Farnell

[Greg.]

http://www.farnell.com/

A company similar to RS. Equally wide stock range to facilitate our hobby. Accepts credit card orders. A good option if you have a long list of components to buy because as your order builds, the component prices correspondingly reduce in value, therfore don't work out your order price based on the catalogue advertised price, but submit a telephone order/price check first to obtain your final price. They will often undercut RS. Delivery is equally as good.

Best wishes,

Greg

[espidog]

I wish I could give a positive report of Farnell, but so far my one and only order with them has been a disaster.

I ordered six 220uF 400V smoothing caps online, using my debit card, and the online ordering system flagged up no problems with the purchase. Several days passed. Then I got an email asking me to ring their sales team. It transpired that they cannot, after all, use my debit card because it is supposedly for use at "point-of-sale only". This hasn't stopped several other mail order companies using it quite happily, but never mind...

The rest of the conversation went like this:

Me: "OK, I'll put a cheque in the post. What's the address?"
Farnell: "Oh no. We'll have to send you a Pro Forma invoice first."
Me: "Fine. Here's my email address..."
Farnell: "We can't send it by email. What's your Fax number?"
Me: "Fax..? That's 1980s technology. I stopped using Faxes ten years ago. Can't you just email me a PDF?"
Farnell: "No, sorry. We're not set up for that."
Me: "Well, you'll have to post it to me then. Here's my address..."
Farnell: "I don't think we can do that."
Me: "What? You can't send an invoice by post? So how am I supposed to pay you?"
Farnell: "Hang on: I'll speak to my supervisor."
(LOOOOOOOONG PAUSE)
Farnell: "OK, I've got that arranged now. I'll get the Pro Forma invoice off to you today."

In fact, the invoice took 3 days to arrive - and when it did arrive, I got two identical copies of it, posted separately! I sent one back with my cheque stapled to it. That was on June 21st.

By today (June 29th), I had heard nothing, and my online bank statement showed that the cheque had not yet been presented. I rang Farnell. I shan't bore you with the details of that conversation, but the gist of it is that - according to them - they haven't received it yet! I know, I should have remembered to send it by Recorded Delivery...

I could cancel the order, but that would mean stopping the cheque (which is more trouble than it's worth), so for now I'll just have to sit tight and see what happens. One thing's for sure, though: this was my first ever order from Farnell. It will also be my last.

[alnewall]

Clearly you have had a one off bad experience.
I wouldn't be too put off by this.
My only gripe with Farnells is that they insist on listing loads of stuff that is out of stock or discontinued.

[Hardy]

Hi Greg,

I have to vote "non of the above" as I've never used them....but I would be interested in other's opinions/experiences...

Rich.

[Tony Moore]

I've used them many times (credit card payment) and they've always been fast and efficient. The website used to be rubbish for finding anything but it's been "improved" a lot. Still flaky but much better than before. I agree with Al though, there are so many items listed that are out of stock or discontinued that it makes searching through the lists even more of a pain.

You can get a catalogue CD though which is much better for finding what you need.

Cheers,
Tony

[Mike G]

Hi,

I've used Farnell through work, and must say that they have improved over the years, and their catalogue / cd is very much like RS now.

However as others have mentioned discontinuation of stock is a problem.

Typically at work I would order several items, the delivery would arrive with items missing - and no explaination. We had to phone and ask if the goods were on back order, or discontiued - they never informed us.

Certain items are shown in a separate catalogue from a company called "Buck Hickman" who I think are now owned by Farnell, but this just complicated matters!

Invoicing was also a nightmare, and after ending our contract with Farnell, we were still sorting out account problems with them some months later.

Of course my experience with them was via a large corpoarte account.

Thankfully the company I work for is now dealing with RS again whose service does seem superior.

Anyway - just my opinion!

Mike.