Author Topic: Avnet have purchased Element14 (Read 6119 times)

Gavin Melville · « **on:** March 04, 2019, 05:41:42 am »

Well that’s one less supplier....

stj · « **Reply #1 on:** March 04, 2019, 06:01:39 am »

how does that effect Farnell ??

Spragnut · « **Reply #2 on:** March 04, 2019, 06:28:03 am »

The first step of the acquisition happened in late 2016, if you've ordered from Farnell in the last few years I'm afraid you've already technically purchased from the new "Farnell owned by Avnet".

The website change happened last week, I place orders with them daily and haven't seen any change to the support or our sales contract since the merger. Although staff have been moved around as we are currently without an account manager and they changed our direct support contact, not that they are key to our purchasing, the contract takes care of that.

Our account manager mentioned a while ago that they were trying to support the smaller OEM's more as this is a quickly growing section of the industry.

Time will tell if this will change of course, we did have a couple of orders which had missed dispatch on the day of placing the order, I was told the cause was they have had a significant growth and the warehouse staff were unable to fulfil all orders. Sounds to me like they aren't doing too bad.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed the merger increases their stock holding and they ultimately keep their UK distribution.

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JPortici · « **Reply #3 on:** March 04, 2019, 10:11:03 am »

was about to post this as well.
whaaaat? i didn't hear anything about it last week at EW

edit: no, i didn't know (or remember) it started back in 2016

stj · « **Reply #4 on:** March 04, 2019, 04:09:51 pm »

well i hope it works well, because if not - it will take out CPC too!!!!
it's dangerous how so many company's are connected these days.

jmelson · « **Reply #5 on:** March 04, 2019, 08:30:58 pm »

Quote from: Gavin Melville on March 04, 2019, 05:41:42 am

Well that’s one less supplier....

OH, NOOOOooooo! While Digi-Key is my main go-to dist. I did use Newark (Element 14) for certain items where they had better stock or were cheaper. IR components, for instance.

But, Avnet is just about HORRIBLE. I just had an issue where they sold a part, then notified me it had 6 week lead time. I kept watching online, and suddenly it went to 20+ weeks. I tried calling them, but could not get through. Every time I called, from several lines and cell phones, they would just hang up after 0-2 rings.
So, I ordered the part from Mouser at a higher price. The NEXT DAY, Avnet emails to say the parts are shipped.

If I order at Digi-Key, Mouser or others, in general the parts shipped THAT day. If I order from Avnet, it is surprising if the parts ship the same WEEK!

So, this is really NOT good news. Maybe the Newark crew can show them how a distributor should operate. But, I fear the worst.

Jon

Kjelt · « **Reply #6 on:** March 04, 2019, 09:01:19 pm »

I hope it does not have any influence on their stock and delivery times.

Cnoob · « **Reply #7 on:** March 04, 2019, 10:20:34 pm »

I ordered from Farnell on Friday and it arrived today as I expected it would.

bd139 · « **Reply #8 on:** March 04, 2019, 10:34:25 pm »

Quote from: stj on March 04, 2019, 06:01:39 am

how does that effect Farnell ??

Lots of green apparently.

Kjelt · « **Reply #9 on:** March 05, 2019, 08:02:03 am »

Former colleague received email that nothing would change for them....... uhuh ...

Jeroen3 · « **Reply #10 on:** March 05, 2019, 09:05:11 am »

So, this happened in 2016.

Quote from: stj on March 04, 2019, 06:01:39 am

how does that effect Farnell ??

Green, no blue and orange.

electromotive · « **Reply #11 on:** March 05, 2019, 05:27:38 pm »

There was a rumor floating around a while back that Element 14 wasn't in great financial health. It seems to me that Ben Heck *sort of* alluded to such with the wrap up of his show. Could be nonsense, could be truth in it. It's hard to say.

Claudiovpm · « **Reply #12 on:** March 05, 2019, 08:32:35 pm »

Jeroen3 · « **Reply #13 on:** March 06, 2019, 07:35:49 am »

Quote from: electromotive on March 05, 2019, 05:27:38 pm

There was a rumor floating around a while back that Element 14 wasn't in great financial health. It seems to me that Ben Heck *sort of* alluded to such with the wrap up of his show. Could be nonsense, could be truth in it. It's hard to say.

Don't they publish their results?
https://www.premierfarnell.com/content/final-results-1
https://www.premierfarnell.com/content/final-results-2
https://www.premierfarnell.com/content/final-results-3
https://www.premierfarnell.com/content/final-results-4

SteveyG · « **Reply #14 on:** March 06, 2019, 07:36:36 am »

As stated, this is just an official FOH change now. Avnet have been running the show for years, I doubt there will be any significant changes.

I did notice the change removed the minimum order value for free postage for account customers though. It always used to be free postage no matter what value, then they tried a £20 min value, dropped to £10 and now it's back to £0. My discount seems unaffected.

Howardlong · « **Reply #15 on:** March 06, 2019, 10:43:01 am »

I have noticed in recent months that anecdotally they're not doing so well at delivering next day in the UK. Whether this is due to the Avnet migration or not I don't know, but it's sometimes a bit frustrating, and as a result I have started to use RSWWW more often for time critical items.

Spragnut · « **Reply #16 on:** March 06, 2019, 10:53:51 am »

I spoke to our account admin about the delays, current solution is to place orders as early as possible, not that that is a real world fix! They have said it's warehouse bottlenecks causing it, caused by being exceptionally busy, I wonder if they have taken on some of Avnets logistics.

On the subject on contracts/discounts ours has remained the same, only worrying thing is we haven't seen or heard from an account manager for a while so I'm thinking there may be a contract shakeup!

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Berni · « **Reply #17 on:** March 06, 2019, 01:11:29 pm »

Just before the website change at the trade show "Embedded World 2019" in Germany they had already gotten rid of the Farnell/Element14 branding. They had a big ass green colored Avnet booth. Only thing left of Farnell was a small half meter sized sign with there logo in the corner of the booth. The only purpose of the sign was to let people know that this is what Farnell is now.

But in terms of ordering stuff nothing has changed. If anything things have changed for the better because suddenly Avnet stock was showing up in the search results and could be bought in the same way as Farnell stock. This suddenly meant that they had way more stuff in stock, so i had less need to go to Digikey, Mouser... etc to get stuff i couldn't get there.

The place i work at has a contract with Farnell for cheaper prices and free overnight shipping, so we tend to only buy somewhere else if Farnell doesn't have it.

fourtytwo42 · « **Reply #18 on:** March 06, 2019, 01:41:43 pm »

Quote from: SteveyG on March 06, 2019, 07:36:36 am

I did notice the change removed the minimum order value for free postage for account customers though. It always used to be free postage no matter what value, then they tried a £20 min value, dropped to £10 and now it's back to £0. My discount seems unaffected.

Ohh that's interesting, I switched to RS years ago when Farnell decided to get unfriendly!
Time for another look perhaps as I hate the high MOQ's at RS and and particularly that you cannot include them as a search criteria.

Ahh not quite, just got this off there website
Order Value   Delivery & Handling Cost
£20 and above (Exc. VAT) - Online orders   FREE
£0 - £19.99 (Exc. VAT) - Online orders   £3.95 FREE - Trade account holders only
£0 - £19.99 (Exc. VAT) - Online orders   £3.95 - Non-Trade account holders
£0 - £29.99 (Exc. VAT) - Offline orders   £6.95

tggzzz · « **Reply #19 on:** March 06, 2019, 02:26:03 pm »

Quote from: jmelson on March 04, 2019, 08:30:58 pm

But, Avnet is just about HORRIBLE. I just had an issue where they sold a part, then notified me it had 6 week lead time. I kept watching online, and suddenly it went to 20+ weeks. I tried calling them, but could not get through.

Interesting.

I had exactly that experience with my (one and only) order with Avnet Express.

I eventually managed to cancel the offending item using their webchat facility.

tggzzz · « **Reply #20 on:** March 06, 2019, 02:32:37 pm »

Quote from: stj on March 04, 2019, 04:09:51 pm

it's dangerous how so many company's are connected these days.

One example of that is Vishay. In the good old days they used to be the go-to place for high precision resistors and capacitors - because that was their USP.

Now they seem to have swept up many manufacturers and placed them under the Vishay brand, so they no longer offer only high quality components.

Unfortunately they haven't managed to collect all their sub-brand's/range's components into their search engine, so it is the devil to find the components with the specs you need. Instead you have to search all of their sub-brands/ranges separately

tggzzz · « **Reply #21 on:** March 06, 2019, 02:57:40 pm »

Well, ~~Farnell~~ Avnet are already treating their customers like idiots, with the usual corporate drivel...

If you look at https://uk.farnell.com/an-avnet-company you will find there is are two sections "How is this going to benefit me as Farnell element14 customer?" followed by "So what is changing?". The latter is that Avnet have taken over Farnell. The former is, in its entirety,

Quote

How is this going to benefit me as Farnell element14 customer?
You will continue to benefit from:

The same high standard customer service
Always increasing range of over 900,000 products on offer
Access to over 3500 leading manufacturers
Same day despatch
Free technical support
Same great functionalities of the online store, with a brand new look and logo

Summary: there is no new benefit to customers; all the benefits were already in place.

bd139 · « **Reply #22 on:** March 06, 2019, 02:59:08 pm »

Less orange is a benefit.

Hopefully they will fix the broken mess that is the farnell web front end. That would be a good benefit.

tggzzz · « **Reply #23 on:** March 06, 2019, 03:07:02 pm »

Quote from: bd139 on March 06, 2019, 02:59:08 pm

Less orange is a benefit.

Hopefully they will fix the broken mess that is the farnell web front end. That would be a good benefit.

Fat chance.

In order to use their "min/max" filter, I have to set my browser to allow popups. Ugh.

bd139 · « **Reply #24 on:** March 06, 2019, 03:15:49 pm »

Indeed. You think they'd have some sort of UI testing or something with that sort of cash going through...


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Author Topic: Avnet have purchased Element14 (Read 6119 times)

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