EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Electronics => PCB/EDA/CAD => Topic started by: Etesla on July 25, 2018, 12:52:12 am
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Anyone have the inside scoop on how arrow is getting away with free overnight shipping on all orders? Just curious.
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Me too!
I have ordered a few small things from them - they are absolutely losing money on me. The rep is trying to pull me away from DigiKey though.....I am not a huge customer but enough to justify a few emails and phone calls I guess. The money lost on this is a marketing budget, but can't say it is working for me.
I still use DigiKey based on ease of use and a very broad catalog. I rarely have to go searching for parts outside of Digikey. Arrow can get just about anything - but it may or may not be listed and may or may not be in stock.
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I just registered to share my 'mixed' Arrow free shipping experience (also applied 10% coupon code).
In spite of having all parts in stock in their US warehouse (at Reno, NV) , they split my $11 test order (all smd parts) in 2 separate shipments and shipped on the same day. Fedex demanded $8 advancement fee on each of them, apart from duty/taxes. I have refused the second shipment (containing just a 3x4mm QFN chip) as it made zero economic sense to accept it (yes $8 is a big deal in India)!
Some observations from my first shipment:
Even if you order a cut tape of 1/2 smd parts, you get the oversized packaging meant for full reel; e.g. 3 xp-e leds were sealed in a large MBB bag (proudly announcing seal date and class 1 moisture sensitivity) with silica gels and moisture indicator card inside.
Got 6 page long delivery note and an MSDS.
Apparently, the smallest shipping box they have is 10'x9'x4'.
Their invoice can be cryptic for customs officials (although it contains HS code) and as a result, you may be overcharged. For example, they describe resistors as 'res', power managment ics as 'dc-dc conv' etc.
I have a conspiracy theory that I was penalised (through split shipment) for making such a small order, which may or may not be true. Anyways, they have pretty good price for some cree leds.
UPDATE: I also received a wrong part (smd resistor reading 320 while my order was for 210k). Too bad smd caps don't have any markings on them. Will definitely test them. Will definitely not recommend them for small order.
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I have a conspiracy theory that I was penalised (through split shipment) for making such a small order, which may or may not be true. Anyways, they have pretty good price for some cree leds.
Same split shipments to Canada here, means I will not order from them again, as each was charged $10 in fees.
But I highly doubt it is penalization, if value is below $20 then there is no fee here for example. Its just a very poorly optimized operation.
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Arrow has finally agreed to refund me $6 after I accepted the 2nd shipment. (Fedex, however, did not entertain my request to waive off the surcharge at all). Contrary to misconception, the customer service was very prompt to reply to my mail.
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It's just the way their logistics work. I surmise that they're accustomed to working with large corporate orders, not little ones from individuals. I've ordered from them several times and my stuff is usually split into at least two shipments. Once, I ordered five items that were dispatched in three shipments all arriving at the same time. :-//
The shipments also tend to be overly packaged. An extreme example was when I received DIP IC sockets nicely arranged on anti-static foam that was mounted inside a pristine box as if it was precious. Amazing care for simple sockets.
It does seem inefficient, but I guess it either works for them or the margins on their corporate orders is so great that the overhead of our purchases doesn't bother them.
For me, what they really need to fix is their site/catalog search. It's really bad. But I can understand how split shipments are pretty irritating for international orders.
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Ordered four 4G x16 DDR3L chips from them. Today received an email that they only had two, and they said they gonna issue a refund for the rest. So either their stock management system leaves a lot to be desired, or something happened in the warehouse. But the price was too good to pass, so it will still be a good deal assuming I receive the shipment without issues.
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This morning I ordered two Busboard Prototype BB830 breadboards from Arrow. I used the 30% new account discount, but really the free shipping is just as important on a small order. Someone said they've been doing the free shipping since May. I hope it continues a while longer.
By the way, for those interested, the BB830 regular price is only $5.91 at Arrow, vs $7.90 at Amazon,and even more elsewhere. I understand these are very good breadboards. I'll know soon.
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Just received my order of 10 DDR3L chips. These guys certainly spared no expenses on packaging! The shipment was from the Netherlands, order total was a bit over 100 CAD, I had to pay 16.33 CAD in taxes & fees.
Yesterday I received another (earlier) order from them (2 DDR3L chips in industrial package), and they shipped them on a tray too. That order was like 25 CAD, and there were no taxes & fees.
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This just makes me not want to order stuff from them. Why contribute to this wasteful practice?
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For me, Arrow is best for larger orders, such as full reels of components or largish quantities of semiconductors. However, what seems like excess can make sense sometimes. I ordered a small quantity (25) of op amps a while back (AD812ARZ), and they arrived in several bags, but each bag was a consistent datecode - they didn't just mix them all together. Many places like Mouser and Digikey don't mention the datecode at all, and I think Arrow is oriented to customers that need to keep track of datecodes and the like for traceability.
So, I think Arrow is just trying to work their way down the sales chain to the small guys like us, and what seems excessive sometimes is not really excessive at all. If you think about it, being sloppy about mingling datecode lots is actually the sloppy practice. Sure, for little guys like us who don't have to do traceability, it seems extreme, but I can always trust what I get from them to be genuine and fully specified.
Overall, I like Arrow and I like their promotions. I'll always check them for stock, and especially now with the giant vacuum for some parts like MLCCs, they can have useful stock that other vendors don't have. Overall, I'm a happy customer, and their free overnight is a great thing.
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I suspect it will only last until they get the sales figures they want. Arrow has always been a big name....with assembly houses (b2b). So, their practices for shipping are accustomed to that. That is why they ship in such a wasteful manner.
They are trying to catch up to digikey and mouser (not sure what is going on with Newark) since they rule the b2c realm. As a result, they are probably using the free shipping as a loss leader to just get engineers and consumers to use it. Just in the past year, they have been spending A LOT on advertising to the Arduino/hacker crowd. At my previous company, they were literally giving us free samples of any demo board upon request.
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Just received my order of 10 DDR3L chips. These guys certainly spared no expenses on packaging! The shipment was from the Netherlands, order total was a bit over 100 CAD, I had to pay 16.33 CAD in taxes & fees.
Yesterday I received another (earlier) order from them (2 DDR3L chips in industrial package), and they shipped them on a tray too. That order was like 25 CAD, and there were no taxes & fees.
That is actually normal. It is because you ordered in a tray package instead of reel of tube (if they even have that for that part). I ordered 10 mega2560 chips once, but the PN was for the tray packaging. I got what you got. This huge tray that was only filled 10% of the way.
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Digikey is the easiest way to pay more for everything, Mouser beats Digikey in near everything, Arrow will not be a viable option until they fire's the marketing department who made that confuse and heavy website that is very hard to use. But for sure Digikey the worse option.
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Sometimes, due to shipping cost, Digi-Key can be cheaper. So, I generally shop all three to see what works out best for a particular BOM I need at the time.
I didn't used to check Arrow, but I have been for the past year or so and ordered several times. So, their efforts are paying off.
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I always search parts at Digikey as it seem to have the best categorization, but for actually ordering parts the Mouser is my first choice (they recently opened an office in Canada few blocks away from my home :) ), if the part isn't there in stock, I check DK and only after it I look elsewhere. Too bad Mouser doesn't sell Xilinx FPGAs, so these I buy on DK. Few weeks ago Mouser started selling Micron parts (albeit at higher prices than elsewhere), but before that DK was my only source for everything memory-related.
As for shipping - it's free at both DK and Mouser for 100 CAD+ orders, and whenever my order comes short of that, I tend to pad it with general purpose stuff like reels of 0402 resistors or caps as they are usually quite cheap, and you can never have too many different values.
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I always search parts and Digikey as it seem to have the best categorization, but for actually ordering parts the Mouser is my first choice (they recently opened an office in Canada few blocks away from my home :) ), if the part isn't there in stock, I check DK and only after it I look elsewhere. Too bad Mouser doesn't sell Xilinx FPGAs, so these I buy on DK. Few weeks ago Mouser started selling Micron parts (albeit at higher prices than elsewhere), but before that DK for my only source for everything memory-related.
As for shipping - it's free at both DK and Mouser for 100 CAD+ orders, and whenever my order comes short of that, I tend to pad it with general purpose stuff like reels of 0402 resistors or caps as they are usually quite cheap, and you can never have too many different values.
Good although its not a warehouse, so that doesn't really help with shipping right. They offer duty prepaid now, which is great. Arrow can learn from them at some point.
But there is also a 6% premium over the US prices on mouser.com, in addition to the GST charged at checkout. Not sure what that would be, PST, or general markup?
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Do not know guys, Mouser never worked for me, it was every single time more expensive so i stopped looking at them. These days Arrow seem to be priced better for many things, if it does not have what i need i go to Digikey then. Also for bulk passives in 100's and 1000's Newark looks good.
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But there is also a 6% premium over the US prices on mouser.com, in addition to the GST charged at checkout. Not sure what that would be, PST, or general markup?
Whatever it is, Mouser still comes up cheaper than DK for me in most cases. DK charges HST just as well, so no difference as far as taxes go. One subtle advantage DK has is that it operates out of in-country warehouse, and so all parts already cleared customs. This is not a big deal in most cases, however if you would want to buy some "export-controlled" chips, buying these at Mouser can create a real headache, while DK shipments are all-domestic so no nasty surprises from customs (or some other gov't bureaucracy).
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Also for bulk passives in 100's and 1000's Newark looks good.
I haven't actually ordered anything there yet, but since some time ago they began selling Xilinx stuff, I keep an eye on them as a potential second source of these parts should they become unavailable at DK for whatever reason.
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Digikey is the easiest way to pay more for everything, Mouser beats Digikey in near everything, Arrow will not be a viable option until they fire's the marketing department who made that confuse and heavy website that is very hard to use. But for sure Digikey the worse option.
These days, Digikey ships much faster than Mouser, so I can often use less expensive shipping options if I need the parts somewhat soon. A few weeks ago, I placed an order with Digikey at 9:15PM on a Sunday night and it was fulfilled and ready for ship at 10:02PM that night. By comparison the same Mouser order, albeit with a 10x more SKUs, didn't ship 'til late Tuesday, adding an extra day to the process - it should have shipped Monday. So, while some of their prices are higher, you can often either save a day or two, or use a cheaper shipping option, so it's not always more expensive.
I use Digikey, Mouser and Arrow, but the marginally higher prices at Digikey I find are more than offset by their fast fulfillment. YMMV.
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Digikey is very good at quickly shipping you exactly what you asked for in a single prompt shipment, even if it's just a bunch of 10-resistor 0603 cut tape bits, with free shipping for AUD$60 orders, and telling you exactly what they have in stock and what they don't before you order. It sounds like Arrow is struggling to match that user experience.
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I've started using Arrow more and more lately, why?
*IC:s mainly TI DIP packages are almost 50% cheaper than mouser
*Bourns trimmers almost 50% cheaper than mouser
*Capacitors, nichicon and Panasonic are consistently cheaper than mouser, about 5-10%
*Mechanical parts are cheaper, scored some alps SKQEAAA010 and bourns pta slider for 50-70% cheaper than mouser.
*Free shipping with no minimum order value, this is just amazing.
Whats less stellar:
*Usually slower and more inconsistent shipping than mouser
*Their BOM tool is kinda crap and sluggish
*No way to add parts after order has been placed but not yet shipped
*Packaging is ridiculous, see below for when I ordered just 1x poly cap:
(https://i.imgur.com/DpsOLDF.jpg)
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Arrow's got the best overall pricing these days, and 10%-15% off coupons are routinely available.
I find the parts I need on DigiKey but 95% of the time Arrow is cheaper, often by a lot!
I even buy test equipment from them, since the coupons often make their deals unbeatable.
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I don't like the way Arrow made the site, to confuse
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I had discarded Arrow many years ago due to a flaky commercial service at the time and recurrent stock issues.
After reading this thread I took a fresh look and I'm impressed by their prices and the shipping. At least they have made visible efforts.
Searching for a few random parts (amongst parts I've used in various projects and not *that* exotic), they still seem to have a big proportion of those that are non-stocked compared to Mouser or Digikey...
I will probably consider Arrow again but they still seem to have stock issues.
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I ordered some items on Monday with their free shipping, but they still have not shipped anything. I wonder if the holiday screwed up their warehouse?
I agree with what everyone has been saying. Free shipping is addictive, packaging is excessive, and their parametric search interface is dreadful.
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Has Arrow stopped offering the free shipping deal? I tried to place an order but they seem to be charging shipping.
Have they stopped selling to direct consumers altogether? Because they seem to require a VAT ID as well. :-\
Edit: I added a new address (same as old one) into my account and for some reason I wasn't required to give a VAT ID on that one. And it looks like the free shipping has been removed on some carriers, but not all.
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The home page banner on free shipping is gone, but I searched and selected for a few items, and they all were listed as free overnight shipping. So if for example you go to the 74hc4017 in DIP, and look over to the right where you add it to your cart, there's a link for "+FREE OVERNIGHT SHIPPING - DETAILS". I've reproduced below what it says. But I haven't made a purchase recently, so I don't know if shipping is actually still free or not.
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Free 1-Day Shipping on Arrow.com
Free 1-Day Shipping - No Minimum Order
Add the items you wish to purchase to your cart and overnight shipping is free when you check out. Everything we sell ships free overnight. Discount is automatically applied at checkout. No code needed. It's that simple.
For a limited time only, receive free US ground and international shipping on every order placed on www.arrow.com (http://www.arrow.com). All orders receive free overnight shipping (US domestic orders only) or free priority international shipping (international orders). Free shipping will automatically be applied at checkout and includes select carriers and shipping methods. To have order shipped same day with overnight shipping, orders must be placed before 8pm ET for air shipments. Cut-off time for all ground shipments is 11pm ET. Orders placed after cut-off times, will be shipped on the next business day. Orders containing hazardous materials may not ship same day and may ship on a ground shipping method. Free shipping is available only if customer selects Arrow’s shipping account at checkout. Free overnight shipping does not apply to purchases made on www.arrow.com/MyArrow (http://www.arrow.com/MyArrow) and purchases made on components.arrow.com
Free overnight shipping for all US domestic orders applies to FedEx Standard Overnight. Free domestic ground shipping with $20 threshold for FedEx Ground and USPS First Class. Free priority international shipping for all international orders applies to FedEx International Priority.
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I recently ordered parts from Arrow. This was free shipping. I had no issues with this order, and the pricing is good.
As I noted above, they still have a lot of non-stocked parts, which is annoying.
Another annoying thing I noted upong delivery (which may seem a detail, but worth noting especially for the prototyping phases of your projects) is the following: their labels on bags only mention the part number with no description whatsoever. For passive parts, this is a nightmare when you are hand-sorting them!! :palm:
Another point I noted (and I don't know whether this is usual or not): they tend to use very large bags for small parts. This is a huge waste of volume. The package itself was much larger than it should have been.
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Yes, in my limited experience with Arrow, their packaging is not only bad business, but also an environmental disaster. Well I exaggerate, but I thought Digikey was bad, and Arrow is even worse. Also, all of my orders have been small. I don't see how they can stay in business giving free overnight shipping to customers like me. I'm sure what I pay them doesn't come close to paying their packaging and shipping costs, let alone the cost of the items. But as long as they're willing to do it this way, they have my business.
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Has Arrow stopped offering the free shipping deal? I tried to place an order but they seem to be charging shipping.
Have they stopped selling to direct consumers altogether? Because they seem to require a VAT ID as well. :-\
Edit: I added a new address (same as old one) into my account and for some reason I wasn't required to give a VAT ID on that one. And it looks like the free shipping has been removed on some carriers, but not all.
I did manage to place an order on the 29th. I received an email a couple of days later saying that there is a paypal error, they offered to send the money request again. I thought it was odd because my paypal said that the money is reserved just like it usually is. I just received the money request and it does not match my original order. They've apparently decided to add tax to it. :-//
I don't know what the deal is here but I'm not exactly a happy customer.
Edit: They have apparently partially shipped the order already since I received a package today. I haven't actually paid anything yet, but they need to add VAT. They said they "need to look into getting this paid". I hope I'm not in trouble, cause I'm not going to pay any arbitrary amount they decide to add to the total after the fact. :phew:
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Sorry for the repeated posts, but this is getting ridiculous..
Like I said, they already partially shipped my order before I had paid for it. The partial shipment is valued only at 2.5€, they often divide orders into multiple shipments.
Now they sent me a paypal request for 24,41€. :--
I did ask them to cancel the order, but they said I have to pay for the items already shipped. Which is totally fair. But the items they shipped are only 2.5€, but they keep asking me more than my original checkout sum even was.
I never expected something like this from a supposedly reputable seller.
Edit: Now they are claiming that they shipped the order fully. I've only received 100 capacitors worth €2.50 and nothing else. Has anyone else had something like this happen to them? What was the outcome?
Edit2: Well, it took 10+ emails and a week to handle. They said that there was some error which wasn't taking into account the items cancelled and they thought I had received the full order and not just €2.50 worth. They waived the €2.50 charge in the end. I have to say this was very badly handled on their end.
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Came across this thread while looking to see if there was any strings attached to this shipping deal since it's pretty much guaranteed they're losing money on any purchase under $40-$50 and it seemed a bit too good to be true. I placed an order for some Nichicon and TDK caps along with an alps k27 100k pot around 1pm yesterday and by the evening i received an email that it's been shipped and included a Fedex tracking number for overnight shipping by 10am. So far so good.
As for packaging, its not uncommon for companies to have a few set package sizes which allow for much more efficient palette shipping and so things don't get lost in transit. There's a reason why the USPS flat rate boxes are considerably cheaper to ship than your own smaller packaging. After reading this thread, it will be interesting to see how these items are packaged.
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Has anyone else received a friendly phone call from dk offering support shortly after ordering from arrow?
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Welcome, Andrew. Yep, the free shipping is for real. I'm sure they'd stop if all their orders were too low to support it. It'll be interesting to see if your shipment gets split.
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Looks like they have stopped, at least on small orders. The free shipping had me using Arrow pretty much exclusively lately then I went to order something today and now it says free shipping on orders over $50 with smaller orders having a $12.99 handling fee at which point it's cheaper for me to use DigiKey or Mouser. Seems it was a limited time promotion, oh well it was great while it lasted. Unfortunately it was the only compelling advantage they offered over other suppliers.
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I'm bringing back old topic because today (February, 14, 2020) Arrow has cancelled again free shipping on all orders. But one can still have free shipping on $50+ orders if joining ArrowPerks program (available under My account page). Hope this will help somebody save some bucks :)
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Shoot, they had it again? Wish I'd known. Unfortunately the free shipping promotion is the only time that Arrow is competitive, at least for the sort of small orders I place.
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(A bit OT but...)
I have used DigiKey a few times over the years and they ship fast and accept PayPal or stright CreditCard payment but it is very much annoying that DK cannot handle VAT payment when placing the order. As a resident in Sweden, UPS collects the VAT just prior to delivery which is cumbersome to say the least. How does this compare to other distributors that sells and delivers to end (private) customers within the EU?
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Mouser handles VAT payments in advance. The one reason I use them above Digikey (unless they have something particular that I need). I have found that Mouser usually has fewer "questions" on what the parts will be used for.
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Mouser handles VAT payments in advance. The one reason I use them above Digikey (unless they have something particular that I need). I have found that Mouser usually has fewer "questions" on what the parts will be used for.
Same here. Tired of the third degree from Digikey, and for some reason they wouldn't take American Express at the time on .au site but would on their domestic site. Now they're just too hard unless the only option.