Why is ordering from CPC/Farnell such hard work?
John Stumbles
much difficulty on Farnell but the inserts listed as accessories said they
were suitable for <some list of code numbers> none of which I could
find listed anywhere, and when I followed some link they seemed to be for
0.156" connectors, no mention of 0.2". Fortunately I've a paper copy of
the CPC cat and it listed a few Molex KKs and mentioned that the inserts
are the same for 0.156 and 0.2" so I went ahead and tried to order those.
No go: Farnell minimum order is £20, goods ordered barely over a tenner,
no way could I use double the amount I was already ordering or find
anything else in their ghod-awful online cataloge to add to it so ... over
to CPC.
CPC only do 3 way and 10 way shells but I've got a stanley so order 5 of
the 10-way shells and some inserts. About £15 with VAT and delivery. Then
it demands I either log in or register. Dig out the scrap of electrons
with my username and password I'd registered before and bung it in: no
dice, doesn't recognise it. Password reset ... wait for email ... back
comes some random password, put *that* in - *still* no dice!
Eventually went back and registered a new account with a one-time
throw-away username and ... now it's lost everything I ordered so back to
the catalogue to find stock numbers again.
I really really would not have ordered from them if I could have got it
from anyone else!
Oh and Maplins were helpful: I phoned up their shop to ask if they had
0.2" Molexes in, described the sort of thing, yes they have, some suitable
sized shells and inserts, off I go driving across town in the rush hour.
What have they got? Only 0.1" ones. Bar stewards. I have now spent the
better part of my afternoon & evening trying to get a handful of bits of
plastic and tin whose actual material and production cost is probably
about 10p :-(
--
John Stumbles
I've got nothing against racists - I just wouldn't want my daughter to marry one
mark
I used to prefer Farnell about twenty years ago,now I never consider
them. I rarely go past RS nowadays..
I used Rapid for a while until they kept insisting a reel of cable was
on it`s way when in reality it was on several weeks back order.
Tim Watts
2011 22:22:
<snip>
I just tried to order a load of AA/AAA/button batteries via CPC.
1st time - order accepted for delivery to work (a place CPC deliver arse
loads to). 4 days later - no goods. Phoned them - oh, you specified a
different delivery address to you CC address on a first order - order
cancelled. Eventually found the email about it in my SPAM folder (which
hardly every gets false positives).
Complained. They said - here, have an account number (WTF x 2?) -that'll
work.
2nd time - used that number, placed the same order, accepted. 2 days later -
order on Hold. Another email in SPAM.
I lost the will to live and bought them from Argos.
I tend to use RS these days - seems less painful.
--
Tim Watts
geoff
<t...@dionic.net> writes
Do they ever have anything in stock ?
They seem to have become masters of "not quite in time"
--
geoff
Frank Erskine
wrote:
I last used Farnell (real Farnell rather than CPC) about ten years ago
and was quite impressed. I ordered a few items by email from work at
about 4·30pm (for myself) and they were delivered by courier (I can't
remember who!) before 8·30 am the following day to my home before I
left for work.
Just a reel of wire and a load of knurled binding posts, ISTR.
I retired (early!) about five years ago and have re-befriended myself
with the semi-local RS trade counter and have no problem buying stuff
there by CC...
--
Frank Erskine
pete
> I used to prefer Farnell about twenty years ago,now I never consider
> them. I rarely go past RS nowadays..
I always feel embarassed/guilty about using RS. The last order I placed
with them was for a couple of I.Cs. for a whopping £13.50 (+free delivery)
They arrived early next morning in a bag about 1,000 times their actual
size, with more packaging and documentation than you could shake a stick at.
Then the official invoice arrived by mail a couple of days later.
> I used Rapid for a while until they kept insisting a reel of cable was
> on it`s way when in reality it was on several weeks back order.
Man at B&Q
At one time Farnell would take smaller orders but you had to pay a
handling fee.
> I used to prefer Farnell about twenty years ago,now I never consider
> them. I rarely go past RS nowadays..
The only problem I've had with Farnell recently is that orders under a
certain weight are sent Royal Mail. RM still had a massive backlog a
couple of weeks ago and stuff was taking a week to arrive that was
usually next day or the day after at worst.
rarely go near RS due to their prices and insistance on MOQs of 5 or
10 for ICs that farnell or rapid will sell singly.
> I used Rapid for a while until they kept insisting a reel of cable was
> on it`s way when in reality it was on several weeks back order.
I find the Rapid website quite clear about what is in stock and what
is on back order.
MBQ
Man at B&Q
> much difficulty on Farnell but the inserts listed as accessories said they
> were suitable for <some list of code numbers> none of which I could
> find listed anywhere, and when I followed some link they seemed to be for
> 0.156" connectors, no mention of 0.2". Fortunately I've a paper copy of
> the CPC cat and it listed a few Molex KKs and mentioned that the inserts
> are the same for 0.156 and 0.2" so I went ahead and tried to order those.
> No go: Farnell minimum order is £20, goods ordered barely over a tenner,
Just checked my order history and I placed an on-line credit card
order for less than £2 in december '09 and was not charged any postage
or handling!
I do have an account number but it's still a "cash" account, no
credit.
MBQ
The Other Mike
>>I tend to use RS these days - seems less painful.
They have got back into the habit of charging me for delivery, for a
few months last year they forgot to charge at all, but I have lots of
issues with delivery and delays in orders, they are driving me up the
bloody wall with their excuses.
Farnells makes sense because delivery is 'free', even when it is
dispatched from multiple locations including their warehouse near
Liege, plus they use UPS rather than Parcelfarce who royally pissed me
about with extensive 'snow' delay excuse when the roads were clear
and every other delivery company made it through no problem.
>Do they ever have anything in stock ?
>
>They seem to have become masters of "not quite in time"
...or almost too bloody late, or some time next week, or when we feel
like it, or sometimes not at all as backorders drag out for months.
I topped an order up with some SMD LED's recently, I only needed a
couple, they had a minimum order of 50, and it clearly took a complete
day to pack them, delaying the rest of the order meaning next day
delivery instead of Friday became Monday - and they still delivered
them in two envelopes. Everything that I ordered was allegedly 'in
stock'
Hopeless.
--
John Rumm
> CPC only do 3 way and 10 way shells but I've got a stanley so order 5 of
> the 10-way shells and some inserts. About £15 with VAT and delivery. Then
> it demands I either log in or register. Dig out the scrap of electrons
> with my username and password I'd registered before and bung it in: no
> dice, doesn't recognise it. Password reset ... wait for email ... back
> comes some random password, put *that* in - *still* no dice!
When they rebuilt the website a couple of years back, many of the
already registered accounts got disabled.
> Eventually went back and registered a new account with a one-time
> throw-away username and ... now it's lost everything I ordered so back to
> the catalogue to find stock numbers again.
Ah, there are some "features" of the CPC basket that can catch you out.
If you add stuff to one while logged in, it also gets stored by the site
and not just a cookie on your machine. So if you log back in later, the
basket content is restored (overwriting whatever was in the basket at
the time). So if you already have stuff in the basket before login, open
a browser window with it displayed, and login in a different one. Then
you can re-add the bits from the open window.
Another thing to keep in mind is if you add stuff while logged in, but
don't order it and forget about it - it will restore it to the basket
next time you login and you can end up getting stuff added to the next
order that you actually bought elsewhere previously.
Finally stuff added to the pre-login basket times out after some time as
well - so its not ideal for building up an order over time.
--
Cheers,
John.
/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/
geoff
<no-one_...@not-at-this-address.com> writes
>On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 14:48:24 -0800 (PST), mark wrote:
>
>> I used to prefer Farnell about twenty years ago,now I never consider
>> them. I rarely go past RS nowadays..
>
>I always feel embarassed/guilty about using RS. The last order I placed
>with them was for a couple of I.Cs. for a whopping £13.50 (+free delivery)
>They arrived early next morning in a bag
One bag?
They normally send the light stuff in a box and the heave stuff in
another jiffy bag
...assuming they actually have what you want in stock
> about 1,000 times their actual
>size, with more packaging and documentation than you could shake a stick at.
>Then the official invoice arrived by mail a couple of days later.
>
>> I used Rapid for a while until they kept insisting a reel of cable was
>> on it`s way when in reality it was on several weeks back order.
>
>
--
geoff
Dave W
> 0.2" Molexes in, described the sort of thing, yes they have, some suitable
> sized shells and inserts, off I go driving across town in the rush hour.
> What have they got? Only 0.1" ones. Bar stewards. I have now spent the
> better part of my afternoon & evening trying to get a handful of bits of
> plastic and tin whose actual material and production cost is probably
> about 10p :-(
Always check Maplins' website - it shows stock levels in shops. Then
you have to ask for the item in the shop as it may be in the storeroom
and not on display.
Dave W
John Rumm
> On Jan 26, 10:22 pm, John Stumbles<john.stumb...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>>
>> Oh and Maplins were helpful: I phoned up their shop to ask if they had
>> 0.2" Molexes in, described the sort of thing, yes they have, some suitable
>> sized shells and inserts, off I go driving across town in the rush hour.
>> What have they got? Only 0.1" ones. Bar stewards. I have now spent the
>> plastic and tin whose actual material and production cost is probably
>> about 10p :-(
>
> Always check Maplins' website - it shows stock levels in shops. Then
> you have to ask for the item in the shop as it may be in the storeroom
> and not on display.
Odd thing is, when I first started going to Maplin as a kid in the '80s
(at their original and only branch in Westcliff) - it was all counter
service - very little on display and no self service at all. At the time
I thought it was a shame there was not more on display so you could go
fiddle / look etc.
Only later did they expand the shop and do just that, and it became the
model they copied for all the other shops. Alas having tried it, I
realised the counter service worked much better in practice - especially
for small bits.
NoSpam
> On 28/01/2011 15:51, Dave W wrote:
>> On Jan 26, 10:22 pm, John Stumbles<john.stumb...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Oh and Maplins were helpful: I phoned up their shop to ask if they had
>>> 0.2" Molexes in, described the sort of thing, yes they have, some
>>> suitable
>>> sized shells and inserts, off I go driving across town in the rush hour.
>>> What have they got? Only 0.1" ones. Bar stewards. I have now spent the
>>> better part of my afternoon& evening trying to get a handful of bits of
>>> plastic and tin whose actual material and production cost is probably
>>> about 10p :-(
>>
>> Always check Maplins' website - it shows stock levels in shops. Then
>> you have to ask for the item in the shop as it may be in the storeroom
>> and not on display.
>
> Odd thing is, when I first started going to Maplin as a kid in the '80s
> (at their original and only branch in Westcliff) - it was all counter
> service - very little on display and no self service at all. At the time
> I thought it was a shame there was not more on display so you could go
> fiddle / look etc.
>
> Only later did they expand the shop and do just that, and it became the
> model they copied for all the other shops. Alas having tried it, I
> realised the counter service worked much better in practice - especially
> for small bits.
>
As a kid (in the late 1960s) I worked in John Birkett's electronic bits
shop in Lincoln - but I doubt anybody here remembers that - 'twas great fun.
Bob Eager
I worked in Technical Trading in Brighton, and occasionally Tottenham
Court Road - anyone remember them? I stopped in about 1967..
--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor
NoSpam
still going! http://www.zyra.org.uk/birkett.htm
m...@privacy.net
NoSpam <nom...@hursley.ibm.com> wrote:
> As a kid (in the late 1960s) I worked in John Birkett's electronic bits
> shop in Lincoln - but I doubt anybody here remembers that - 'twas great fun
Very good for semiconductors IIRC in the 70s. Has it gone defunct?
The Strait, Lincoln if memory is correct.
--
B Thumbs
Change lycos to yahoo to reply
NoSpam
> On 28 Jan,
> NoSpam<nom...@hursley.ibm.com> wrote:
>
>> As a kid (in the late 1960s) I worked in John Birkett's electronic bits
>> shop in Lincoln - but I doubt anybody here remembers that - 'twas great fun
>
> Very good for semiconductors IIRC in the 70s. Has it gone defunct?
>
> The Strait, Lincoln if memory is correct.
>
>
Yes, started at the bottom of Steep Hill and then moved down to The
Strait - still seems to be going.
tony sayer
>> As a kid (in the late 1960s) I worked in John Birkett's electronic bits
>> shop in Lincoln - but I doubt anybody here remembers that - 'twas great
>> fun.
>
>I worked in Technical Trading in Brighton, and occasionally Tottenham
>Court Road - anyone remember them? I stopped in about 1967..
>
>
Yes all of those.. and Tottenham ct road and Laskys and Henrys radio
bull electrical .. where yer wanna stop;?....
>
--
Tony Sayer
tony sayer
<nom...@hursley.ibm.com> scribeth thus
We have H. Gee of 94 Mill road around here in Cambridge since Gawd
knows when. Mr Gee is now gone but his wife and son carry it on they
seem to have anything you need in there but sometimes, well most all of
the time .. it takes forever to find;)...
--
Tony Sayer
Skipweasel
> Yes all of those.. and Tottenham ct road and Laskys and Henrys radio
> bull electrical .. where yer wanna stop;?....
>
Proops, to you.
--
Skipweasel - never knowingly understood.
Andy Dingley
> As a kid (in the late 1960s) I worked in John Birkett's electronic bits
> shop in Lincoln - but I doubt anybody here remembers that - 'twas great fun.
I was there last September. It's probably the last remaining of that
sort of shop, still just as they used to be.
tony sayer
<skipw...@googlemail.com> scribeth thus
>In article <rdHp52Di...@bancom.co.uk>, to...@bancom.co.uk says...
>> Yes all of those.. and Tottenham ct road and Laskys and Henrys radio
>> bull electrical .. where yer wanna stop;?....
>>
>
>Proops, to you.
>
And them;)...
The good old days really were .. just how many teenagers these days
would save up for weeks, get the postal orders and then spend ages
working on the latest things from Camm's comic .. and never get the
bu^^ers to work;!...
--
Tony Sayer
The Other Mike
<see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:
>Odd thing is, when I first started going to Maplin as a kid in the '80s
>(at their original and only branch in Westcliff) - it was all counter
>service - very little on display and no self service at all. At the time
>I thought it was a shame there was not more on display so you could go
>fiddle / look etc.
>
>Only later did they expand the shop and do just that, and it became the
>model they copied for all the other shops. Alas having tried it, I
>realised the counter service worked much better in practice - especially
>for small bits.
When they first opened a shop near me many years ago I could find my
way round no problem, then they 'reorganised', nothing was where it
used to be, nothing was adjacent to other similar stock lines.
Now, on the rare occasion I visit them, I have a quick look and if
it's not immediately obvious I play dumb and go straight to the
counter and let them show me where the bits I want to buy are.
Many places are much cheaper, and driving to a shop often tips the
balance in favour of an online shop nearly always elsewhere as Maplin
aren't cheap.
--
Andrew Gabriel
midnight) Tuesday morning, hoping for delivery today (Wednesday).
Strangely, both are still marked as Processing today, which is
rather unusal - normally they manage to get the goods out of the
door the same day, even when you order at 6pm.
--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]
Bob Eager
> Placed orders with both Farnell and CPC in early hours (just after
> midnight) Tuesday morning, hoping for delivery today (Wednesday).
> Strangely, both are still marked as Processing today, which is rather
> unusal - normally they manage to get the goods out of the door the same
> day, even when you order at 6pm.
I've found that is often just that they forgot to update the system...you
may still get it today.
Man at B&Q
wrote:
> Placed orders with both Farnell and CPC in early hours (just after
> midnight) Tuesday morning, hoping for delivery today (Wednesday).
> Strangely, both are still marked as Processing today, which is
> rather unusal - normally they manage to get the goods out of the
> door the same day, even when you order at 6pm.
Getting the goods out of the door the same day is not the same as next
day delivery, unless you pay for one of the premium delivery options.
Under a certain weight it will be sent by Royal mail rather than
courier.
MBQ
Andrew Gabriel
Bob Eager <rd...@spamcop.net> writes:
> On Wed, 02 Feb 2011 10:09:03 +0000, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
>
>> Placed orders with both Farnell and CPC in early hours (just after
>> midnight) Tuesday morning, hoping for delivery today (Wednesday).
>> Strangely, both are still marked as Processing today, which is rather
>> unusal - normally they manage to get the goods out of the door the same
>> day, even when you order at 6pm.
>
> I've found that is often just that they forgot to update the system...you
> may still get it today.
You are spot on - both turned up at lunchtime, even though it still
says "Processing" on the website.
The 8' aerial mast raised a smile with the delivery driver.
Andrew Gabriel
Only time CPC seems to send via RM is a small item which has been on
backorder. I've never had the main order anything other than UPS,
regardless of size, and it virtually always comes next day.
I have occasionally paid for next day delivery when that was
essential.
Farnell also came UPS, but I don't use them often enough to have
worked out what all their rules are.
Man at B&Q
> In article <b9382361-50c7-4bf6-a362-7334043ca...@t19g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
> "Man at B&Q" <manatba...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
> > On Feb 2, 10:09 am, and...@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel)
> > wrote:
> >> Placed orders with both Farnell and CPC in early hours (just after
> >> midnight) Tuesday morning, hoping for delivery today (Wednesday).
> >> Strangely, both are still marked as Processing today, which is
> >> rather unusal - normally they manage to get the goods out of the
> >> door the same day, even when you order at 6pm.
> > Getting the goods out of the door the same day is not the same as next
> > day delivery, unless you pay for one of the premium delivery options.
> > Under a certain weight it will be sent by Royal mail rather than
> > courier.
>
> Only time CPC seems to send via RM is a small item which has been on
> backorder. I've never had the main order anything other than UPS,
> regardless of size, and it virtually always comes next day.
> I have occasionally paid for next day delivery when that was
> essential.
>
> Farnell also came UPS, but I don't use them often enough to have
> worked out what all their rules are.
I asked a sales droid recently when trying to track down a parcel that
was stuck in the RM post Xmas/snow backlog. He said it's the weight
that determines it, but didn't specifiy the cutoff. The clue is if
there is no UPS tracking number available (assuming it gets updated).
MBQ
Grimly Curmudgeon
drugs began to take hold. I remember John Stumbles
<john.s...@ntlworld.com> saying something like:
>I really really would not have ordered from them if I could have got it
>from anyone else!
Their online catalogue really is shit.
Windmill
>The good old days really were .. just how many teenagers these days
>would save up for weeks, get the postal orders and then spend ages
>working on the latest things from Camm's comic .. and never get the
>bu^^ers to work;!...
It must have been from the unkindly-described comic that I got the idea
for saving a valve (a huge expense for a kid).
Use the I.F. amplifier as the audio amplifier also.
It sort of worked, but had a tendency to oscillate !
--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
Til...@Nonetel.com @ O n e t e l
. c o m
John Williamson
> tony sayer <to...@bancom.co.uk> writes:
>
>> The good old days really were .. just how many teenagers these days
>> would save up for weeks, get the postal orders and then spend ages
>> working on the latest things from Camm's comic .. and never get the
>> bu^^ers to work;!...
>
>
> It must have been from the unkindly-described comic that I got the idea
> for saving a valve (a huge expense for a kid).
> Use the I.F. amplifier as the audio amplifier also.
>
> It sort of worked, but had a tendency to oscillate !
>
up other people's reception for quite a long way down the street.....
--
Tciao for Now!
John.