Mouser packaging - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: aroby
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2014, 07:30:27 pm
content: I'm relatively new to electronics, so have been ordering bits and pieces from various places. I'm astonished by the sheer amount of packaging that Mouser uses. I just received an order which was mainly small components, one larger relay, a bottle of liquid flux and a flux dispenser bottle. Total value was about $80. All of this arrived in an 8"x8"x12" box, mostly full of bubble wrap. Obviously everything was individually bagged (the empty flux dispenser was in a bag roughly twice the size of the dispenser and its packaging). I get that - probably due to the order assembly process, but an incredible waste (and cost) overall.One item I bought (3 USB A board mount receptacles), not only came in a bag with the receptacles mounted on foam, but that itself was rolled up in 3' of bubble wrap, taped and placed in yet another bag! It's crazy. My pile of packaging garbage took up more space than what I ordered, and that wasn't including the overall bubble wrap that filled the box!Is this commonplace with Mouser?Anthony

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2014, 07:45:41 pm
content: They cannot beat HP for packaging insanity. Look it up on The Register.

author: ajb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2014, 08:00:03 pm
content: I really wonder at their packaging some times. At one point I ordered three different headers from the same series -- exactly the same part but for the pin count, and I think about 10 of each. One was shipped with the parts loose in a zip-top bag. The second bunch was double bagged and wrapped in bubble wrap with a "FRAGILE" sticker. The third were all stuck into a foam block, shrink-wrapped, and then double bagged. I actually wonder if their pick and ship process actually has different people filling different lines on the same order the way things seemed to be packed so randomly.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2014, 08:11:06 pm
content: Arrow is just as bad. I had a $100 order that was shipped in 6 large boxes... and of course, all of the parts fit easily into 1 of the boxes. When I asked about that, they said that their warehouses are so large that they don't bother sending parts from one zone all the way to the other end to be packed together. Another crazy thing is that if you do a one time order they charge $8 flat rate shipping, but if you create an account, they charge more expensive, random rate shipping. Oh, and there's the coin flip method of deciding whether something should go in an ESD bag.

author: aroby
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2014, 08:14:33 pm
content: I just had a closer look at one item I bought. 2 panel mount BNC connectors. Came in one bag with another 4 bags inside, neatly stapled together. One with the connectors, one with the nuts, one with the washers, one with the tabbed washers.Anthony

author: lewis
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2014, 08:59:57 pm
content: Analog Devices is pretty good too. Here's some stuff I got a while back....That's a 30cm ruler in the foreground.

author: kolonelkadat
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2014, 09:01:39 pm
content: are you people seriously complaining that your orders are packaged too well?

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2014, 09:04:00 pm
content: Quote from: kolonelkadat on February 26, 2014, 09:01:39 pmBecause making extra trips with vans, lorries, planes, and ships because of oversized packaging isn't criminally wasteful.

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2014, 09:28:16 pm
content: Well.. here's the thing..They standardize on a few sizes of cardboard boxes.There's higher risk of smaller boxes getting crushed under wheels, falling off sorting bands, getting forgotten under machinery that sorts packages for days or weeks, getting damaged at transport, so it often makes sense to use larger boxes.They often don't have several types of packaging, so if they only have bubblewrap or air bubbles available and they need to protect a single connector, it takes more time to be careful and cut just a small piece of bubblewrap then use scotch tape to hold the bubblewrap together, compared to just grabbing a handful of protection material.I can't give you a link right now, but there were some discussion threads regarding shipping small items on other forums and people from Amazon and other companies said extra bubblewrap is less expensive and less toxic to environment than the cost in support calls and returned packages and refund requests due to people not finding small sd cards and other such items in their packages (because they slip between cardboard layers or through open holes when shippers flatten them or throw them around).There's other reasons as well but I can't remember them right now.Newark isn't that bad here, I don't see them sending me oversized boxes. They also like to use big bubblewrap envelopes (about A1 sized) for heatshrink tubing, ribbon cables, headers etc small stuff.Maybe I'm just unlucky, but usually they have everything in stock when I try to order something but then as they start to ship it, some parts show up as available in 3 days, some parts in a week and so on.So almost every time, I get the order in 2 or 3 separate days, but all within a week usually.

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2014, 09:28:28 pm
content: It's annoying, sure. But wasteful? These electronics companies' shipments are a molecule evaporated off of a drop in the bucket that is Amazon &c. Mouser could send you ten empty boxes, each individually packed and shipped in another box, with every order and their shipping waste wouldn't even approach making a difference that affects anything but their own shipping accounts.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2014, 09:30:21 pm
content: Quote from: c4757p on February 26, 2014, 09:28:28 pmSo because Amazon are wasteful, it's okay for everyone else to be?

author: johnnyfp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2014, 09:45:01 pm
content: I welcome it. When I need a spare box to put other stuff in I order a Transistor from these firms. It's great.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2014, 09:45:16 pm
content: Digikey used to be like that as well. They seem to have optimized things a bit, in addition to their use of that recyclable Giame stuff.Don't think I've had an oversized Mouser box before, or at least in a long time. Kind of disappointing really to buy over $200 of chips and transistors and stuff and get a little 2" tall box.Tim

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2014, 09:47:59 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on February 26, 2014, 09:30:21 pmIn a way, yes. Waste is relative, you could always make your packaging smaller and cheaper at the expense of more cost internally. How do you judge what is too much? Well, as the point of avoiding waste is to reduce environmental impact of your shipping and of disposal of your packaging, I say we judge it on that impact.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2014, 10:45:07 pm
content: Could be good or stupid depending on what you need this for but here is now digikey shipped me 4x 1.2M lengths of heatshrinkLike i needed a 1.2M uncut piece of heatshink lolFor size comparison you can see the cats tail. The box was like 1.5m long and 200mm wide !

author: rexxar
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2014, 03:11:54 am
content: Recently I ordered 5 little mylar speakers. Each was individually bagged, then put together in another bag. I also got a small bag of capacitors that someone felt the need to put into another bag twice the size. All of my last few orders have come in the really small box, but so many items were bagged in bags in other bags, it's ridiculous! Also, I had previously ordered 25 of the same speakers, and they came stuck into a block of styrofoam with another block rubber-banded onto the top, in its own boxCould they have not just gone in a bag?My last big order from Mouser came in a huge box, that had a static dissipative bag lining it, and my order was split into three other dissipative bags inside of that. I understand safe packaging, but bags in bags in bags in bags seems a bit ridiculous to me. Though, I guess they cost less than one cent for them, so

author: echen1024
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2014, 04:54:49 am
content: Quote from: lewis on February 26, 2014, 08:59:57 pmMy orders with ADI have always been shipped in pink antistatic foam with ADI chip carriers inside all in a UPS Air envelope. Not bad at all. DigiKey seems to be the best at packaging, and Newark is ridiculous. I selected FedEx shipping, and they sent me a MASSIVE box for one RPi.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2014, 07:05:29 am
content: Another thing is prepacks... oftentimes you'll get loose parts from Digikey or other suppliers packed in, say, baggies of ten or what have you, and they'll send you a bunch of baggies, or staple them together, or whatever. I've received LEDs from China in this way also.Tim

author: Corporate666
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 27, 2014, 08:47:30 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on February 26, 2014, 09:30:21 pmYou said "criminally wasteful". You think this is SUCH a huge big deal that people should be going to jail for it? That's a bit silly.Shipping bigger packages than necessary is inefficient. Inefficiency costs money - either to the shipper or the recipient. If the recipient, then he/she is free to shop for lower priced sellers who can sell lower because they are more efficient in packaging/shipping. If the seller, they can choose to earn more money by being more efficient in shipping.It's not like there is a finite amount of cardboard in the world and a company using more is taking away your allotment, or something.

author: lewis
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2014, 09:31:52 am
content: Quote from: Corporate666 on February 27, 2014, 08:47:30 amNot quite sure there's aninfiniteamount of cardboard in the world

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2014, 12:26:18 pm
content: Quote from: Corporate666 on February 27, 2014, 08:47:30 amAll resources are finite.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2014, 04:01:28 pm
content: Most of the time Mouser seems to pack stuff pretty reasonably. I do tend to think they use too much padding and bubble wrap, etc. Nothing I buy from them is all that fragile, but better safe than sorry I guess. Every now and then though, I get something a bit excessive. Maybe they just ran out of small boxes the day this was shipped.Inside this box was:1 Arduino Uno10 3mm LEDs1 4xAA battery holder2 small heatsinks1 sheet of SOIC adapter boardsBest I remember, there was about 20 feet of bubble wrap to keep everything from rattling around, and the SOIC adapters were wrapped in cardboard and packed inside a smaller box.

author: lpc32
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2014, 07:07:27 am
content: That's not promising. I considered using a shipping relay to get a small order redirected from the US, but with these (potential) package sizes shipping may be 10 times the cost of the order.What courier/shipping methods does Mouser use for its most basic international shipping?

author: rexxar
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2014, 07:31:53 am
content: The last few big orders I've placed through Mouser have been packed fairly well. The box isn't overly huge, but oh my god the bags within bags within bags. First, the whole order gets stuffed into a giant ESD bag, which makes sense. However, the trimpots I ordered were in a bag inside a bag. The only thing in the outer bag was the slightly smaller inner bag. I have absolutely no idea why. I've also got several components that were bagged individually inside another bag. Why?!No matter what I order, this always happens tosomething.Digikey on the other hand packs their stuff beautifully. My singular gripe with their packaging is that the small boxes open at the end, rather than flip open. It's hard to pull stuff out of them because my huge hands don't fit.

author: KJDS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2014, 07:40:24 am
content: Last year I ordered a new soldering iron bit, some solder and a flux pen from Farnell. They all arrived the next day, but each was delivered by a different courier.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2014, 08:05:37 am
content: Quote from: KJDS on May 27, 2014, 07:40:24 amThey overnighted me two diodes from Belgium once.

author: lpc32
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2014, 04:50:20 pm
content: What sort of special requirements?

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2014, 04:54:05 pm
content: Just to be clear, the Mouser shipment I posted photos of above was a very unusual occurrence.I order from them about every 4-6 weeks and normally the box is one of the 12x9x3 (inch) size. As I said before, best guess is that they ran out of the smaller size box and rather than delaying shipment just used a larger box.I have been buying from Mouser for nearly 10 years, their customer service is top notch. If anyone has special requirements I recommend either calling them or sending an email. Odds are they'll be happy to work with you.Sorry, accidentally deleted the post. There it is again.Special requirements = Whatever you need.If you want your stuff in the smallest possible box, just ask.

author: lpc32
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2014, 04:57:42 pm
content: I want the smallest sensible envelope/box + USPS First Class Intl. shipping with its actual price, will they comply?