RS Components new crappy webiste

[pcmad]

why use fucking java script link for navigation (javascript:void(0)) its bad for SEO and we as engineers like links to right right open new tab to look for like component and tab hopping to compare product  it seems rs web designer love to wank off  to show off there ego to compensate for there SHORT CUMMINGS 

[Refrigerator]

I wonder how does this impact their business.
I assume a website as bad as this will turn customers away immediately but that is my opinion as an EE.
What does the average joe think of such a website? Do those cringe-tastic descriptions above each section help them out any?
Because they do seem like they're trying to explain the bare basics to someone who knows absolutely nothing like "Ooga booga small signal go in transistor. Transistor make signal BIG ".
But then you have to wonder what those people are doing there in the first place, because surely there are better places to learn about electronics other than the section description in RS 

[Simon]

Unfortunately it will not impact their business much at least not for a while. Most sales will come from the assembly contractors or people paying over the odds for their ironmongery. So they likely make their money on big items that are easy to find or assemblers putting in large orders directly to them without going through the site.

But those assemblers are employing people with little more skill than the people working at RS (oh how I want to laugh when I ring up to complain about the site and some ditzy customer service agent says that they can help me find the part I want). So assemblers like to have BOM's with distributor stock numbers, Newbury have become champs at this when they wrote in stating that a micrel LDO was now obsolete. This was because they had a farnell number. Farnell in their infinite wisdom set the stock of these regulators to 0 and stated that they were obsolete. Then they duplicated the listing with the live stock and put Microchip down as the manufacturer as they bought micrell out. So it took me seconds to find the replacement for them by simply searching for the manufacturers part number rather than the stock code.

So RS will in the future be loosing sales when products being made now disappear and we are making products designed at a time when the RS website was unusable so other stockists numbers are on the BOM. Personally I refuse to put stock codes on my BOM's, it's insane to reference a number that could be changed in years to come. I always put the MPN and go to some lengths to make sure that it is the correct full number baring the TP or R or whatever they put or i will just put all the options.

I just had an LT part that has the tape and reel suffix before the lead free suffix so I can't have an MPN that just has some character's missing off the end, the extra characters appear to have more significance than they do. But I try.....

[Refrigerator]

So RS will in the future be loosing sales when products being made now disappear and we are making products designed at a time when the RS website was unusable so other stockists numbers are on the BOM. Personally I refuse to put stock codes on my BOM's, it's insane to reference a number that could be changed in years to come. I always put the MPN and go to some lengths to make sure that it is the correct full number baring the TP or R or whatever they put or i will just put all the options.

Exactly my thought. Right now manufacturers go to RS just to buy parts wholesale, they don't have to search for anything because they have the BOM.
But the engineers who design the product are the ones who set what parts are to be bought and from where.
So if RS website continues being crap it will put off engineers from using it and the next generation of products will no longer have parts supplied by RS.

[Simon]

that is what I tried explaining to them on the phone. I am an engineer, not a buyer, the buyers will buy what I tell them too. Piss me off and the buyers won't have any orders for you.

I neglected to point out that I would never be so stupid as to use a stockist number in the first place. But when I get requests from assemblers for a substitute part they need to order now to make stuff for us the last site I use is RS and at that time RS directly losses a production order and the assembler will likely change the BOM to reflect the last stockist's number they bought it from - bye bye RS.

[Cerebus]

I wonder how does this impact their business.
I assume a website as bad as this will turn customers away immediately but that is my opinion as an EE.
What does the average joe think of such a website? Do those cringe-tastic descriptions above each section help them out any?
Because they do seem like they're trying to explain the bare basics to someone who knows absolutely nothing like "Ooga booga small signal go in transistor. Transistor make signal BIG ".
But then you have to wonder what those people are doing there in the first place, because surely there are better places to learn about electronics other than the section description in RS 

One word for you: "Makers".

There, I hope you appreciate that because now I have to go and wash my mouth out with soap. 

[BradC]

One word for you: "Makers".

Are they the ones that do "Coding" ?

[Cerebus]

One word for you: "Makers".

Are they the ones that do "Coding" ?

No, hairy-arsed Real Programmers like me do coding, they do 'cut 'n paste from stackoverflow'.

[BradC]

One word for you: "Makers".

Are they the ones that do "Coding" ?

No, hairy-arsed Real Programmers like me do coding, they do 'cut 'n paste from stackoverflow'.

Meh, real programmers use machine language. None of this namby pamby assembler stuff.

http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html

I aspired to be like Mel. I learned to "code" using a 6502 mnemonics chart and paper. Programs were punched in hex. I know it's luxury compared to the "real programmers" who toggled them in using the front panel, but then I started late and had the advantage of the progression of technology.

[HwAoRrDk]

Those cringe-worthy description texts on each category page are no doubt because some slick SEO wanker consultant told them that stuffing as many relevant keywords on to the page was a great idea for search engine optimisation, to bring in 'organic search traffic' and increase 'click-through engagement' - the purpose of which is largely to create some stats that make the consultant or marketing department look good, but not actually benefit anyone using the site. The task of formulating these texts will no doubt have been delegated to some naive intern who knows nothing about the field of electronics, who ends up cutting-and-pasting together some incongruent nonsense from Wikipedia articles in order to meet an arbitrary word count requirement.

[Zero999]

They've updated their website again and it's much better. I haven't actually used it in anger yet, but the ability to sort by fields such as resistance, power rating etc.  and list up to 100 results per page are big improvements.

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/c/passive-components/fixed-resistors/through-hole-fixed-resistors/

[mikeselectricstuff]

But still no way to filter out-of-stock items or show stock level with search results, which especially nowadays makes it far less useful than Farnell/Digikey/Mouser

[Zero999]

But still no way to filter out-of-stock items or show stock level with search results, which especially nowadays makes it far less useful than Farnell/Digikey/Mouser

There's an option to select 1 to 3 days lead time though, which is nearly as good.

[Cerebus]

But still no way to filter out-of-stock items or show stock level with search results, which especially nowadays makes it far less useful than Farnell/Digikey/Mouser

There's an option to select 1 to 3 days lead time though, which is nearly as good.

But it doesn't appear on all listings.

e.g. It appears for MLCCs (https://uk.rs-online.com/web/c/passive-components/capacitors/mlccs-multilayer-ceramic-capacitors/?applied-dimensions=4294886074) but not for Wire-Wound Surface Mount Inductors (https://uk.rs-online.com/web/c/passive-components/inductors/wire-wound-surface-mount-inductors/)

[Simon]

But still no way to filter out-of-stock items or show stock level with search results, which especially nowadays makes it far less useful than Farnell/Digikey/Mouser

There's an option to select 1 to 3 days lead time though, which is nearly as good.

what it actually works now? last time I tried that it rendered all results nil as they had not put in any data for that field. This is the problem with the reorganisation that has put more than one type of product into one category. Firstly the person that did it is an asshole! secondly if you are going to add a filter you have to add fields bfor that filter to every product you just dumped in there and fill it out, correctly!

From what you say we are back to the old site with an unneeded face lift. Don't these jerks look at their competition? Haven't they seen how visually unappealing the Digi key site is, but guess what, in a time of crisis it's my first port of call is digi key for I care not how the site is aesthetically, I care that it works! My job is to find parts and bake them into designs and tell manufacturers where to buy them, if RS want to cut themselves out so be it!

[bd139]

I wonder how does this impact their business.
I assume a website as bad as this will turn customers away immediately but that is my opinion as an EE.
What does the average joe think of such a website? Do those cringe-tastic descriptions above each section help them out any?
Because they do seem like they're trying to explain the bare basics to someone who knows absolutely nothing like "Ooga booga small signal go in transistor. Transistor make signal BIG ".
But then you have to wonder what those people are doing there in the first place, because surely there are better places to learn about electronics other than the section description in RS 

One word for you: "Makers".

There, I hope you appreciate that because now I have to go and wash my mouth out with soap. 

I can’t believe I missed this thread and comment. Cerebus nailed it.

And yes the new web site is a fucking shit show.

[Simon]

And yes the new web site is a fucking shit show.

it will be when RS start loosing orders because board assemblers are screeching at design engineers for alternative parts and want to know the stock code, all those bulk orders going out of the window for RS as they are just too much hard work for a "stockist" that puts more effort into fucking up their website than doing what their name says: keep stock!

[mc172]

I haven't gone back to RS since this happened. That boat has sailed for me.

[Simon]

I've used it very little and as a last resort.  I tried the lead time setting today and it told me that all of the out of stock stuff well into 2022 was available in 3 days. When selecting properties of the search the lead time option disappears. the problem at RS is that they have a database full of crap data but apparently the solution is adding more empty fields to the database and then expecting the search to magically happen on empty fields and changing the look of the search apparently makes up for the lack off or garbage data in their database. RS must be employing UK government ministers.....

[bd139]

Don’t even get me started on their database

100 ohms
100R
100 R
100.0 ohms
100 omhs
0100 ohms

[mc172]

It gets worse than that. Look at this nonsense.

[bd139]

Wow that's a complete crapfest 

[Simon]

Yea, I have seen a few like that too.