Mouser is a disaster these days. Can't recommend - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Cyclotron
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 19, 2025, 07:52:06 pm
content: I placed an order last Wednesday at 4pm CST, hours before cutoff. I selected 2nd day air. The order went through but they didn't ship till the next day. They would typlicaly uplift to next day air for such but didn't. I lost some business that weekend as I thought for sure I'd have the parts in plenty of time.I called and was told they are sorry and that my order didn't make the shipping cutoff for the day I ordered. I said, yes, I got that notice but why wasn't it upgraded to NextDay air the next day when it shipped. They said they didn''t know and would only be able to refund my money on shipping.I sighed, its a done deal and said ok. 12 dollar refund.Again, yesterday I placed an order for 3 surface-mount parts 30 minutes before their website said shipping cutoff was for new orders.Again, it didn't make it, and again, they didn't uplift it to the next day.So I called, and the service person told me it was just too close to cut off, and there's nothing they could do as it had left. I mentioned that I know it hasn't left, as their UPS hasn't been picked up yet, and she said there's still nothing she could do. I asked for a refund, and she said she might be able to see if that could be approved.I asked for a manager, she put me on hold for a minute and told me that no one is available and took my number. When I asked for her name, she said, "I'm not telling you that, I don't have to tell you anything," which caught me off guard.So I guess I'm not buying from Mouser anymore.

author: Cyclotron
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 19, 2025, 08:11:34 pm
content: Update, I called back and asked for a manager. The person that answered didn't seem to be the same person but was really interested in not letting me speak with a manager. I insisted and gave my name. She wanted an order and I asked would that be needed to talk to a manager.Anyway, a manager got on the phone and was very pleasant. She was surprised by how I was treated with the amount of money I spend there.I was told that the "automatic" uplift to Next Day services isn't 100% and it depends on where the fault lies in meeting the deadline.Both of my orders should have been fine given their website's cutoff for orders and she was very happy to refund my shipping costs.She said she'd be looking into my experience with both of the previous calls and I can only assume that will go better for the next customer.I'm a bit stung right now and probably will just order from Digikey for now. As I tell my friends, I can get 100 "At-a-boys" from my wife and wipe them out with one "oh shit" moment. That's how I feel with customer service disasters like I feel this was. A simple chat and refund, that was all I needed to get moving and put salve on my disappointment for the delays.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2025, 08:46:05 pm
content: Our most recent experience with Mouser wasn't great either. We were told parts would ship on the 12th from backorder. Come to 19th (today), no info, no parts. Website now shows 1st Sept for backordered parts. A little communication wouldn't go amiss. We queried and were told it was best effort, supplier issues blah blah. Fair enough but... maybe send us an email if so?

author: David Aurora
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 01:20:41 am
content: Same deal here. Mouser has been my preferred supplier for a few years but lately I've had to switch to Digikey as Mouser's shipping time is way too slow and unpredictable (which is kind of a bigger issue than the speed).I'm in Australia so in the past as long as I order before Friday night our time I've got parts Monday, Tuesday morning at the latest. Lately though I can even place an order on a Thursday and not see it even ship until early the next week.

author: Alphatronique
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 01:31:58 am
content: i may add my 2cent , on a last week production customer ordered 78L05 on a partial reel ,after assembly on first power-up the magic-smokeafter investigation and checking device marking i find that actually mouser put on the reel 78L12 ! but label reel as 78L05 ,whole prod have need rework

author: 44kgk1lkf6u
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 01:59:15 am
content: In my experience Digikey is even worse. It sometimes seems to take forever to process an order. 2 weekdays after placing the order it did not ship. I had to cancel the order and order again.Farnell has a similar problem. An order once took a week to process before I remembered about it. They also tend to say that a part has a do not sell restriction so they have to remove it from the order. That delays the order until I respond to the email. Twice I asked what the do not sell restriction was and how to find what parts have it before placing the order in the same email where I said to send the rest of the order. Both times they only seemed to see the line that said to send the rest of the order.I order from Mouser more often. But all the orders have shipped. I have gotten wrong parts. They refunded the cost of the wrong parts. All other parts came to me.

author: Cyclotron
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 02:45:45 am
content: Quote from: Alphatronique on August 20, 2025, 01:31:58 amWell, that puts my issues into perspective. That's bananas right there. I'm mean,that's a "reel" disaster.

author: Cyclotron
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 02:49:08 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on August 19, 2025, 08:46:05 pmCommunications!! The two issues I had were not driving off the bridge bad, but pot hole issues. A friendly chat on the phone, a refund, set my expectations that they don't do uplifts to Next Day or when I should/shouldn't expect it. That's all. All in communications and setting expectations.The clock timer at Mouser now just "ticks" me off. I can't help the puns.

author: chilternview
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 09:41:46 am
content: I've had no problems with Mouser. I orderd some Traco DC-DC converters this Monday about 1pm UK time, they were delivered to my door this morning before 9am. I also use RS for stuff I need the next day, but their range is nowhere near enough for most projects.

author: TinLethax
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 10:15:05 am
content: Quote from: 44kgk1lkf6u on August 20, 2025, 01:59:15 amMine withFarnellElement14 took about 2 weeks before they finally process my order. And this happened with every order no matter how large or small (No backordering part btw).

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 10:18:18 am
content: Works fine with me. All shipping issues described seems typical for component distributors (or web franchises in general), to be honest..I bet all of them are running with the minimal required staffing to keep them busy throughout the day, but cannot keep up with the presumed peak of orders right near closing time.For Mouser/Digikey specifically however, I don't use them for urgent stuff since shipping out from US takes a few business days anyhow.

author: JimboJack
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 10:22:42 am
content: part orderd in Feb/March said backorderd be available in June, end of june time the vendor decides to double the price from $150 to $300 , so they change the part no, says it new, it the same part, mouser says we can issue the part give you the new part number at double the price. that was a CPLD device

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 10:27:20 am
content: Quote from: Cyclotron on August 20, 2025, 02:45:45 amMistakes happen. Imagine: I got completely wrongly market partsfrom manufacturer; they (CUI Devices) had polluted thewhole supply chain: same wrong parts came from Digikey, Mouser, some Chinese distributor our CM was using, and probably all others. All labeling and packaging was consistent: just wrong part on the reels. And contacting them, getting them to agree theyindeedhave polluted the whole supply chain, and having them to ship correct parts to the CM, took manyweeks. Guess who is never going to design in anything from CUI devicesOther than that, IMHO Mouser and Digikey are roughly the same, both have random shipping delays every now and then. I guess you can't trust anyone on quick service to any significant %. Maybe 80-90%, which is not a lot. If the parts are of low value (compared to your calendar time), which is almost always the case, just place orders on both DK and Mouser at the same time. Having extra parts rarely hurts.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 12:54:41 pm
content: Never trust the label on the box!Something worse happened to me: not a voltage regulator, but a reset circuit.They put in a seemingly identical component, almost pin-to-pin compatible, but unfortunately the output and power pins are reversed.The result? The SBC never booted, and we couldn't figure out why... then... with a thermal imaging camera, I discovered that the chip was overheating. Once I removed the chip, the board started working ...d'oh ...

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 01:27:09 pm
content: I've had a better experience lately with Digikey than Mouser.I've actually found Arrow to be better than these two, but there's one annoying thing with Arrow: they don't label the parts with their values but just with a MPN/code, which is kinda annoying for passive components, at least for prototyping.

author: BeBuLamar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 03:02:53 pm
content: I didn't have problem with Mouser perhaps because I buy from Mouser stuff for my personal uses and I went for the lowest shipping cost and didn't care when I got them. For time sensitive at work I don't think we order from Mouser. We use RS-Online and Digi-Key.

author: Alphatronique
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 04:46:14 pm
content: i got in the past similar error whit Digi-Key, but it was evident like 1206 resistor instead of a SOT-23 transistorbut that first time it same package and similar marking 8K instead of 8C ,hopefully customer smoke only 2 board

author: EPAIII
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 08:16:16 pm
content: Just a few minutes ago I wanted to check on some parts so I went to Mouser, my first to go place. I was met with a screen that wanted to "qualify me" and that insisted that I allow cookies and scripts. I went to DigiKey.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 08:23:52 pm
content: Quote from: EPAIII on August 20, 2025, 08:16:16 pmFive minutes after you posted, I went to Mouser to search a component, without logging in to my account, and did not encounter any such “qualify” screen, or demand to allow cookies.

author: Stray Electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 09:24:44 pm
content: Quote from: Cyclotron on August 19, 2025, 07:52:06 pmI've encountered a lot of situations like that from "Tech Support" people. Most of them clearly don't know what they're talking about and are only following an automated script and when you ask for a supervisor, none is ever available. I do believe that most telephone tech support has been outsourced to thelowest biddercall centers and that the call centers and the people answering the calls, have absolutelynoconnection to the company that they're handling calls for.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 11:06:40 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on August 20, 2025, 01:27:09 pmBut that horrible, horrible website of theirs (Arrow). I can't deal with that at all.Unless they've fixed it since I last ordered from them? (Back around Jan. or so this year.)

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 11:10:03 pm
content: The website is not particularly good nor bad. Having had to deal with LCSC quite a bit, I can tell you that Arrow's website is not so bad after all.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 11:17:50 pm
content: Quote from: EPAIII on August 20, 2025, 08:16:16 pmIronic as digikey has had tons of anti-bot qualifying popups for the past few yearshttps://forum.digikey.com/t/digikey-website-says-im-a-robot/32995/19Not really sure why you'd care about non-external cookies on a trusted site but alright, looks like the cart is stored server side so I guess they aren't needed.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2025, 11:27:26 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on August 20, 2025, 11:10:03 pmThen they must have fixed it up somewhat, because when I was ordering from them (new customer, found out about them here), the website was just plain broken.Sometimes the whole site would go inexplicably offline for a couple of hours.You'd put a bunch of stuff in your shopping cart, then when you went to look at it, it just went Poof! and disappeared.Their searches were horrible. No parametric searches like DigiKey. All items haphazardly labeled and described so it's almost impossible to findallthe 12.6 volt center-tapped transformers without using about 15 different search terms.Stuff like that.No excuse for that at this late stage of the game ...

author: Cyclotron
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 21, 2025, 02:06:09 am
content: Quote from: TimFox on August 20, 2025, 08:23:52 pmIt looks like Mouser uses Akamai Bot Defense and Data Dome. Neither is an effective bot defense, and both have problems with any browser or customer that has configured even the most basic security protections on their browsers.Digikey uses Sift and PerimeterX, which are less prone to randomly identifying customers as bots, but also ineffective in defending against the modern bot.I'm appalled at the lack of modern security on these sites.Based on my brief analysis of these sites, Mouser is trying to secure itself against bots, but, in my opinion, they have not chosen wisely. Digikey appears to be more interested in tracking, ADs, and analytics than security.I would not be surprised by either site randomly creating friction to user access. Someone needs to talk to their IT/Info Sec departments.

author: EPAIII
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 21, 2025, 03:52:16 am
content: Sadly, you are probably right.Quote from: Stray Electron on August 20, 2025, 09:24:44 pm

author: EPAIII
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 21, 2025, 04:53:08 am
content: I don't know if it was coincidence or what, but I also tried a search on the MSC web site (big supplier for machining tools and equipment) for a pilot for reverse spot facing tool in order to answer a question on another board. Don't worry if you don't know what that is, that's not important here. I used several combinations of search terms but was never able to get anything short of hundreds of returns or none at all. The authors of the web site were obviously both trying to push as many items to your screen as they could and also ignorant of the tools being sold by their company. MSC has a really big catalog which is literally 4 or 5 inches thick with thousands of pages. That catalog is far better organized than their web site so the problem is not with the company, but with the IS department there which is responsible for the web site. I have a copy of that catalog and I found what I was looking for by getting a page reference from a related item that I was able to find, clicking on a link to the on-line catalog page, and seeing the page number there. Then I opened the paper and ink catalog and on the next page I almost instantly found the item I was looking for.It seems to me that MSC has two or perhaps three different divisions who publish the paper/ink catalog, make that catalog available on-line, and create the on-line sales site. The first two of them do a very good job and the third is very lacking.As I was leaving their site an invitation to take a survey with a chance of winning a $500 prize so I did. The survey was short, about 5 or 6 questions.Now, here's the kicker; about 5 or 10 minutes after I finished that survey I got a phone call from a lady at MSC. She also asked me a few questions about my use of their site. Now understand, I have a chip on my shoulder as regards IS/computer programmers in general. For the last 2 or 3 years of my working career I was the lead engineer in a project, not web related, which required working with the my company's head programmer. And he most certainly had his own ideas as to how the software for that project should be written. Those ideas added a great amount of complexity and his insistence on following "his way or the highway" literally added an extra 12 months or more to the duration of the project. Since he was in a different department I could not order him or fire him; I just had to work along with him in order to complete the project. So, I have a BIG chip on my shoulder for IS programmers.OK, back to that phone call. That lady was not IS so we had a pleasant conversation. After I answered her questions she asked if there was anything I could add. My suggestion to her was that the department that was responsible for developing and maintaining that sales site on the web should be headed, not by a computer person, but by a machinist because they were selling supplies to machinists, not to computer people. She was somewhat surprised by that and we discussed it for a few minutes. I explained that there were some very good sales sites on the web and named two that they could look at (DigiKey and McMaster Carr). I told her that it was completely obvious to me that the people who were creating that web site were not familiar with the tooling they were trying to sell. That meant that the choices of search parameters, of search categories was not only a hindrance to the customer finding what they wanted, but also not even consistent among like or similar items.And therein lies my observation of the problem with far too many sales sites on the internet and of the perfectly obvious solution for it. Mouser has been my first, go-to site for electronic parts. I fear that I will have to change that as I doubt that they are going to even consider any suggestions from outside the company.

author: watchmaker
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 22, 2025, 12:00:56 pm
content: I worked phone sales for Crutchfield in the 1980s while in grad school. Two rows of cubicles with a phone and Blue Book installation guide.When a caller wanted a manager, we would mute the phone and call out, "Who wants to play manager".Just like the old New Yorker cartoon where two dogs are in front of a computer screen and one sez "On the Internet, no one knows you are a dog".

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 22, 2025, 12:46:54 pm
content: Quote from: EPAIII on August 21, 2025, 04:53:08 amI can't remember the last time I ordered from MSC. McMaster-Carr has maybe the best website I've ever used, and it's FAST. And it's like that because they have developers that work really hard to make it very good, and relevant and fast.Anyone who hasn't seen the site, just go out there and click around. You'll suddenly remember that once upon time websites were lightweight and simple.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 22, 2025, 12:53:19 pm
content: Quote from: 44kgk1lkf6u on August 20, 2025, 01:59:15 amI’ve had far fewer delays with Digikey. When a delay happens with either Mouser or Digikey, more often than not it’s been an export compliance issue, like a part missing an ECCN code, without which they can’t ship it abroad. (So they have to hold the order until their compliance department locates and assigns the right code to the product.)But when it comes to just random delays, I have found that Mouser has more of those than Digikey.There was a short while some months ago when Digikey was slower than usual because they were moving inventory to their newly-built warehouse expansion.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 22, 2025, 12:59:55 pm
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on August 22, 2025, 12:46:54 pmIt’s like a breath of fresh air.It is shocking and disheartening to me how modern web designers have reduced site performance to something that feels worse than dial-up 25 years ago, and with information density so low that I can’t fit a few columns of parameters onto a window spanned across the width of two 4K displays. That’s just grotesque. Huge fonts and swaths of white space everywhere, and for no obvious reason.(Alas, McMaster really does not cater to international customers the way Digikey and Mouser do, for example by handling customs duty and clearance, so ordering from McMaster creates added cost and hassle for us. So we use McMaster only when we need a non-metric fastener we can’t get locally.)

author: jfiresto
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 22, 2025, 01:25:42 pm
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on August 22, 2025, 12:46:54 pmI consider their website an almost guilty pleasure when I reckon their per piece markup of what I am purchasing.Out of curiosity, I decided I would find exactly the right fastener for an AC inlet that I do not want to come loose. I found it on contorion.de who sourced it from Reyher who sourced it from Taiwan. An 1890g box of fine machine screws and 96% cheaper per screw than from McMaster-Carr. OK, M-C's are strength 8.8, which is overkill and accounts for some of that. This being Germany where not a few companies still make things, they were also sold in lots of 2000 instead of 50. But still.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 22, 2025, 02:15:19 pm
content: Quote from: jfiresto on August 22, 2025, 01:25:42 pmI am spoiled by McMaster. Since I live in Chicago, near their headquarters, if I order something Thursday afternoon, it normally arrives by UPS on Friday. Also, on the very rare occasion of a problem with a product, their telephone customer service is excellent. Not only is their catalog search website great, but they normally have good drawings and CAD models directly loadable from the site. Not cheap, of course.Unfortunately, they are not interested in exporting outside of the US.

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 22, 2025, 03:37:32 pm
content: I find that Digi-Key seems to ship faster than Mouser, and I like their web search better. BUT, the big issue I have with Digi-Key is they falsely label items they have decided to no longer stock as "discontinued". When I check around, Mouser has 25K of that same item in stock! A little probing on manufacturer's web sites also confirms these parts are still in full production. VERY annoying. There's a cable that I used to buy from Digi, about $15 each. Suddenly, they have a minimum order of 1000 pieces! That's a $15K order. Well, I found another outfit that specializes in computer cables, and they sell the same thing for $6, quantity one! So, Digi lost all sales on that item.Jon

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 22, 2025, 04:19:17 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on August 20, 2025, 11:10:03 pmLately I can only click 3 or 4 times on arrow.com before I get this message:"Sorry, there has been an error. This action could not be completed at this moment, please try again later."Does anyone know what that's about?ETA: I see I am getting 403 errors on CSS files. That seems bad to me, but what do I know

author: joeqsmith
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 22, 2025, 04:54:00 pm
content: Years ago, I posted how Digikey changed my account to some sort of business structure where I could no longer see my orders. They structured it so I had employees with limited access. Crazy BS. I called them, spoke with a manager, they refused to return it to the personal account it had been for well over a decade. I had them close the entire account right then an there. I waited about six months until I never received any junk paper mail or emails from them to know that they had finally flushed me from their system. Then I opened a new account. I would have fired everyone involved at Digikey over that, starting at the top managers.All companies have problems.

author: xmenendez
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: September 17, 2025, 05:34:53 pm
content: Well, after years of lurking I've finally made an EEVBlog account just to reply to this.I'll just echo what I put on my review of them.I have been using Mouser for the last 8 years and do between $10,000-$15,000 in business with them per year. They were an outstanding service in that time. Orders were almost always shipped out on time, and if not, I was always upgraded on the shipping.Within the last month, I have placed three orders with them. Here's my experience, listed oldest to newest.They:1). Sold me parts that were in stock, then decided to sell them to someone else and hold my order for days without telling me, and then have no idea why it was held, requiring me to go through an enourmous BOM line by line until I found the discrepancy and told them to cancel the item and ship my order. They refused to upgrade my shipping. They did tell me I could wait for the item to be back in stock in September, which I refused. The part is now expected in December. Great! I might have gotten a refund on the shipping I did pay, if I recall correctly? Because why lose $10 on the upgrade when you can lose $20 on the refund, right?2). Promised to ship my order end of day, then fell asleep I guess and shipped it two days later, again with no shipping upgrade. I called and ask what happened, nobody could tell me.3). Held my order for an export restriction on an IC without telling me, order was just in limbdo as per my first example, then I had to call them about it, then they couldn't tell me why the restriction exists, who is allowed to buy the part, where I could find this information before placing the order to prevent this entire situation, what part I can use to substitute in its place - nothing. Then the next day it still didn't ship so I took a look at the BOM, line by line, miserably, again. I found some resistor that was marked as Unavailable. Not sure if its out of stock forever, NRND, export restricted, it just says unavailable. It's from an American company and every other product from them I can apparently buy (though I can technically still buy the first part that was export restricted??). Had to call again, explain this, try to determine if the first part was a red herring, can't get any details. Product still hasn't shipped. Basically get told to piss off with the shipping upgrade.What happened to this company? New management? The service is unusable. I have lost over a week of my time waiting for parts for my prototyping. I don't work for free. I had some loyalty to them after years of ordering but this is absurd. How's DigiKey these days? As I recall, their parametric search actually works

author: Cyclotron
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 17, 2025, 08:27:18 pm
content: Quote from: xmenendez link=topic=468671.msg6042391#msg6042391 date=1758130493I have used Digikey the last two orders. I haven't had any issues with orders/shipping but their website has has some issues with its web application firewall breaking images and demanding proof of humanity.I did place a small order with Mouser as the part I needed wasn't in stock at Digikey. It was 1.5 hours prior to cut off and they didn't ship it. I paid for 2nd day and they didn't bump my order up. I agree, something has changed and it isn't for the best.