General > General Technical Chat

Arrow just threw personal orders under the bus.

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coppercone2:
I wonder how much business they will lose from being annoying like that. There is plenty of small scale corporate exploratory research work that is 'available' through a manager but is totally disregarded if there are acquisition difficulties because its commonly viewed to be a burden/time sink on a employee. They will get you stuff and support you, so long they don't need to claw up the company supply chain to try to get business communications resources (they don't want to deal with any more then their minimum workload but nothing stops a 'reasonable use' credit card from being used without any ramifications or secrecy

Its not a secret project, its just a isolated project so people do not complain about being involved with potentially frivolous work.. you know for those acquisitions people, the props come from managing orders for direct company profit, i.e. being a hero for managing big purchases for big production runs that have multi million dollar quarterly revenues... they don't care for supporting R&D as much. If its seen as feasible and you are competent and confident, you can get the 'job', so long nothing but a credit card and a R&D group is involved... but in this situation if you start needing "corporate numbers", certifications and verification you will start hearing the words 'too hard' and you won't be doing anything new. In business there are people that are basically hyper focused on direct revenue and trying to involve them in other stuff is futile.

And that's like the big customers too, they usually have complex beurocracies in play. Then when you factor in small businesses as the post bellow this one does the effect is more drastic.

So the net effect is that you will have companies that are basically too annoyed to investigate certain things that would otherwise be investigated with near certainty, plus everything else said in this thread. Its no secret that MANY good opportunities(contracts) are not taken up because of paperwork requirements (i.e. goverment work). All those paperworks have tons of different numbers and ID's that make people insane.

I think arrow got "Fat" off of big orders made by companies hording resources to secure their production lines (i.e. use all available resources to push bbbbiggggg orders only. That won't last forever.

BreakingOhmsLaw:

--- Quote from: Mecanix on November 15, 2021, 11:40:04 pm ---The validation url you passed is the EU comm, not Arrow's. Where do you get the sentiment that they validate this on the Arrow checkout? Is this the site they forwarded you too?

--- End quote ---
I should have been more verbose about that. What I was trying to convey is that they do not merely check the VAT ID format as you suggested in your first answer, but actually check the number online with an API to the EU VAT inquiry system. The link I provided should merely demonstrate that checking the number for validity is dead simple and taps into the very same API.

The truth is probably in user wrapers answer: They don't want to deal with the VAT hassle, their DDP process merely handles the tariffs, not VAT.

This is a bad decision an Arrows part. We have VAT exemption rules for small businesses in many European companies. They are now cut off from Arrow.

Personally, I find it very regrettable. Arrow was one of the few - if not the only - company that offered free shipping and had nearly no MOQ with few exceptions like mechanical parts. They only charged shipping for parts that shipped from their Japanese warehouse. And they were considerately cheaper compared to the big three. Simple bird food SMT parts are often three times more expensive.
My €28 BOM at Arrow costs €51 at Mouser and then they slap €20 shipping fee on it. Yeah, thanks.
Outside of my day job as an EE, I make small runs of boards for educational purposes for the local school. They have workgroups for kids that want to learn about electronics. Budgets are small, so this will kill that off or limit the possibilities to meddling with Arduinos.
Before anyone asks: The possibility to order this through the school is next to impossible due to red tape.

coppercone2:
and of course it will take how many years for the education/inspiration related damage to show up when there is a shortage of hardware guys? I think its a serious concern because of how technologically advanced and dependent our society is becoming... you need people that know what they are doing to keep solving problems in an enlightened way. I think of rupe goldberg + ductape solutions rather then elegant hardware when I imagine the world of the future with a shortage uninspired and uneducated youth. (logically complex to use and energy inefficient comes to mind, toilet with a 600W motherboard).

Mecanix:

--- Quote from: BreakingOhmsLaw on November 16, 2021, 10:56:55 pm ---Personally, I find it very regrettable.

--- End quote ---

I share the same feeling. Neither saw that coming; that 'bureaucrat-wannabe & Internal Revenue gaga' thingy I mean. Go figure...
For disclosure I've never ordered from Arrow, and certainly will refrain from doing so knowing this (I normally procure from genuine businesses, and not from lil Gov't Sub-Dept).

Thanks for letting us know and for the clarification RE "API". Understood.

bson:
Maybe it's more about avoiding consumer protection laws than anything else.  If you have a VAT ID you're a business.  Of course not every business will have one, but they might be willing to forego some portion of their sales to not get burdened with B2C laws.  (Such as maximum shipping delays, warranties, right to return, etc.)

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