Mouser is a disaster these days. Can't recommend

[EPAIII]

Sadly, you are probably right.

I asked for a manager, she put me on hold for a minute and told me that no one is available and took my number. When I asked for her name, she said, "I'm not telling you that, I don't have to tell you anything," which caught me off guard.

So I guess I'm not buying from Mouser anymore.

   I've encountered a lot of situations like that from "Tech Support" people. Most of them clearly don't know what they're talking about and are only following an automated script and when you ask for a supervisor, none is ever available.  I do believe that most telephone tech support has been outsourced to the lowest bidder call centers and that the call centers and the people answering the calls, have absolutely no connection to the company that they're handling calls for.

[EPAIII]

I don't know if it was coincidence or what, but I also tried a search on the MSC web site (big supplier for machining tools and equipment) for a pilot for reverse spot facing tool in order to answer a question on another board. Don't worry if you don't know what that is, that's not important here. I used several combinations of search terms but was never able to get anything short of hundreds of returns or none at all. The authors of the web site were obviously both trying to push as many items to your screen as they could and also ignorant of the tools being sold by their company. MSC has a really big catalog which is literally 4 or 5 inches thick with thousands of pages. That catalog is far better organized than their web site so the problem is not with the company, but with the IS department there which is responsible for the web site. I have a copy of that catalog and I found what I was looking for by getting a page reference from a related item that I was able to find, clicking on a link to the on-line catalog page, and seeing the page number there. Then I opened the paper and ink catalog and on the next page I almost instantly found the item I was looking for.

It seems to me that MSC has two or perhaps three different divisions who publish the paper/ink catalog, make that catalog available on-line, and create the on-line sales site. The first two of them do a very good job and the third is very lacking.

As I was leaving their site an invitation to take a survey with a chance of winning a $500 prize so I did. The survey was short, about 5 or 6 questions.

Now, here's the kicker; about 5 or 10 minutes after I finished that survey I got a phone call from a lady at MSC. She also asked me a few questions about my use of their site. Now understand, I have a chip on my shoulder as regards IS/computer programmers in general. For the last 2 or 3 years of my working career I was the lead engineer in a project, not web related, which required working with the my company's head programmer. And he most certainly had his own ideas as to how the software for that project should be written. Those ideas added a great amount of complexity and his insistence on following "his way or the highway" literally added an extra 12 months or more to the duration of the project. Since he was in a different department I could not order him or fire him; I just had to work along with him in order to complete the project. So, I have a BIG chip on my shoulder for IS programmers.

OK, back to that phone call. That lady was not IS so we had a pleasant conversation. After I answered her questions she asked if there was anything I could add. My suggestion to her was that the department that was responsible for developing and maintaining that sales site on the web should be headed, not by a computer person, but by a machinist because they were selling supplies to machinists, not to computer people. She was somewhat surprised by that and we discussed it for a few minutes. I explained that there were some very good sales sites on the web and named two that they could look at (DigiKey and McMaster Carr). I told her that it was completely obvious to me that the people who were creating that web site were not familiar with the tooling they were trying to sell. That meant that the choices of search parameters, of search categories was not only a hindrance to the customer finding what they wanted, but also not even consistent among like or similar items.

And therein lies my observation of the problem with far too many sales sites on the internet and of the perfectly obvious solution for it. Mouser has been my first, go-to site for electronic parts. I fear that I will have to change that as I doubt that they are going to even consider any suggestions from outside the company.

[watchmaker]

I worked phone sales for Crutchfield in the 1980s while in grad school.  Two rows of cubicles with a phone and Blue Book installation guide.

When a caller wanted a manager, we would mute the phone and call out, "Who wants to play manager".

Just like the old New Yorker cartoon where two dogs are in front of a computer screen and one sez "On the Internet, no one knows you are a dog".

[John Coloccia]

I don't know if it was coincidence or what, but I also tried a search on the MSC web site (big supplier for machining tools and equipment) for a pilot for reverse spot facing tool in order to answer a question on another board.

I can't remember the last time I ordered from MSC. McMaster-Carr has maybe the best website I've ever used, and it's FAST. And it's like that because they have developers that work really hard to make it very good, and relevant and fast.

Anyone who hasn't seen the site, just go out there and click around. You'll suddenly remember that once upon time websites were lightweight and simple.

[tooki]

In my experience Digikey is even worse.  It sometimes seem to take forever to process an order.  2 weekdays after placing the order it did not ship.  I had to cancel the order and order again.

I’ve had far fewer delays with Digikey. When a delay happens with either Mouser or Digikey, more often than not it’s been an export compliance issue, like a part missing an ECCN code, without which they can’t ship it abroad. (So they have to hold the order until their compliance department locates and assigns the right code to the product.)

But when it comes to just random delays, I have found that Mouser has more of those than Digikey.

There was a short while some months ago when Digikey was slower than usual because they were moving inventory to their newly-built warehouse expansion.

[tooki]

I don't know if it was coincidence or what, but I also tried a search on the MSC web site (big supplier for machining tools and equipment) for a pilot for reverse spot facing tool in order to answer a question on another board.

I can't remember the last time I ordered from MSC. McMaster-Carr has maybe the best website I've ever used, and it's FAST. And it's like that because they have developers that work really hard to make it very good, and relevant and fast.

Anyone who hasn't seen the site, just go out there and click around. You'll suddenly remember that once upon time websites were lightweight and simple.

It’s like a breath of fresh air.

It is shocking and disheartening to me how modern web designers have reduced site performance to something that feels worse than dial-up 25 years ago, and with information density so low that I can’t fit a few columns of parameters onto a window spanned across the width of two 4K displays. That’s just grotesque. Huge fonts and swaths of white space everywhere, and for no obvious reason.

(Alas, McMaster really does not cater to international customers the way Digikey and Mouser do, for example by handling customs duty and clearance, so ordering from McMaster creates added cost and hassle for us. So we use McMaster only when we need a non-metric fastener we can’t get locally.)

[jfiresto]

... McMaster-Carr has maybe the best website I've ever used, and it's FAST. And it's like that because they have developers that work really hard to make it very good, and relevant and fast....

I consider their website an almost guilty pleasure when I reckon their per piece markup of what I am purchasing.

Out of curiosity, I decided I would find exactly the right fastener for an AC inlet that I do not want to come loose. I found it on contorion.de who sourced it from Reyher who sourced it from Taiwan. An 1890g box of fine machine screws and 96% cheaper per screw than from McMaster-Carr. OK, M-C's are strength 8.8, which is overkill and accounts for some of that. This being Germany where not a few companies still make things, they were also sold in lots of 2000 instead of 50. But still.

[TimFox]

... McMaster-Carr has maybe the best website I've ever used, and it's FAST. And it's like that because they have developers that work really hard to make it very good, and relevant and fast....

I consider their website an almost guilty pleasure when I reckon their per piece markup of what I am purchasing.

Out of curiosity, I decided I would find exactly the right fastener for an AC inlet that I do not want to come loose. I found it on contorion.de who sourced it from Reyher who sourced it from Taiwan. An 1890g box of fine machine screws and 96% cheaper per screw than from McMaster-Carr. OK, M-C's are strength 8.8, which is overkill and accounts for some of that. This being Germany where not a few companies still make things, they were also sold in lots of 2000 instead of 50. But still.

I am spoiled by McMaster.  Since I live in Chicago, near their headquarters, if I order something Thursday afternoon, it normally arrives by UPS on Friday.  Also, on the very rare occasion of a problem with a product, their telephone customer service is excellent.  Not only is their catalog search website great, but they normally have good drawings and CAD models directly loadable from the site.  Not cheap, of course.
Unfortunately, they are not interested in exporting outside of the US.

[jmelson]

I find that Digi-Key seems to ship faster than Mouser, and I  like their web search better.  BUT, the big issue I have with Digi-Key is they falsely label items they have decided to no longer stock as "discontinued".  When I check around, Mouser has 25K of that same item in stock!  A little probing on manufacturer's web sites also confirms these parts are still in full production.  VERY annoying.  There's a cable that I used to buy from Digi, about $15 each.  Suddenly, they have a minimum order of 1000 pieces!  That's a $15K order.  Well, I found another outfit that specializes in computer cables, and they sell the same thing for $6, quantity one!  So, Digi lost all sales on that item.
Jon

[joeqsmith]

Years ago, I posted how Digikey changed my account to some sort of business structure where I could no longer see my orders.   They structured it so I had employees with limited access.  Crazy BS.   I called them, spoke with a manager, they refused to return it to the personal account it had been for well over a decade.   I had them close the entire account right then an there.  I waited about six months until I never received any junk paper mail or emails from them to know that they had finally flushed me from their system.  Then I opened a new account.   I would have fired everyone involved at Digikey over that, starting at the top managers. 

All companies have problems. 

[xmenendez]

Well, after years of lurking I've finally made an EEVBlog account just to reply to this.

I'll just echo what I put on my review of them.

I have been using Mouser for the last 8 years and do between $10,000-$15,000 in business with them per year. They were an outstanding service in that time. Orders were almost always shipped out on time, and if not, I was always upgraded on the shipping.

Within the last month, I have placed three orders with them.  Here's my experience, listed oldest to newest.

They:
1). Sold me parts that were in stock, then decided to sell them to someone else and hold my order for days without telling me, and then have no idea why it was held, requiring me to go through an enourmous BOM line by line until I found the discrepancy and told them to cancel the item and ship my order. They refused to upgrade my shipping. They did tell me I could wait for the item to be back in stock in September, which I refused. The part is now expected in December. Great! I might have gotten a refund on the shipping I did pay, if I recall correctly? Because why lose $10 on the upgrade when you can lose $20 on the refund, right?

2). Promised to ship my order end of day, then fell asleep I guess and shipped it two days later, again with no shipping upgrade. I called and ask what happened, nobody could tell me.

3). Held my order for an export restriction on an IC without telling me, order was just in limbdo as per my first example, then I had to call them about it, then they couldn't tell me why the restriction exists, who is allowed to buy the part, where I could find this information before placing the order to prevent this entire situation, what part I can use to substitute in its place - nothing.  Then the next day it still didn't ship so I took a look at the BOM, line by line, miserably, again.  I found some resistor that was marked as Unavailable.  Not sure if its out of stock forever, NRND, export restricted, it just says unavailable.  It's from an American company and every other product from them I can apparently buy (though I can technically still buy the first part that was export restricted??).  Had to call again, explain this, try to determine if the first part was a red herring, can't get any details.  Product still hasn't shipped.  Basically get told to piss off with the shipping upgrade. 

What happened to this company?  New management?  The service is unusable.  I have lost over a week of my time waiting for parts for my prototyping.  I don't work for free.  I had some loyalty to them after years of ordering but this is absurd.  How's DigiKey these days?  As I recall, their parametric search actually works 

[Cyclotron]

What happened to this company?  New management?  The service is unusable.  I have lost over a week of my time waiting for parts for my prototyping.  I don't work for free.  I had some loyalty to them after years of ordering but this is absurd.  How's DigiKey these days?  As I recall, their parametric search actually works 

I have used Digikey the last two orders. I haven't had any issues with orders/shipping but their website has has some issues with its web application firewall breaking images and demanding proof of humanity.

I did place a small order with Mouser as the part I needed wasn't in stock at Digikey. It was 1.5 hours prior to cut off and they didn't ship it. I paid for 2nd day and they didn't bump my order up.  I agree, something has changed and it isn't for the best.

[Zwirbeljupp]

Hey all,

I just ran into something pretty frustrating with Mouser and wanted to check if others have had similar issues – and how you’re dealing with this from a design/planning perspective.
I placed an order with Mouser that included, among other things:

• Analog Devices / TMC2209-LA
  
• Analog Devices / MAX98357AETE+T

Later I received a “Product Notice – Order Cancellation” email saying that, due to restrictions imposed by the manufacturer, Mouser is unable to ship these products to my location (Germany). All other items in the order will ship as normal, but these two lines were outright cancelled.

What bothers me: On the product pages I could not find any hint that these parts can’t be shipped to Germany or are otherwise restricted. No export flags, no “not for EU”, nothing obvious.

When I asked Mouser support what exactly the restriction is, the answer was basically:

We’re an authorized distributor, we must follow manufacturer policies, we can’t share contract details, and we can’t disclose specific restrictions beyond what the supplier publishes.

So in other words:

• I still don’t know what kind of restriction this is (export control? regional sales policy? customer-type restriction? something application-specific?).
• I don’t know whether this affects all customers in Germany/EU or just certain accounts.
• I don’t know whether I can ever order these parts from Mouser again, or if I should base my design on other parts.

From a business / project planning point of view this is pretty bad: I can’t reliably design in a part if the distributor might silently cancel it after ordering, without any visible warning on the product page and without explaining what’s going on.

So my questions to the EEVblog crowd:

• Has anyone else experienced this with Mouser?
• Especially for TMC2209, MAX98357, or other Analog Devices parts (Trinamic, Maxim, etc.)?
• Is this known to be an Analog Devices–specific thing, or do other manufacturers also impose similar “invisible” restrictions that suddenly pop up at order time?
• Any tricks to detect such hidden restrictions early (before you design in the part or send a BOM to purchasing)?

I’ve written a pretty detailed, formal reply back to Mouser asking for clarification and escalation, but honestly I’m not optimistic that they’ll share much.

Curious to hear if this is just bad luck on my side, or if this is a growing issue others are seeing too.

Thanks,
Daniel

[themadhippy]

if I should base my design on other parts.

whats stopping you shopping else were?might cost a few pence more,but suley that will be outweighed by the time and effort doing a redesign

[exe]

Later I received a “Product Notice – Order Cancellation” email saying that, due to restrictions imposed by the manufacturer, Mouser is unable to ship these products to my location (Germany). All other items in the order will ship as normal, but these two lines were outright cancelled.

I've seen this before on this forum recently. Also here: https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/analog-devices-restriction-no-more-individual-buyers.432353/ .
Lack of transparency sucks. There is a report on that forum that they were able to order parts from digikey, lol. Also check lcsc, they have them 

I stopped using AD/MAX parts as they are expensive and switched to TI. Too bad TI is also a US company, and also from time to time has availability issues.

Another approach is to use as many generic parts as possible, with second source.

[Uunoctium]

No, you're not alone. Same happens at ordering components from LT (=ADI). And i bet, you also won't get Hittite RF-components from that distributor.
More - If you had prepaid your bill, it's not guaranteed that you will receive an automatically refund, so one has to clarify this additional with Munic by phonecall.
If you can't avoid placing an order, you may fill the empty notifiction field with your own cancellation terms:
"If only one item gets canceled, the entire order shall be considered withdrawn (and immediate placed at an alternative distributor)."

Tipp: At component selector always untick the box ADI and choose alternate mfg's. Or place your orders in future generally located somewhere else.

Digikey
tme.eu
Conrad
Reichelt
.
.
.

[the Chris]

Happend to me twice now with AD components ordered from Mouser.

First time, they contacted me and asked whether they should ship everything else or cancel the order. I canceled it and orered everything from Digikey, including the AD parts, without a problem.

Half a year later I had forgotten about the AD issue at Mouser and placed an order that contained one AD part. This time, they just shipped everything else without contacting me before. They even ignored my immediate request for cancellation despite the order was still not even been assembled.

I'm done with Mouser.

[jpanhalt]

A quick search turned up a post from September 26, 2025 in diyAudio forum:

Just had some transistors cancelled for the second time by Mouser. Mouser told me (copy paste from their e-mail to me)

"Analog Devices Inc. have introduced further restrictions on who can purchase their products, as they like to keep goods within the franchised distribution chain, which would be between themselves and end users (manufacturers).

Due to this, we are unable to allow quotes or orders to go through, as Mouser has no influence on the decision making, on where Analog Devices Inc. products go to, this would be something you have to bring up with Analog Devices Inc. directly."

I wonder whether  the problems in this thread are related to that?  Has anyone checked with Mouser?

[TimFox]

Is this problem limited to ADI parts?

[Uunoctium]

Yes, for all brands under their umbrella. Others are not affected.

[Zwirbeljupp]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!
For me it is the first time I'm having troubles with Mouser, but based on the similar experiences shared it looks like I really need to consider switching to Digikey or other distributors.
Completely avoiding ADI parts will not be a simple solution...

At least I already received my refund for the cancelled parts.

[jmelson]

It looks like Mouser uses Akamai Bot Defense and Data Dome.  Neither is an effective bot defense, and both have problems with any browser or customer that has configured even the most basic security protections on their browsers.

Frequently I get "bot" warnings from Mouser when I try to view datasheets on common components.  Very annoying!
Jon

[Stray Electron]

Later I received a “Product Notice – Order Cancellation” email saying that, due to restrictions imposed by the manufacturer, Mouser is unable to ship these products to my location (Germany). All other items in the order will ship as normal, but these two lines were outright cancelled.

I've seen this before on this forum recently. Also here: https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/analog-devices-restriction-no-more-individual-buyers.432353/ .
Lack of transparency sucks. There is a report on that forum that they were able to order parts from digikey, lol. Also check lcsc, they have them 

I stopped using AD/MAX parts as they are expensive and switched to TI. Too bad TI is also a US company, and also from time to time has availability issues.

Another approach is to use as many generic parts as possible, with second source.

   You're finding out what the US .Mil suppliers found out YEARS ago!

    From a repair point of view it really sucks when companies use specialized sole-source parts instead of a, or even several, generic parts.

[Stray Electron]

A quick search turned up a post from September 26, 2025 in diyAudio forum:

Just had some transistors cancelled for the second time by Mouser. Mouser told me (copy paste from their e-mail to me)

"Analog Devices Inc. have introduced further restrictions on who can purchase their products, as they like to keep goods within the franchised distribution chain, which would be between themselves and end users (manufacturers).

Due to this, we are unable to allow quotes or orders to go through, as Mouser has no influence on the decision making, on where Analog Devices Inc. products go to, this would be something you have to bring up with Analog Devices Inc. directly."

I wonder whether  the problems in this thread are related to that?  Has anyone checked with Mouser?

   I find it rather amazing that companies the size of Digikey and Mouser don't have someone that routinely checks forums like this and looking for complaints and then try to improve their service.  I made a complaint about a local Ford dealership on-line several years ago and within two hours I received a call from the dealership saying that they would fix the problem and asking me to take the post down. I did, but they didn't 

[jpanhalt]

DigiKey is still privately owned.  Mouser is owned by Berkshire Hathaway. I suspect the cultures are different.