Unbelievable. Farnell mess up yet another order. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2019, 09:00:01 pm
content: Another order, and Farnell have messed up once more, this time failing to include a pair of connectors which means I can't despatch to my assembler on time. This is on a small 20 line order.This only ever happens with Farnell for me. I've never had any issue with Digi-Key, Mouser or RS; I've had DDP/tax issues with Arrow, but all of my parts arrived.Am I alone in this bad experience or is this something to expect from a "top" supplier??

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2019, 09:42:46 pm
content: E14 (Farnell) has missent components to me before, but it was only some passives. In general however E14 and RS make some other promises (delivery) that they don't seem to keep:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/element-14-146423/msg1916471/#msg1916471https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/rs-components-late-delivery/I think it's a cultural thing. A 2nd-hand computer supplier I once used (based in Aus) promised a few days dispatch + 5 days delivery. I rang almost 2 weeks later to discover they hadn't even unburied my palette yet in their yard. They didn't seem phased by it at all, so I presume it's normal for them to advertise and deliver on different schedules.EDIT: Now I think of it, I think another online supplier I once used displayed 'in-stock' before the order and changed to 'short lead time' after. That short lead time ended up being something more than a month, I can't recall.

author: AngusBeef
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2019, 11:30:21 pm
content: I've only ordered a few times, but Mouser and (if you have time) LCSC have been faithful to me.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 23, 2019, 11:35:52 pm
content: Are you sure part wasn't available at Liege warehouse only and you bought as private customer? Liege warehouse ships to VAT registered customers only. So often it may seem that part is available but it's actually isn't if you are private customer.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2019, 11:45:18 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on September 23, 2019, 09:00:01 pmIt is rare for Farnell to mess up my orders. But I'm also wondering: why don't you let your assembler buy components? Assemblers are usually better setup for this, know where to get the best deals / volume discounts.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 12:03:35 am
content: Quote from: wraper on September 23, 2019, 11:35:52 pmEr, when did that happen?

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 12:12:51 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on September 23, 2019, 09:00:01 pmWhy not just order from the suppliers with a perfect record? If you've had repeated issues with Farnell aren't you just asking for it if you still order from them.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 12:25:56 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on September 24, 2019, 12:03:35 amTo me it didn't happen as I'm VAT registered. But I can see how someone easily might not notice it and order anyway. Though I now checked UK and some other website versions and it does not seem to apply to customers from UK and western Europe (no notification about that), only to eastern EU countries.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 01:23:18 am
content: Quote from: wraper on September 24, 2019, 12:25:56 amIt definitely doesn't apply, about half my orders have at least one item coming out of Liege.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 05:07:24 am
content: No, the item was from the Leeds warehouse. And it's on the packing slip just not in the box.Yes, good question, why do I order from Farnell? They had competitive pricing on the Zynq FPGA, but other than that, I've had much bad experiences with them, and have generally avoided them unless there is no other option. (Thankfully, the FPGAs did make it onto the order.)Perhaps they won't be getting any more orders in future. Twice bitten, once shy...

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 05:27:04 am
content: Oh you haven't seen nothing yet.We order a lot from Farnell and we seen all sorts of things:- Wrong parts arrive. For example i order an inductor, the packing list shows an inductor, the label on the bag shows an inductor, but what is inside looks like a SMD Crystal.- A coworker had the same happen to him, but he did really need that part so he ordered again... and got the same wrong part. (Appears they had the wrong parts in the bin at the warehouse)- Order a reel of 10K resistors and receive a reel of 10Ohm resistors.- The website says there are 50 of something in stock and you order 5 of them but when the order goes trough and is payed for you get an email that these parts are out of stock and that i will get them 3 months later (Resulting in confusion 3 months later when i have no idea what i even ordered this for)- The website shows a package of 100 screws and the price looks right for a package of 100. But then you order 1 package of it and receive 1 screw in a bag for the price of 100 of them....etcSo yeah a lot of things go wrong at Farnell if you order often enough.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 10:34:15 am
content: Quote from: Berni on September 24, 2019, 05:27:04 amOrdering small parts with such low quantity is risky with any distributor. Their employees don't really care is there are few more parts in orders. Many parts are just weighted, not counted. And that accumulates over time, so when stock goes low, often there are way less parts remaining than shown. When I order all of remaining stock, more often than not I receive at least a few parts less than shown in stock.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 10:47:46 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on September 23, 2019, 11:45:18 pmFarnell UK is practically a different company, not served from Liege. You only need a few inattentive employees and bad management to ruin a company.

author: xmetal
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 10:57:36 am
content: I had an order for solder wick that was late and hadn't arrived. I contacted them and they sent a replacement out and would only charge me for the one even if it eventually arrived. The replacement came the next day. About a week later, the scruffiest white jiffy bag you ever did see (it was almost completely black) arrived. It must have temporarily gone missing at the courier depot. I did have a small item go missing in a similar manner too a few years ago. In my case, it was the couriers they use that had lost the item.I've never had a problem with packages from RS yet.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 11:26:12 am
content: Farnell acknowledged their mistake, saying it was a "picking error". If their computer system can determine that there was such an error, why was the package sent out incomplete?It is a consistent enough issue with Farnell that I am averse to ordering from them. It does seem to be more common with the Leeds warehouse, which is just 20 minutes away from me.Also since I am only making two boards, no point in paying the assembler extra money to manage this for me, I would rather do this at this prototype scale, but it does make you vulnerable to this nonsense.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 11:58:48 am
content: Did they use the computer to work out it was a picking error? What's the point of having that capability and not using it when it matters. I think it was just straight up human error and their systems are fallible because of it.I don't think their systems have the capability either.Do any of the big distributors have infallible systems? You'd have to be paying extra for it.I suspect that one site has poor management leading to under staffing and consequently a greater likelihood of picking errors because of time pressure to double check doubts.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 09:17:40 pm
content: They told me "our systems have recorded it as a pick error from our warehouse", but I didn't dig any deeper.Seems like it should be fairly fundamental that every package gets barcode scanned before it is boxed if only for inventory management, but hey ho.I've probably made 50 orders in recent history, 3 from Farnell had errors, 0 errors from any other distributor.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2019, 10:56:19 pm
content: Quote from: Berni on September 24, 2019, 05:27:04 amHappens at any supplier, I've dealt with these at Farnell and Digikey:1) Item arrives and is clearly not what is shown on the order, packing slip, and label on part.2) Inform the supplier there is a problem, takes lots of time on the phone and usually some back-and-forth photos.3) They assure you the problem is fixed and they can get you the correct part.4) Replacement parts arrive with exactly the same error as 1)somewhere between 3 and 4 it all breaks down, they know there is a problem but the systems are so large/complicated/distributed it is very hard to fix things quickly.

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2019, 04:19:16 am
content: We usually didn't even contact Farnell about it since it was often for parts costing a few euro in total. We just assumed that someone grabbed the wrong part and it was not worth the back and forth hassle for how cheap the parts are. But it was after a coworker re-ordered the part and got the same wrong one that we started taking it seriously. After telling them about the problem they fixed everything and i think refunded the parts so we could reorder again and get the right one.Now if such a thing happens we tell them, but don't go trough the hassle of a refund unless the parts cost a lot. Tho to be honest they shouldn't just refund you, but also give you a reward since you just saved them from damaging there own reputation to all the costumers that order the same part and get the wrong thing, some of them potentially getting rather pissed because they really really needed that part today.As for the "our systems have recorded it as a pick error from our warehouse" i am guessing it is in the form of a camera that takes photos of what is being thrown into the box. So i'm guessing someone looked up the order and manually checked the photos/video to see the bag is indeed not in there. Easy system to implement that can give you some confidence that a costumer is not trying to get free stuff by pretending something was not in the box.

author: SteveyG
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 25, 2019, 06:33:35 am
content: It's rare for Farnell to mess up orders from my experience - we place over 10000 orders a year and only a few have picking errors. Most of those are multi-part items where something is missing.Missing a shipping deadline is more common.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2019, 06:28:28 pm
content: The items arrived but I can't help but think the packaging of:- A large outer Farnell box, with two sheets of recycled paper padding material;- A Samtec cardboard box held together with rigid straps; containing- A plastic tray assembly (3 pieces) held together with almost a metre of tape,- containing two connectorsall shipped next day air mail from the USA.I appreciate Farnell getting me this quickly. That is their job. And sure low quantities pose a hassle for any distributor. But the packaging is out of control. Some of this will be recycled, but the space on the aircraft, the resulting carbon emissions and resource usage ... all never recovered.

author: HwAoRrDk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2019, 12:06:10 pm
content: I've had similar from Farnell. An entire ~1ft square plastic tray inside a giant moisture-seal bag, just for 5 microcontroller chips. The tray was thick glass fibre reinforced plastic too, so I couldn't even put it in the domestic recycling.Like, is it company policy to ship their packaging waste to their customers? "Keeps those waste volume figures down! And because we pay flat rate per package to UPS, it doesn't cost us any more! Win-win!"

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2019, 12:59:21 pm
content: Quote from: Berni on September 24, 2019, 05:27:04 amThis happened to me on almost every order, so I completely stopped using them. Buying everything from Digikey and Mouser since then - never looked back.Farnell's server speed issues (cumulating on orders over about 100 lines) didn't make things any better. Say, with 50 lines, adding an item to a basket takes 2 seconds, that's OK, but with 200 lines, it's already 2 minutes - for adding a single line. Combine this with a broken .csv import.Making an order with 200 lines of full part numbers on a spreadsheet is a 5-minute job on Digikey or Mouser; on Farnell, it was easily 2-3 hours with various error messages, freezes and total server crashes. Then you finally were able to submit the order, only to find out that five lines have their stock numbers suddenly drop from 1000 to 0, exactly at the time the order was made. Yeah, sure...Once they sent my invoices to a completely unrelated, another customer. This is a serious data breach as well.That another customer actually paid the invoice and never complained! I did.The worst part: they never understood that they did something wrong. It appears, it wasnota computer error; a personmanuallycombined the billing accounts of two completely random clients becauseshipping addresseslooked similar. I tried to explain that no, you can't do that, but they never understood. So expect that the process is still broken.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2019, 01:02:20 pm
content: Why can't we have an error where we purchase 3x TO220 mosfets and get shipped 3x Oscilloscopes.