Well I'll not be using Farnell again

[julianhigginson]

wow.. it's weird people talking about using RS in preference to farnell/Element14...

whenever I try to use the RS website to order stuff, it nearly gives me a stroke.
It's just... awful.  The arrangement of things, the way the search works, everything. Just NO. it's worse than Arrow, even.

Farnell's biggest problem for me is that they have real issues with local stock in Australia (was bad for ages, then went OK for a few years, the last year or so has just gone as bad as it ever was) and basically in most cases it's quicker and cheaper to order a build kit for a new board prototype from Digikey or Mouser.  Which sucks, because I don't mind their website to order stuff from, and would prefer to support a local warehouse and distribution team who sells parts, if they actually just held stock.

[Simon]

Yes I preferred to use Farnell because they are UK based. RS do better service but they are not perfect. Mouser, I am looking at them now for a LIN transceiver because I am uneasy with RS only having 60 in stock of things.

[mikeselectricstuff]

wow.. it's weird people talking about using RS in preference to farnell/Element14...

whenever I try to use the RS website to order stuff, it nearly gives me a stroke.
It's just... awful.  The arrangement of things, the way the search works, everything. Just NO. it's worse than Arrow, even.

Absolutely - RS website has always been terrible, slow improvements but always behind Farnell.
Main problem is search results don't include stock so you spend forever looking through each result to see if it's in stock. Their packaging also sucks if you forget to specify "production pack" - individual bags.
Parametric search is also pretty terrible

[Simon]

i find the RS parametric search good and like the fact that i can choose SMD only. It does not force me to pick SMD packages one by one, mouser also do this. The stock not being part of the criteria is a nightmare and why i am on mouser. The RS website also got a lot faster. Farnell's attempt to speed searches up actually made them slower.