Mouser Decline?

[phil from seattle]

I've been a steady customer of Mouser for almost 20 years. They have always given me excellent service and fast shipping (<24 hrs from order, often same day). And, their parametric search has been the gold standard for me.

Lately I have seen a real decline in their service. They made some changes to their web site and parametric searches seem to be flakey/unreliable.  Clicking on a major category link often gets me "no results".  Huh, you don't have any linear regulators??? Just now I tried Products/Semiconductors/Integrated Circuits - ICs and got a "403 Access Denied". This has been going on for at least a month now.

The recent storm in Texas has really pushed them over the edge. They notified me that they shipped an order but FedEx didn't pick up until 2 days later.  OK, I get that FexEd was whacked by the great Texas snowstorm but when I got the package, it was not my order.  Some guy in Germany didn't get a couple of Seeed Studio displays and my 25 Magjacks were no where to be seen. Hope he can do something with my Magjacks. You can't blame that on the delivery company - it had the correct packing list.  So what started out a 4 day delivery turned into 9 or 10. And I'm now about to be out of Magjacks for my product (I sell them as part of an upgrade kit). I will be stocking larger numbers of parts just to avoid this in the future - probably to create a 30 day buffer. I have been targeting a week, not a good idea in hindsight.

They said they are making my order right but this leads me to wonder what has happened to cause Mouser to slip so badly. I'll give them another chance but will also consider my options. I will probably order more from Digikey and LCSC and not rely so much on Mouser.   

[JohnnyMalaria]

I'm not experiencing any problems. I placed an order on 14th Feb and expected delays. It arrived yesterday following a number of emails explaining the delays and the free shipping upgrade I always manage to get.

[wilhe_jo]

Well, my last order took them 5 or 6 days at their warehouse...

Their local office did nor reply to my emails... so maybe you're right.

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[Simon]

I had a delay in an order but got it OK, you sound like the unlucky one where someone just slipped up in packing. Beleive it or not I am happier getting stuff from mouser than either RS or Farnell in the UK. RS is a 40 minute drive from me!!!

RS don't allow me to filter out what is not in stock and to trawl through 100 listings of the same passive part trying to find the 10 that they have stock of is not a good use of my employers money. Farnell on the other hand will allow you to filter out what is not in stock but the data is 2 hours old so the first you know about it is after you have placed the order. To cancel items will be a nightmare with accounts as I need to get someone to amend the order having contacted Farnell. For a few quid's worth of parts this is again not worth my employers money as I already have the workload of 2 people. Farnell are also very prone to errors in their listings which means that the parametric search results need investigating thoroughly before I use the part - by which time remaining stock could have been sold.

Mouser on the other hand always have plenty of stock. I have never had an issue with something not being available after I ordered based on available stock. their search is indeed good although lately a bit slow and whatever they are using for it there is no clue that they are "working on it" the page just does nothing until the results update which with the delay can cause issues as I may try to select the same thing again and mess it up. But overall I am happy with them and often tell my boss that it is easier to get parts from Texas USA than it is Corby or Leeds UK. Their prices are also generally good.

[Kean]

My last two Mouser orders have taken a week to pack and ship, compared to them normally shipping my orders the same or next day up till as recently as a month ago.  I am sure that there are real issues going on that are causing this (peak demand because of CNY, COVID safety, bad weather).

I've not seen any web site issues, but certainly IT staff working remotely will be slower to respond to issues, and staffing a busy warehouse must be a nightmare right now even when a lot of the processing is largely automated.

I haven't ordered from Digikey recently, but I saw mention that they are also are having shipping delays.  Their website currently says "Your order may take 1-3 days to ship due to peak order volumes combined with ensuring the health and safety of team members due to COVID-19."

Local shipments from RS & Element14 here in Australia have not really been affected, but stuff they have to bring from O/S has been taking a few days longer than normal.

[wilhe_jo]

I had a delay in an order but got it OK, you sound like the unlucky one where someone just slipped up in packing. Beleive it or not I am happier getting stuff from mouser than either RS or Farnell in the UK. RS is a 40 minute drive from me!!!

From my experience, the "quality" of a distributor is very much dependent on your own location.

Just as an example: I'm located pretty close to an airport from which fedex and dhl operate.
Hence, every distributor using dhl or fedex is quicker in delivery if they need to fly things in.
Fedex does not have any drop-off/pick-up locations in the city where I live - DHL does.

So the service that I receive is better from the once using DHL even though this has nothing to do with the distributor itself.

I very seldom use Mouser, since I have to wait pretty long to receive the stuff.
Digikey also has long delivery-times for me, but they seem to directly get my stuff to Europe whereas with Mouser it takes some hops within the US.
So again, this may be very much unique to my location within Europe.

RS-Components got "bad" since they have a lot of stuff in the UK which now is a problem for me (I'm in the EU).
However, RS-Components marks the stuff accordingly. If they claim it gets to you over night, it will!

My last order from Mouser had every component available for immediate delivery.
But the orders' status was "in warehouse" for ages! That's not a nice thing...
There was one item which was maybe very slow-turning for them.
Maybe that one was the issue... but it would have been nice from them if they would flag this!

Anyhow, in the last year I moved almost completely to TME... works very nicely for me.

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[olkipukki]

Mouser - exactly 2 weeks since one of order has placed and about to be delivered today, orders placed a week ago - will delivery (hopefully) later this week. 

P.S.
DK is backed to a normal days

[MadScientist]

I normally use DK , but gave mouser an order two weeks ago. Took 6 working days to get to me , not on a par with DK.

I still don’t understand why they don’t have a warehouse in Europe. Shipping small parcels from TX doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.

[HB9EVI]

I use to place one order per month at Mouser, and except for the last one beginning of February, where the shipping was delayed, likely due to the weather related problems, I always received the parcel within time (2 to maximally 3 days)

also parametric search never caused me any pain so far; much better than other suppliers

[JohnnyMalaria]

I normally use DK , but gave mouser an order two weeks ago. Took 6 working days to get to me , not on a par with DK.

I still don’t understand why they don’t have a warehouse in Europe. Shipping small parcels from TX doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.

So you placed the order in a middle of a major weather event that crippled the distribution system?

[phil from seattle]

Weather delays are understandable.  I can't fault them for that. However, slow fulfillment (aka - sitting in the warehouse) is a symptom of something else.

On the web site and search.  I just tested the simplest of actions - from the front page, mouse down the product list to Semiconductors to get the "Types of Semiconductors" panel and select "Integrate Circuits - ICs". I get "No Results".  Other items on the panel get results to select from. This tends to change over time.  I randomly get "No Results" from things that have worked.  Also, I've noticed that Sorting by clicking on column headers in a search results table does weird things.  Sorting by price doesn't always work (should toggle between highest to lowest and lowest to highest). It sometimes gets stuck in "random" (my name for it). Sometimes it works fine.  Feels like they fired all their experienced web developers and replaced them with interns.

[Simon]

I had a delay in an order but got it OK, you sound like the unlucky one where someone just slipped up in packing. Beleive it or not I am happier getting stuff from mouser than either RS or Farnell in the UK. RS is a 40 minute drive from me!!!

From my experience, the "quality" of a distributor is very much dependent on your own location.

not really, for me personally from wanting to order to receiving a supplier 1'000's of miles away is easier to deal with than one that is 20 miles away despite the new customs issues in the UK. I am including the quality of the site (parametric search), the ability to have stock and to be up to date with it on the site so that I don't have to constantly cancel and repeat orders.

Yes RS and farnell are that bad for my particular use case that a foreign supplier the other side of the Atlantic ocean is my go to.

[thm_w]

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/something-is-very-wrong-with-mouser/

[Mangozac]

Digikey is by far the king of the parametric search. Being able to set the quantity break for pricing and then sort by availability is the most useful tool when looking for new parts to spec into a design.

In general I've found Mouser to have better pricing than Digikey and they have always been same day dispatch until lately. We too are experiencing long warehouse delays with Mouser but it feels like this started before the extreme weather event in Texas. I just checked and I was incorrect. The delays we've been experiencing from Mouser seem to be directly linked to the weather event, so they're certainly understandable.

[Simon]

Yes the digikey searh is second to none although they are more expensive but they have more stock and different parts..... you get what you pay for....

[Rat_Patrol]

I order multiple times weekly forever, haven't had any issues.

The weather the last few weeks was a one-per-century event. UPS/FedEx literally shut off logistics to/from TX and surrounding areas for over 3 days. The backlog was insane.

Then there were the rolling blackouts. Many people didn't/couldn't get to work (at Mouser), and since they couldn't ship and/or may not have power reliably, I'm sure Mouser shut down. When I called CS to get an order status update (just an estimate for when they would be opening again), she told me that all office personnel were working from home, but less than half of them had power/internet at any given time.

Quit frankly, those folks down there had more pressing things to worry about than getting our orders out. I'm sure they also had temps working as well, which doesn't help with reliability.

I've ordered before, during and since the extreme weather in Texas from Mouser, and IMHO, they have always done a good job. If there was ever an event when they couldn't ship same day, they upgraded my shipping to NDA at no charge to me.

I'm a happy customer.

[jrs45]

I've had several orders delayed by a week already, and they still haven't shipped. It's extremely worrisome.

Of course, they still claim "same day shipping" on their website during the order process, which just pisses me off.  If they have serious problems, they should at least be honest about it, and not surprise us with leadtimes AFTER the order is made.

Ridiculous!

[NorthGuy]

I placed an order on Feb 11. Mouser said they shipped on Feb 22 because of the wheather. FedEx received it on Feb 24. I'm still waiting. Usually, it takes 1-2 days.

I haven't noticed the parametric search problems. To the contrary, my impression is that Mouser is constantly improving. They also have more and more things in stock. There were few times they had something in stock while DigiKey didn't. Five years ago I only used DigiKey. Now I use both DigiKey and Mouser somewhat equally.

[phil from seattle]

Got an indirect error on Mouser last night.  Sigh.  Maybe they just don't like me!

For what it's worth,  I placed a Digikey order on 2/27 @ 12:07 PM and today 3/3 @ 11:30 AM it is still listed as submitted.  Everything is listed as in stock. So, maybe they are all screwing up.

edit: 3/4 @ 2PM, order status is still submitted.  4 working days just sitting there.

[jrs45]

Had another order delayed by 5 days, and they told me a day after placed the order.  They are still claiming "same day" shipping online.  I'm getting pretty irritated now.

[phil from seattle]

Got an indirect error on Mouser last night.  Sigh.  Maybe they just don't like me!

For what it's worth,  I placed a Digikey order on 2/27 @ 12:07 PM and today 3/3 @ 11:30 AM it is still listed as submitted.  Everything is listed as in stock. So, maybe they are all screwing up.

edit: 3/4 @ 2PM, order status is still submitted.  4 working days just sitting there.

Well finally!  My Digikey order was processed today.  Got paypal notice at 10 AM, 3/6.  A couple hours short of 8 full days after placing the order. I have 2 day delivery with this order (same as with Mouser) so earliest I can get it is Monday - 10 days from placing the order.  MIght show up on Tuesday though.  We'll see. At leas they didn't charge me until they actually filled the order.

FWIW Mouser, even with the extra ship time to deliver the correct package, delivered in less time than with a single ship Digikey order. As long as Mouser can ship me the right package, I'll stick with them.

And as long as I'm here.  Mouser's web site is still pretty flakey for me. I've run into a number of broken links to the datasheets.

[Kean]

It will very likely depend on the items on your order.  Different warehouse staff & training required for dealing with small components, and I'd prefer someone who has that training to pick my order.  Otherwise you can receive a packet of panel lamps instead of SMD resistors, and crazy things like that.  I won't name the company who did that to me - twice!.

My most recent Mouser order on Tuesday 24 Feb shipped on Tuesday 3 Mar, arriving in Australia on Friday, but it had 25 lines of cut tape parts and some loose THT components.  The previous Mouser order on 11 Feb also had 8 lines of loose SMD & THT components, and took 8 days to ship.

My most recent DigiKey was placed on Wednesday evening Sydney time and shipped out within 12 hours - but it had no SMD components or anything that would need special picking or repacking.

[phil from seattle]

The digikey order had 2 items: one cut tape and 40 ethernet Magjacks.  The mouser order had 8 items, mostly cut tape and 25 Magjacks.

[PartialDischarge]

Mouser's web site is still pretty flakey for me. I've run into a number of broken links to the datasheets.

That is true, I find myself many times looking up the datasheet on Digikey and buying from Mouser.   

[wilhe_jo]

ufff, another "slow" one...

I orderd on 5th and just got a dispatch notice (5 days later!).
Expected arrival is on 16th....


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