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Distributors are so thick nowadays

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Domagoj T:

--- Quote from: olkipukki on May 21, 2020, 06:41:34 pm ---If you have clients who can call you and say probably that "blue" and you know, but not telling this is "blue" part no, I want to know what are you doing (selling), happy to take over and look after these "customers"*   8)

--- End quote ---
Since you ask...
I work at a model railroad museum/exhibition and we have a small shop that specializes in model railroad stuff, including the rolling stock. Example from the other day: A returning customer calls, asks if his previous order has come in. The answer is "Not yet", so he asks if we have two K wagons in stock and if not to order them for him.

If you're not a railroad fan, you may not know what a K wagon is, and that is perfectly fine. It's a simple two axle flatbed wagon that used to be extremely common in 1950's and 1960s. But that is it. That is all the narrowing down that the term K wagon implies. In real world there are (were) countless subtypes of that configuration that were used by probably every railroad company in the world, each a bit different than the other. In model railroading world, things are even more complicated since on top of real world companies, there are model making companies, multiplying the number of choices. On top of that, in real rail world there is something called revision, which is a mandatory periodic check of the rolling stock, accompanied by new markings and potentially physical changes. Manufacturers of model railroad rolling stock take this into consideration and often produce the same wagon, but from multiple different revisions, of course as separate catalog numbers.

For this particular customer, I know that he collects models made by a certain manufacturer, I can even make an educated guess as to what real world railroad company markings he would like on his model, and know that he doesn't particularly care about revisions (some modelers are quite anal about that stuff), so I could pick something for him specifically.
With all that being said, I can't possibly know the catalog number for that wagon. We are a distributor for about 20 manufacturers, each having thousands of products. If we don't have that on a shelf (or even if I don't find it with a cursory glance), I have to take a look at the computer to see if we have it, and if not order it. For either of those I need the catalog number, and to find that out I would need to actually go through the physical or digital catalog to find it. That takes time.

But that is not nearly the worst type of the calls we get. It's not uncommon for people to ask: "Do you sell trains?", "Yes, we do." "Do you also sell wagons?", "Yes, we do." "How much do they cost?", "Anywhere from $10 to $250 for wagons, much more for special edition locomotives." "Oh, can I come and have a look?" "Yes, we are a shop."

Cerebus:

--- Quote from: floobydust on May 21, 2020, 05:34:14 pm ---But people who give no part numbers to the distributors... nobody wants to stick out their neck filling in a part number, only to later hear screams of "that part won't work! Your fault!".

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You are all missing the point that this is an RFQ not an order. The liability element comes when you get the quotation back and check what parts have been offered against your specification; if you accept the RFQ as the basis for an order you are signing off that part XYZ-RQ-12-89-X is an acceptable supply for "10k resistor 0805 1%" then you, as customer, accept liability for that choice.

Liability as an excuse for distributors wanting to have their cake and eat it - i.e. take a profit margin on the parts but add no value beyond warehousing the parts - is just laziness and rent-seeking. If the distributor adds no value and leaves you to do all the work then you have no reason not to bypass them the microsecond you have an order that is big enough to go straight to the manufacturer with. So when the distie goes out of business they have only themselves to blame - they have given their customers no reason to keep them in existence.

Look at it from the manufacturers point of view too. If a distributor adds no value and every little query or request for support comes back to the manufacturer instead of going to an FAE at a distie, what point is there to the manufacturers handing a slice of their margin over to the disties if they are having to shoulder all the support costs themselves? Note how many of the manufacturers are making it much easier to order directly e.g. Texas's recent reshuffle of their disties.

peter-h:
Cerebus is spot on.

The "liability issue" is irrelevant anyway (as noted above for an RFQ) but for an item which is a de facto commodity, dirt cheap, common as muck??

I have a quote in just now for the resistors, at 0.2p. That's "cheap" but the right price for these is 0.07 to 0.1p, in say 100k total order qty.

How come with Mouser I can type in

resistor 0805 1% 10k

and via this search URL

https://www.mouser.co.uk/Search/Refine?Keyword=resistor+0805+1%25+10k

get the results. There are 13 there now. Look at the price range. 1:20? Yageo are pretty good, so the big distis lose out.

olkipukki:

--- Quote from: Domagoj T on May 21, 2020, 07:27:03 pm ---Since you ask...


--- End quote ---

It looks like you are providing a bespoke B2C-like customer service, known your customer well and doing extra mile in a niche area - that's great!  :-+
That's probably same experienced 30 years ago by peter-h.

Obviously, you have a choice to:
 - ignore them;
 - explain same what you did above and expect they will look into a catalog for part no after that;
 - or just say "let me have a look and I will come back to you", right?

Now imaginate, you are running almost exlusive and common toys distribution where railroad modelling is just 0.5% of your business, and instead of 20 manufacturers - you are dealing with 2000++. Would you provide same service as now?


--- Quote from: Domagoj T on May 21, 2020, 07:27:03 pm ---But that is not nearly the worst type of the calls we get. It's not uncommon for people to ask: "Do you sell trains?", "Yes, we do." "Do you also sell wagons?", "Yes, we do." "How much do they cost?", "Anywhere from $10 to $250 for wagons, much more for special edition locomotives." "Oh, can I come and have a look?" "Yes, we are a shop."
 
--- End quote ---
..and they come to a shop, you spend time to show them around and explain difference between all scales and gauges?!

Honestly, I don't see any issues here either for a proper business or random-guy from a street.

Do you expect they come to your store with a list of part numbers and cash in hands?  :-//

bdunham7:
So just for fun, I checked here and Mouser has 5 reels available of Vishay CRCW080510K0FKEAC for $125 for your whole order.  They also have TE CRGCQ0805F10K at $100, but not 'in stock', which likely means a few days or so delay.  BTW, your search method showed 13 results and not the Vishay, while using the menus and so forth gave me 282 candidates.  The menus also give you the opportunity to review all of the other parameters which apparently don't matter in your application.

Now you are saying you have a RFQ response at £50 for your order but you think the 'right price' would be as low as £17.50.  How much profit do you think the distributor will make on your £17.50 order and how on earth do you think they can justify having an account rep respond to your inquiry? 

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