Buying stuff online in Australia

[chrisb741]

Hi,

I live in Australia and buying stuff from Australian online stores most of the time they either dont have the parts Im after or they are more expensive
I usually buy stuff from Amazon or Aliexpress
Are there any other good cheap places to buy stuff from in Australia?

[Brumby]

I live in Australia

So do I.  Metropolitan Sydney.

and buying stuff from Australian online stores most of the time they either dont have the parts Im after or they are more expensive

Your experience is typical.

I usually buy stuff from Amazon or Aliexpress

I've done this also - as well as eBay but (as I am sure you are aware) quality and delivery times can leave something to be desired.

Are there any other good cheap places to buy stuff from in Australia?

"Good" and "Cheap" don't often go together.  Throw in "Fast" and you have the classic triangle model ... that is, pick two.

Keep your eyes open for opportunities - such as when Jaycar have a warehouse clearance (but you'll have to be there in person.)

Even with all the above, there is so much crap floating around that finding "Good" is a challenge in itself ... unless you lower the "Cheap" criteria expectations.

[chrisb741]

I was not expecting much, there is not much choice when it comes to the niche stuff.
I do live walking distance from a Jcar store
Aliexpress has so much cheap crap but delivery is a bit annoying
Is Temu any good, is it just another Aliexpress but with free delivery (apparently)?
I did find some stuff on catch, but delivery was over a week

[PlainName]

I did find some stuff on catch, but delivery was over a week

Kids today! I can still remember when a week was fast for non-letter delivery. Eeeee, them were the days 

[themadhippy]

Kids today! I can still remember when a week was fast for non-letter delivery. Eeeee, them were the days

And that was after walking to the post office to get the postal order to include with the order that you posted to the supplier

[vk6zgo]

I did find some stuff on catch, but delivery was over a week

Kids today! I can still remember when a week was fast for non-letter delivery. Eeeee, them were the days 

Back in the day, my old work had some Pye TV transmitters (they must have been pretty much that company's last hurrah!)
They used a particular rectifier diode in their EHT supplies, which were in a very small package & would self-destruct if you looked at them the wrong way.

In Australia, they were unobtainium, & getting them from Pye was a matter of months.
We often joked it would be cheaper & faster to fly someone to the UK to bash on their parts counter & throw a tantrum till they got the rectifiers.

Meanwhile, NEC used rectifier diodes as big as teacups that never failed.

Flash forward to now, & many of the people selling stuff online in Oz don't keep any stocks---they just order from China as required.
The advantage is that you are dealing with someone who is subject to Australian law if it all goes pear-shaped.

There are exceptions---I was trying to find a plastic bushing used on the Automatic transmission "T-Bar" linkages of my old Camry.
Toyota Australia wanted the world for it & didn't have stock, all the direct Chinese & reseller sites had a month's delivery time.
Finally I found a company in Queensland who had the part---they made them locally!

The bloke told me "next business day" on Thursday, & being old & jaded, I took that be the following Monday or Tuesday, but when I ambled out to check the mail on Friday, there it was!

For its next trick, the Camry decided that the epoxy bodge the "Call out Mobile Mechanic" had done to the thermostat housing (they swore they couldn't buy the part anywhere) some 18 months earlier had outlived its usefulness.

I initially just "re-bodged" it the same way, but it failed again, so I started looking online.

I found an Australian site that allegedly had the part in stock.
All good, & they offered the option of paying with my Visa card, but when I tried, they swore "blue, black & brindle" that thee was something wrong with my card.
"OK, I'll use Paypal!", but on checking, they didn't offer that, only Apple Pay & G-Pay.

"Stuff you, then, I'll go somewhere else!" said I & bought the part from one of the PRC vendors, complete with long delivery times, & eventually the part did turn up in my letterbox.

I did try to find original parts direct from Japan, but they wanted "a King's Ransom" for the bit with no better delivery times than the PRC.
 

[vk6zgo]

Kids today! I can still remember when a week was fast for non-letter delivery. Eeeee, them were the days

And that was after walking to the post office to get the postal order to include with the order that you posted to the supplier

You forgot to point out it was snowing, & uphill both ways, plus you had just finished a whole shift down at t' mill.

[Brumby]

I can remember going to the Bank to get a bank cheque drawing on the Chemical Bank New York, New York for a whole bunch of 7400 series TTL  at "amazingly cheap" prices via mail order, then waiting for my order to arrive in the USA, get processed and then sent back.

Mind you, I am talking about 45 years ago....

[chrisb741]

Yes I remember those days. I did my electronics course back in the 90s all the cool stuff I was trained to use was virtually impossible to get. So I stopped and changed career, 25 years later my nephew becomes a paraplegic and he's interested in mechatronics. So I started looking into it and was amazed by all the options

[Wind Tse]

Maybe Wish?
The most important thing is to promise genuine, for the general products, where to buy does not matter.

[chrisb741]

Cool, where else is good to buy, in Australia?

[SeanB]

I can remember going to the Bank to get a bank cheque drawing on the Chemical Bank New York, New York for a whole bunch of 7400 series TTL  at "amazingly cheap" prices via mail order, then waiting for my order to arrive in the USA, get processed and then sent back.

Mind you, I am talking about 45 years ago....

Same, just that the bank was Standard Bank, and the cheque was to the UK, with the bank they used there being Barclays Bank PLC. Lovely gilted cheque, with typed details on it, and then a bank manager signature, and a bank issue stamp showing the day it was written, and the routing information as well. Done because the Post Office did not issue international money orders, so a bank cheque was the only way to send money. Lot of handling fees to issue as well, especially as a student. Still bank with the same bank, though, due to time, different account number, as the original branch has long closed, along with the 3 other branches the account was moved to as they closed, till i landed up at the local HQ branch, who did a free transfer as they no longer supported that old account type any more.

Hey, still remember the Postbank, with the hand written booklet, that went in for audit every 2 years, and where you got a written line, telling you the interest earned over that period. Then a later one, with machine printed line in the book, though that bank long ago went bankrupt, and was taken over by another bank, which in turn was amalgamated with a whole host of smaller banks and Building societies, to make the ABSA group.

[Kean]

"Buying stuff" is a bit non-specific... but I assume you mean electronic components?

Apart from the usual suspects of Jaycar, Altronics, Element14, RS Components, there are a couple of others that come to mind
- Wagner Electronics / WES
- Rockby Electronics
- Core Electronics
- Little Bird Electronics

[chrisb741]

Yes, I mean any electronic stuff: components, equipment, virtually anything remotely related to electronics and even hardware from associated fields like robotics.
For example anyone know where I can get some very coarse ball screws, like 20x40 or 16x32?

[Kean]

Yes, I mean any electronic stuff: components, equipment, virtually anything remotely related to electronics and even hardware from associated fields like robotics.
For example anyone know where I can get some very coarse ball screws, like 20x40 or 16x32?

That is very coarse.  TEA Transmissions do have 16x16 and 20x20, but I've never looked for ones beyond that.
https://www.tea.net.au/

[aeberbach]

The gold standard has to be Mouser. You know if it's in stock, you get bulk discount, you usually (always) get the datasheet and sometimes the mechanical drawing linked off the product page. I have never ordered from them and had delivery take longer than a business week (from Singapore). The downside is things can be more expensive and there are some lines that they don't stock which might make me turn to Digikey or Element14 - both of which make me feel extremely lucky if they have the stock they claim to have and deliver on time, from bitter experience.
I don't love the local stores @Kean listed (slow web sites, more expensive, stock levels variable, Australia Post delivery) but sometimes they are the best choice. Amazon and eBay work.

Have you tried AliExpress? They seem to have their own distribution network - stuff seems to get shipped from China in bulk then locally by gig-drivers. Surprisingly fast and of course dirt cheap. Quality has been OK. Weird, weird things are on AliExpress if you browse randomly!

And nobody at all has Raspberry Pi 5 USB-C power supplies with an AU plug yet.

[Muttley Snickers]

I was going to suggest XON Electronics in Perth but I can't get their page to load for some reason, it could be my end otherwise the internet is busted again.   

Last time I looked they wanted $25 for postage and handling so I've put my projects on hold to gather up a decent list of components to make the order worthwhile. Anyway, there is a link to them and a mention in a previous thread on the same topic.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/purchase-of-electronics-components-in-australia/

[julianhigginson]

Is Temu any good, is it just another Aliexpress but with free delivery (apparently)?

Seems to me like Temu is like an amazon "shopping experience" model applied to something like aliexpress...
you basically have a platform with "sellers" who make the listings and manage having stock but the platform manages storage and shipping.
the platform has the app, and the point of the app is it's  designed to make it easy to grab stuff and spend money.
but then add in some really addictive psychological stuff (lots of crazy super short discounts flash up at you all the time, as well as short term discount vouchers that you earn with each purchase to keep you coming back regularly, then there's a whole section of the app where they claim you can win free stuff, but it's basically a gamified version of spamming your real life friends!!)


IME they didn't have much in the way of electronic components at Temu. yes some bits and pieces, but not much. aliexpress has more. so does amazon.

and while temu has "free shipping" the reality is nowhere has free shipping. you pay for free shipping in the product price.  I wouldnt be surprised if a reasonable parcel of (non-discount) goods from aliexpress with added expediated shipping was about the same as the cost of the Temu goods that then ship for free.

As for where to buy "stuff" well I'd say just buy components and eval boards you need from digikey and mouser. (and element14 if it ever actually has stock of something you want) just try to order in batches rather than one thing at a time. I do buy eval board and other more "maker" bits and pieces from core electronics relatively often. they are easy to deal with and shipping is ok. basically just the default auspost parcel cost.

[chrisb741]

I normally use Amazon or AliExpress
I do use core electronics sometimes and something like maker store in Melbourne.
Temu just seemed to have more of the same stuff as AliExpress and Amazon, they don't have anything of value.
I'll have a look at TEA transmission, mouser and Digikey

[Kean]

I am not buying for hobby, but a business, so I source my parts mostly from Digikey, Mouser, RS, Element14, and LCSC. Sometimes I use TME in Europe, Arrow in the US, Chip1Stop in Japan, etc.  Global shipping is pretty quick, and DK or LCSC have gotten most of my component orders recently.

I will buy from various local suppliers (Jaycar, E14, RS, Amazon, etc) when things are really urgent, or I need something more aimed at the hobbyist or PC related.

I do use AliExpress a fair bit as well, for gadget, supplies, and tools. And occasionally for components. It is hard to be the price as long as you have reasonable expectations on quality & delivery time.

Regarding X-On, I check their price and stock levels occasionally and it seems that they are often just reselling from one of the above global vendors (based on lead time and stock).  The one time that X-On listed available stock for a part that I couldn't find anywhere else, I got a notification a few days after ordering that they couldn't supply. Very frustrating.

[Brumby]

- Wagner Electronics / WES

Yes, I found WES a few decades ago. Within driving distance for me with decent gear and prices (on some things).  Still around - and worth checking out (IMO)

[chrisb741]

What about hardware:
Motors, pulleys, gears, linear rails, bearings, collets, couplers.

[Kean]

What about hardware:
Motors, pulleys, gears, linear rails, bearings, collets, couplers.

Mini Bearings/Small Parts have the widest range - https://www.smallparts.com.au/
TEA Transmissions as mentioned above - https://www.tea.net.au/
Your local/favourite 3D printer supplier - lots of them stock a good range of these parts, and sometimes at very good prices
Then the usual suspects like Amazon/ebay/AliExpress - typically the cheapest
RS Components have some but are generally not competitive in price