Farnell/Element14 losing even more plot

[mikeselectricstuff]

I'm betting it was done by a third party studio. Anyone want to guess how much it cost RS? My guess would be at least $25K minimum.
Imagine what practical or other useful marketing stuff they could have done with the same money.

..or made a decent dent into cleaning up their crappy parametric search data.
...or at least got their website to sort numbers properly.

[EEVblog]

..or made a decent dent into cleaning up their crappy parametric search data.
...or at least got their website to sort numbers properly.

Yes, they could have probably hired a programmer for 6 month with the money.
But in any big company marketing gets an allocated amount of money regardless, so the question is better value (to them and potential customers) could they have used it. The answer is almost anything else but this ridiculous video of course.

[Rigby]

I'm betting it was done by a third party studio. Anyone want to guess how much it cost RS? My guess would be at least $25K minimum.
Imagine what practical or other useful marketing stuff they could have done with the same money.

It is a package.  I've seen it used on other sites.  The look and feel was identical.  Element14 are the victims of good sales people, and now if they give it up someone will lose face and, well, that's a tough row to hoe for someone who was duped once and was wounded by it.  That person or team is going to MAKE the current software work whether anyone likes it or not.

[EEVblog]

It is a package.  I've seen it used on other sites.  The look and feel was identical.  Element14 are the victims of good sales people, and now if they give it up someone will lose face and, well, that's a tough row to hoe for someone who was duped once and was wounded by it.

Yes. When Element 14 first came out with their "community" site that package (whatever it is) was all the rage, everyone seemed to be using it, and they all sucked arse. Element 14 got duped by a package that was sold to do everything asked for in their new fangled social media driven wet fantasy land. Blog? yep, it's got that! Community forum? yep, it's got that! Video platform? yep, it's got that! Expert centres?, yep it's got that!, Webinars?, yep it's got that! - Great, we'll buy it! That'll be a million dollars please. 
And the result as everyone knows is a pathetic unusable mess that as you say, they can't admit they got epically wrong.

[lpc32]

You are just grumpy old timers. The user votes on YouTube are good, there are 15K views in 4 days. The company likely does its best to measure the effect of these commercials and decide if it's worth it. They have enough money to do both PR and web development. Why shouldn't they cater to multiple target audiences, or at least try?

[Rigby]

It's not that.  We know their videos are worthwhile, the content is good, it's the site usability that is just crap.  I mean it is CRAP.  Awful.

[vk6zgo]

a bloke with a 1970s moustache and greasy hair wearing a grey cardigan in his shed.

Maybe they are targeting hams?

I don't have a mustache,& my cardigan is brown!

Actually,he looks a bit like an old mate of mine,except for the mustache.
He was never a Ham,but he did have about 14 "Stepdown Hudson" cars in his back yard!

[all_repair]

E14 ma not be right, but that do not make us (EEVBLOH nerds) right :-)

They can still spend big budget on youtube production, targeting at the purchasers, not at the engineers and hobbyists.  Normally people who buy through searching the parameters are a small fraction to those who just need a perfect match on the part number.

[Rigby]

I applaud them for creating a community, and for clearly caring A LOT about the content quality via the budgets.  No other parts distributor that I know of does this, and it is non-trivial to do. Full marks for that. 

Whoever or whatever is keeping that terrible UI in place needs to go, or just let go.

[Bored@Work]

E14 ma not be right, but that do not make us (EEVBLOH nerds) right :-)

The customer is always right. 

[mikeselectricstuff]

E14 ma not be right, but that do not make us (EEVBLOH nerds) right :-)

I spend £10-20K per year at Farnell, and specify more in BOMs I send to customers.
On several occasions I have got so pissed off with their poor search I've gone to Digikey instead. This is a direct loss to Farnell solely because of inadequacies in their website.

[Kjelt]

You are just grumpy old timers. The user votes on YouTube are good, there are 15K views in 4 days.

What if from those 14k views were teenagers never spending a cent on their site? And the other 1k through this forum absolutely hating it? I mean if you want the arduino and berry buyers you might have a point, if you want to keep selling mainstream electronic components ...................

[Psi]

element14 is bad, but not as bad as RS

[zapta]

Now RS are at it as well 

Cute ad. BTW, the banana part is real

[dannyf]

mainstream electronic components

I find that a total oxymoron in today's world,

[bookaboo]

To any Farnell reps reading I'll add a massive +1 to those that are frustrated by the lack of proper sorting by engineering terms in the parametric search. When that function is working it's brilliant but when it thinks for example that 500mA is greater than 5A it kind of loses its effectiveness.

[HighVoltage]

I have long given up on buying from European distributors.
If I buy from Digikey or Mouser, it is faster and cheaper and they really have improved their websites over the years.
I had it before, that I ordered from Digikey on Friday and got the parts on the next Monday with Fedex for free shipping.