What's the deal with RS/E14 Australia these days?

[David Aurora]

Are they just totally swamped with major customers and don't care about smaller ones, or are they on their last legs, or what?

RS used to be great despite their godawful website, so obviously they made their website worse and jacked up the minimum free shipping threshold until it was no longer competitive. Stock levels/lead times were miles off Element 14 at this point and prices were always higher too. At some point in the past few years they went from a supplier I ordered from daily to one I flat out never use. I can't be the only one, so you've gotta assume they're making these losses up somewhere else right?

Element 14 became my go to as RS went to shit as they had pretty good local stock levels for next day delivery, a way better website and reasonable minimum free shipping threshold. Naturally, they then broke their own website and it's never really worked right since. This past week I've tried almost daily to place orders unsuccessfully, it's impossible to get to the final checkout page on any browser I used (it was also impossible for a few days there to open most product pages but that's another story). I finally just called them and asked if I could place an order over the phone as the website had issues (I was chasing one specific thing nobody else had). They told me to email it through and someone would call me.

I did, and they didn't. So I called back, got the same guy. I told him again that I'm trying to give them money in exchange for parts and would like to figure out a way to do this. He told me to email, which I reminded him I had already done. We fucked around on the phone for a good 5 minutes until I was about to absolutely lose it and go full Karen, and I once again just said something like "Is there not a way that I can just place my order right now on the phone and get things moving??!!" "Oh, yes, I can do that for you".

I swear my head nearly exploded. I waited all afternoon for a callback that didn't happen only to be told the same guy could just punch it in and ship it.

One of the items on my order had recently been out of stock with an ETA of next month for SOME stock, and healthy stock in another couple of months. I'd been watching the stock level trying to get my hands on some for a couple weeks (I was trying to order it as a backorder but couldn't because of their shit website). Today it showed the lower amount of stock had arrived early in overseas warehouses for delivery in a week. But what do you know, I just got a shipping notification that it has already shipped overnight from Sydney.

What. The. Fuck.

I've been waiting and watching for stock to appear anywhere in their supply chain worldwide, and it was already sitting here in Australia.

While on the calls the guy mentioned multiple times that they get lots of complaints about the website not working, but it didn't seem like it had occurred to anyone to maybe just, you know, fix it.

So... yeah. Are they just riding things out while they go under, or they're safe with big contracts, or what?

I mainly use Mouser now which is great, but it's nearly a week shipping time so a good local supplier wouldn't suck.

[peter_mcc]

I reckon they are in a death spiral. They don't have local stock of most things I look for and their shipping is lots slower than Mouser/Digikey. When they don't have one part the whole order goes elsewhere. So they have less turnover, so they keep less stock so more of my orders go elsewhere...

I don't understand RS - their website hides the local stock info from you. The only way to see if they have it in Australia is to click on each item, one by one. If it's a common part (eg a passive) and you don't care about the exact specs that could leave you with a list of 50+ parts to check. So I give up and go to E14 - at least their website shows local stock levels in the list view!

[tom66]

I've consistently found Farnell in the UK (I guess your Element14) to be:
- more expensive,
- more likely to screw up my order,
- and frequently having website issues.

Compared to Digi-Key or Mouser.

I avoid ordering from them wherever possible now.

[vk6zgo]

Are they just totally swamped with major customers and don't care about smaller ones, or are they on their last legs, or what?

RS used to be great despite their godawful website, so obviously they made their website worse and jacked up the minimum free shipping threshold until it was no longer competitive. Stock levels/lead times were miles off Element 14 at this point and prices were always higher too. At some point in the past few years they went from a supplier I ordered from daily to one I flat out never use. I can't be the only one, so you've gotta assume they're making these losses up somewhere else right?

Element 14 became my go to as RS went to shit as they had pretty good local stock levels for next day delivery, a way better website and reasonable minimum free shipping threshold. Naturally, they then broke their own website and it's never really worked right since. This past week I've tried almost daily to place orders unsuccessfully, it's impossible to get to the final checkout page on any browser I used (it was also impossible for a few days there to open most product pages but that's another story). I finally just called them and asked if I could place an order over the phone as the website had issues (I was chasing one specific thing nobody else had). They told me to email it through and someone would call me.

I did, and they didn't. So I called back, got the same guy. I told him again that I'm trying to give them money in exchange for parts and would like to figure out a way to do this. He told me to email, which I reminded him I had already done. We fucked around on the phone for a good 5 minutes until I was about to absolutely lose it and go full Karen, and I once again just said something like "Is there not a way that I can just place my order right now on the phone and get things moving??!!" "Oh, yes, I can do that for you".

I swear my head nearly exploded. I waited all afternoon for a callback that didn't happen only to be told the same guy could just punch it in and ship it.

One of the items on my order had recently been out of stock with an ETA of next month for SOME stock, and healthy stock in another couple of months. I'd been watching the stock level trying to get my hands on some for a couple weeks (I was trying to order it as a backorder but couldn't because of their shit website). Today it showed the lower amount of stock had arrived early in overseas warehouses for delivery in a week. But what do you know, I just got a shipping notification that it has already shipped overnight from Sydney.

What. The. Fuck.

I've been waiting and watching for stock to appear anywhere in their supply chain worldwide, and it was already sitting here in Australia.

While on the calls the guy mentioned multiple times that they get lots of complaints about the website not working, but it didn't seem like it had occurred to anyone to maybe just, you know, fix it.

So... yeah. Are they just riding things out while they go under, or they're safe with big contracts, or what?

I mainly use Mouser now which is great, but it's nearly a week shipping time so a good local supplier wouldn't suck.

It seems to be a trend, even with places with a much larger customer base, like Coles.

Their website has always been a bit clunky, but reasonably useable once you worked it out.
Recently, they have changed everything, so that the useful parts have gone, & the basic ordering process has become bloody near impossible.

They have succumbed to the dumb idea of sending "magic numbers" to your phone, which you then have to enter to progress further-----I'm trying to give them money for Pete's sake!

We at least got the order done, then they sent a verification email to an address we hadn't used for about 10 years.
On top of that, they left $47 worth of goods off the order (still charged for them, though).

Maybe "Rat Shit" are using the same provider for their website & general customer interface?

[deadlylover]

Someone ordered something from RS and sent it to my home address for a 'Secret Santa' thing on another forum. I think they matched the address to my account because I then got the order confirmation emails...I thought my account was compromised or something hahaha.

It sucks they have a $150 order minimum for free shipping now (private customers). Their pricing is usually worse than Mouser/Digikey so I would often only do small orders of things that I needed ASAP. They don't want hobbyist orders any more it seems.

[David Aurora]

Someone ordered something from RS and sent it to my home address for a 'Secret Santa' thing on another forum. I think they matched the address to my account because I then got the order confirmation emails...I thought my account was compromised or something hahaha.

It sucks they have a $150 order minimum for free shipping now (private customers). Their pricing is usually worse than Mouser/Digikey so I would often only do small orders of things that I needed ASAP. They don't want hobbyist orders any more it seems.

I think they really shoot themselves in the foot by trying to put off smaller customers, every business starts somewhere. They were the first proper supplier I used to buy from when I was starting and while that wasn't a lot at the time, by the time I stopped ordering from them my orders were consistent and definitely more than what a hobbyist would spend. I think I kept ordering from them for probably a year or so more than I should have just because I felt some kind of loyalty for their earlier free shipping deals. But yeah, the prices sucked, the stock levels sucked, the website sucked and all of it combined made it impossible to use them any more.

[twistedpair]

I was horrified to go to the RS Components website today to find the shipping cost now $37, or a $150 (ex gst) minimum order to qualify for free shipping. This is nearly double compared to approximately 12 months ago.

To add insult to injury, there are now MOQ's on the most basic of componentry.

Have been using and recommending RS for a couple of decades, both as a hobbyist and professionallly, but simply can not justify these over-inflated costs.

Try changing your basic account to a 'cash only' business account using an ABN and they have the gall to require three mandatory 'trade references'.

They clearly do not want the business.

 

[David Aurora]

I was horrified to go to the RS Components website today to find the shipping cost now $37, or a $150 (ex gst) minimum order to qualify for free shipping. This is nearly double compared to approximately 12 months ago.

To add insult to injury, there are now MOQ's on the most basic of componentry.

Have been using and recommending RS for a couple of decades, both as a hobbyist and professionallly, but simply can not justify these over-inflated costs.

Try changing your basic account to a 'cash only' business account using an ABN and they have the gall to require three mandatory 'trade references'.

They clearly do not want the business.

So... I just went to take a look and saw a new banner saying they've dropped the free shipping threshold to $40 for business customers. $10 for shipping if below that. I'm guessing the experiment of the past couple years failed and they finally realised that cheap shipping is literally the only shot they have at this point to bring in customers given their pricing/stock availability.

I did a quick skim of a few jellybean parts and didn't encounter any weird MOQs so far, which parts did you see that on?

But yeah, pricing is still absurd and website is still painful. Fingers crossed the shipping backpedal is a sign that that they actually want to do business again.

[peter_mcc]

I spoke to a RS rep briefly at Electronex in Melbourne last week - he seemed surprised that their website was hard to use to find leadtime info. Perhaps he was new to RS - he was keen to see things improved. I wonder how long that enthusiasm will last...

[David Aurora]

Yet again, the E14 site appears to be fucked. Tried to order some stuff yesterday, couldn't log in to check out (it seemed to be giving me a message about a failed captcha even though there was no visible captcha).

Managed to log in today, but now (yet again) the checkout page doesn't load properly so you can't actually process an order. Two computers, 2 different browsers, no go.

I called them and got the now standard "Yeah, a few people have said that. We'll probably fix it soon. Until then you can download your cart, email it to us, then we can come back to you to process an order". Hard pass thanks.

I can't believe a company like this can have the checkout page down for days and just shrug about it. I guess the thing keeping the Australian section afloat is just the overseas income?

[aeberbach]

3 out of the last 4 times I have ordered anything through E14 they screwed it up - sometimes out of stock after saying in stock, sometimes just not delivering random things. Too bad they are the only place I know to get more RAACO storage. RS I don't even think about any more. Digikey I don't mind. Mouser I love, if I order something on a Monday morning the UPS man is often at the door before lunch on Friday.

[David Aurora]

3 out of the last 4 times I have ordered anything through E14 they screwed it up - sometimes out of stock after saying in stock, sometimes just not delivering random things. Too bad they are the only place I know to get more RAACO storage. RS I don't even think about any more. Digikey I don't mind. Mouser I love, if I order something on a Monday morning the UPS man is often at the door before lunch on Friday.

100% agreed. When RS went back to reasonable shipping pricing I thought I'd give them another go, but their stock levels suck and their website sucks more.

Digikey is good but I don't love the website. I love Mouser, it'd be great if they were local for overnight delivery but as you said, it's pretty fast anyway.

[vk6zgo]

Everybody is going crazy!

I recently had occasion to buy a car part, namely a water inlet casting which bolts onto my 1999 Toyota Camry engine.

Toyota dealers have pretty much given up on such old parts, as, seemingly have the local wreckers, with the former typically quoting "5 days Ex East & $500.00".

All good, I'll look on the 'Net for an aftermarket part.
I found a supplier in NSW who had it in stock at a reasonable price, & a couple of day's delivery, so set to, making the order.
All went well till I tried to pay for it, using my Visa card.

Although all details were correctly entered, it kept saying there was something wrong.
OK, let's see if I can use PayPal----Nope!
I was only offered the choice of Credit cards, ApplePay & Google Pay.

I ended up buying the bit from a supplier in the PRC who was quite happy to take my PayPal payment.
It will take ages to get here--- in the meantime, I bodged the leaky part with "Kneadit" epoxy putty.

I bought various coax connectors, etc from Australian suppliers on eBay that same day (obviously some just ordered from the PRC as they went).
Most have now arrived.