC were noticeably worse nor better than RS, Farnell etc.

One beef I did have though was they used stupid flimsy boxes to ship stuff. Often we'd get something like a 300m reel of cable with some shreds of cardboard hanging off it 

Now I only buy for R&D and use Digikey. So far they've been excellent... as an example I bought a small pot of solder paste, which arrived in a thermal bubble wrap and with a couple of freezer ice packs to keep it cool  . Took me a moment to work out what it was...

Unethical life pro tip: For many suppliers, add a spray can of *whatever*, or a flammable liquid to your order  to get standard delivery upgraded to courier delivery for free! (assuming you'll use the extra item)

Worth remembering 

[Phil-GS]

I would agree with Ian M.
RS and Farnell are both professional electronics and everything else components distributors, along with Digikey and others.
You get a professional service aimed at business customers.
Wind the clock back a few years and they didn't want to know individual private buyers, but money is money.
A lot of my buying will now go to Farnell, Digikey, Rapid etc. until I can justify RS's disproportionate delivery price hike.
As for CPC, they are as different as chalk and cheese when compared to Farnell and I wonder why Farnell took them in.
Cheap and cheerful.
RS used to run a retail business called Electrocomponents, but that died.
Probably what has killed off the free delivery is providing the same level of service to small order value buyers as larger business buyers.
Selling stuff where profit margins are paper thin was always going to be risky for RS.
I think it will be a mistake.
I wonder if this would have happened without the coronavirus? I suspect it would have been business as usual.

[tggzzz]

I wondered how long it would last.
...
I go back far enough to remember when RS (Components) were very sniffy about who they sold to - described themselves as business to business and unless you had a trade account with them, it was no deal.
Plus in the early days, they never sold branded goods.

I'm not sure what you mean by "early days", but since the 70s RadioSpares have sold branded goods alongside their own goods.

The standard "joke" was that RadioSpares 741 opamps V_os didn't follow a normal distribution. Instead it was bimodal, with peaks just inside the  V_{os_max} spec. Nowadays Farnell has it s own "multicomp" brand, i.e. whatever generic stuff is cheapest this week.

Until recently I preferred Farnell to RS - partly but not wholly because of the web front end search/filter GUI. I've changed that opinion since Avnet acquired Farnell

[Phil-GS]

My first contact with RS, then Radiospares, was in the early 70's.
The notable thing is what a small range they carried, small enough to be published in an A5 thin catalogue that ballooned into a 6-inch A4 pack of catalogues in the 90's.
What I mean by unbranded was the fact that you could buy say, a Bourns potentiometer, but it wouldn't be printed with Bourns, but had "RS" on it. Nothing in those early catalogues carried brand names.
As an aside, I bought some cheap boost convertors that had a blue pot on the board. The pot had some name on it that closely imitated Bourns, even to the point of the capital B of Bourns had the trademarked tail on the B.
At least by using any of the big distributors, you should get genuine items.
Apart from the free delivery that pulled in a lot of business from private buyers, RS had expanded into things like DesignSpark and their own PCB design software to attract enthusiasts.
I haven't used it, but it wouldn't surprise me if it produced a BOM with RS part numbers.
I think this delivery price hike, £4.95 + VAT on orders less than £30 has been slipped in under the cover of coronavirus and losing a lot of budding developers and electronic hobbyists might hurt them in the long term. Farnell now looks good value at £3.95 plus VAT, free for orders over £20. An order I was going to place with RS yesterday was rapidly cancelled and went to Farnell instead, so Farnell win, RS lose.
As you say, Farnell has their Multicomp and ProPower cheap ranges and RS's RS Pro range the same.
I also rate Digikey for their huge range and occasionally, I use Rapid/Conrad, but "Rapid" doesn't apply when it comes to next day deliveries - non existent

[nfmax]

What I mean by unbranded was the fact that you could buy say, a Bourns potentiometer, but it wouldn't be printed with Bourns, but had "RS" on it. Nothing in those early catalogues carried brand names.

It persisted into the 80's - I have (and still use every day) an HP 11C calculator with applied RS branding. I have replaced the sleeve and given it new stick-on feet, otherwise it's original. On, I think, its third set of batteries...

[bodger]

Too many people abused the system, I recall people recommending to others they could buy a small number of resistors that cost pennies for free nextday delivery via RS. No way could that continue.

[bd139]

CPC was the one that got me. I'd occasionally order 12x 6 foot bamboo sticks which was just under the min £8 delivery. So I'd chuck 5 diodes in just to knock it over and see what weird packaging it turned up in 

[themadhippy]

If you think £3 is steep dont order from mouser,£12 on orders less than £33 ,with the added gamble  of hmrc getting wind of your order and demanding there cut.

[thm_w]

What is the bar to register as a business at RS? It might be incredibly low, as in, just a business name or at worst registering a tax ID or something.

For comparison, free shipping levels here in Canada:
Arrow - $50 USD
Digikey - $100 CAD
Newark - Good luck

edit: another question is, can you modify your design process to avoid ordering parts to "try out" every few days. A good R&D lab will have stock of common resistors, capacitors, etc. so those do not need to be ordered when playing with values. A book of 1% resistors is cheap.

[HobGoblyn]

I went on Farnell a few weeks ago, different PC, didn’t log in, and every time I tried to look at anything, a pop up window appeared asking me to click to confirm I’m trade, or click to be taken to CPC if I wasn’t.

[snoopy]

Shocked to find RS components charging AUD $12.95 on deliveries when it used to be $0 but then it had to end someday because it was just to good to be true !!

Tried mouser. Could have sweared that minimum order for free delivery was $50 AUD but now increased to $75 AUD !! Seems that covid-19 has taken its toll on deliveries

cheers

[perieanuo]

the man completes projects as hobbist in order  'to sell' them, he admitted himself.
cannot argue with that, he wants to do bussiness with other people money and logistics
hobby is for YOURSELF my dear

[nigelwright7557]

There's almost always somewhere cheaper than RS to get whatever it is anyway.

CPC, Amazon, Bitsbox, ebay, even Farnell.

Last thing I bought from RS was a large bag of cable ties which turned out to be TOTAL SHIT. Got some generic ones off ebay that were better for 1/4 of the cost including delivery and they turned up next day as well.

I bought some 4700uf 35v caps from RS for £2 +VAT.
Same caps 60p on ebay and they work fine.
Needed some AD9201 chips, £15 + vat from RS.
Ali Express £1.50 each. And they worked.
Having said that some items are best bought from RS.
Bought 4 power supplies from China and not one lasted a week.
Got 4 Chinese power supplies from RS and all great. Clearly RS has good quality control.

I usually buy £10 worth of stuff off RS a day. It will now be £30 every few days. So not losing anything but RS get savings on postage.

[mc172]

I usually buy £10 worth of stuff off RS a day. It will now be £30 every few days. So not losing anything but RS get savings on postage.

You'll still be paying for postage then. They recently increased the minimum order value to £50 excluding VAT to get free postage.

[mikeselectricstuff]

For components at least , RS have been a joke for years. I'm genuinely surprised they're still in business.
Terrible website - parametric search was useless for years, some gradual improvements over time ( they've stopped alpha-sorting numeric lists, yay!) , but to this day they don't show stock in search results (or provide an "in stock" filter), which with the shortages makes it unuseable for any search that returns more than a handful of results.
And of course the parametric data is total mess, but that's the same with many others apart from Digikey.
They usually report false stock data to findchips.com
Their packaging is awful - order 50 parts and get 50 seperate bags, or small plastic bubble packs with the parts rattling around, bending the legs.
Certain lines only available in ridiculous quantities.
And worst of all they just don't care. they never have. I used to get calls from new sales people fairly regularly, and spent time explaining what was wrong, and nothing ever happenned even on the occasions they understood what the problem was. Ditto talking to reps back when they bothered to exhibit at trade shows.
I only ever use them if nobody else has stock, or where they're cheaper for a high-value order.

[nigelwright7557]

I usually buy £10 worth of stuff off RS a day. It will now be £30 every few days. So not losing anything but RS get savings on postage.

You'll still be paying for postage then. They recently increased the minimum order value to £50 excluding VAT to get free postage.

My last order was for £30+VAT and i got free delivery.

[mc172]

Shows as £50 for me whether I'm signed in or buying as a guest.

[AndyC_772]

I get "Spend over £30.00 ex VAT for FREE delivery." when logged in, and "Spend over £50.00 ex VAT for FREE delivery" when logged out.

Perhaps it's because my account is registered as a business rather than an individual?

I agree with Mike, though... the lack of an 'in stock' filter makes them my distributor of absolute last resort right now.

[mc172]

I agree with Mike, though... the lack of an 'in stock' filter makes them my distributor of absolute last resort right now.

Yep, same here.

[janoc]

Well, do you really think that the system where you order £3 with free delivery  every other day is sustainable?

It was a promotional deal, they were taking a hit for advertisement.

I doubt there is a better deal. You've got to pay for the services you use.

Agreed, it probably was unsustainable - but it was a very looong promotional deal, as in as far back as I can remember, off hand.

Yes, they were doing this for private customers in France too - as long as you ordered on weekend you had a free delivery. Don't know whether this was with every order because I was not ordering very often but I had it many times. For a dude paying out of his own pocket for a hobby it was pretty nice. The common large shipping and handling fees unless you make 20-60€ order are a huge pain - pushing people to shop at AliExpress or eBay instead.

(And yeah the RS packaging business - that's completely ridiculous. I have once received some SOT23 transistors - each individually bagged in an antistatic bag, then put in a small box with foam padding and the box mailed in a separate padded envelope. And all delivered together by one extremely bewildered TNT delivery guy who thought I am making fun of him until I have shown him what actually was in those envelopes ...)

[AndyC_772]

The funniest packaging I ever saw was from RS; we ordered a big batch of RJ45 connectors.

Each was in its own individual plastic vial (a bit like a 35mm film canister), with a piece of sponge to protect the pins.

Each of those was in its own individual plastic bag, and each of those in turn was in its own paper RS bag. The whole lot came together in a larger bag, plus padding, in the outer cardboard box.

On the plus side, I don't believe any of them were damaged, so I guess that's a win...

[JPortici]

How big?
our contractor always warns us to append the "P" to the RS code so you have production packaging instead of individual packaging, recounting the story of one of their persons in purchasing that bought a reel of parts, only for them to come in multiple packages, each containing a big number of plastic bags, each containing a single component in a piece of cut tape. Down in assembly they had to separate everything and re-reel, couldn't really put on a tray

Whenever i open the RS website i am met by a big banner advertising their effort on reducing waste, and i either laugh or sob at the irony, sets the mood of the day. At least they stopped using the paper bags with plastic windows you have to separate. I hate those

Guess that's why they charge much more than others.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Tell me this, since I don't use them..

Is the delivery charge just a simple way to cover rising costs instead of going through every component and adjusting it's price? Or do the component prices move around enough in accordance to supply costs?

Reason I'm asking is could it be a lazy way to climb over the transitory(?!) inflation. If inflation next year is still hanging around like a bad smell, you then increase the margins on product and you can *maybe discount the delivery for your good buyers.

Just wondering. I've not no idea.

[mc172]

No, their prices have increased.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Tell me this, since I don't use them..

Is the delivery charge just a simple way to cover rising costs instead of going through every component and adjusting it's price? Or do the component prices move around enough in accordance to supply costs?

The delivery charge is £3.95, so they're not going to be making anything on that