Digi-Key has changed and it is not very good

[tooki]

Their price sorting is busted...try sorting by price, say low to high, its almost random. 

Eek, that is bad. Definitely send them feedback on that!

I want to see only cut tape-parts...the selection is ignored...I want to see pricing listed at 1000, also ignored.

I couldn't reproduce that. However, those selections are forgotten when clicking back to the list after looking at an item, so if you then update the list by applying some additional filter, they'll get forgotten.

Some links show a "wrong price"   the link for a diode says unit price of $0.035 but after clicking on the link, the unit price is now $0.14  & $0.035 is nowhere to be seen at all.

On the item page, did you re-enter the quantity, and then click through the different packaging tabs below that? (There's a tabbed area with the price breaks.) It's a bit different from before.

The columns for voltage regulator looks like 10X .......T    O     O   W         I      D     E  (seriously):

NUMBER OF REGULATORS        VOLTAGE -INPUT (MAX)    VOLTAGE -OUTPUT (MIN/FIXED)     VOLTAGE - OUTPUT (MAX)
 1                                             8V                                  6V                                               7V


what idiot set up these columns?

Ummm, nobody did, obviously: they are clearly being calculated dynamically based on the column name, as evidenced by the sizes being specified to one-millionth of a pixel resolution: style="width: 105.046875px;"  No human would do that.

The old site clearly does have manually-configured column widths. I can't imagine it'd be too hard to bring that back, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's on a to-do list.

[bombledmonk]

Hey everyone, 
I don't think it's appropriate for me to outright address each and every issue in here, but I would like to say that people at Digi-Key are reading this thread and there are real people who are working hard to fix many of the display, sorting, and other usability issues.   We understand the pain points.    The best place to give us feedback or report bugs is the feedback tab on the website because every single comment is read and brought up with the teams that working on relevant areas of our website and business.  But if anyone cares to have a conversation with an EE (me) about the website and things you would like to see, shoot me a PM.  I'd love to sit down on a screenshare/video call and listen to any frustrations, ideas, or other comments you might want to share.

Thanks for the feedback, keep it coming.
Ben @ Digi-Key

   

[SilverSolder]

I have no problem buying from marketplace if it meets the same specs I'm shopping for, and the same sales guarantee (more or less).  Hmm, I should check that latter one, I imagine it might be different than direct.

Amazon is useless for making any kind of informed decision; I suspect, intentionally so.

Tim

Amazon searching is worse than useless.  You might search for a 2TB SSD, for example.  But the search results will include every size imaginable, even if 2TB is not mentioned in the title or anywhere else in the product description.  Amazon takes "greedy search" to a whole new level!

You are probably better off using Google to search on Amazon, for example, by putting this in the search box:     2TB SSD site:www.amazon.com

Google is also too "greedy" occasionally.  But you can always select "Tools / Verbatim" and get back to how a search engine actually should work! 

[eevcandies]

  We understand the pain points.    The best place to give us feedback or report bugs is the feedback tab
That's a rather pathetic response...it shows quality control at Digikey is non-existent, or the people who made the site are incompetent & should be sent packing.
Doesn't anyone there pay attention AT ALL to  what is being rolled out?

People will quit using digikey & go to Mouser or elsewhere & the end of Digikey.   Now they want to allow others to come to some new marketplace--maybe to to mix in & sell gray/suspect chips there.  There are so many problems it is hard to fathom or even to list them all.
Apparently nobody at digikey bothered to even try their own website.   

Search for a part where you want to only see cut tape, since that is what you are going to be ordering....instead the results are 3-4 times as long. Why?  Because now it ignores the request to show cut tape parts & also shows 3 or 4 other types.  So the listing is 10 miles long because the FILTER DOES NOT WORK.

Ask for pricing at 1000...it may give  it to you or it may not.  Half the time is does not work.  Sort by price, the prices will be out of order.
A part search will be display a part with a unit price of 0.07 cents....click on the provided link & it inconsistently shows a unit price of 0.25 !! 

The pricing information sometimes appears under the  supplier name!!!

You can't see part info on the screen anymore, since the columns are so wide, many of them are not being displayed.

One pic  shows sorted prices are out of order (I've seen some where they are heavily scrambled), then after some scrolling the prices don't even appear under the correct column!!

The list of problems goes on and on and on and on.   This has been happening for weeks.   There seems to be no accountability at Digikey.

 

[ataradov]

Yes, the most recent update just basically broke everything. And the new columns are just bizarre.

"DK Part #" is something I never care about when searching, yet it takes up the most space.

"Supplier" and "Mfr", again take up a whole lot of space, and I guess this is part of the whole marketplace fail?

[james_s]

They need to have an actual engineer spend a few minutes with a proposed change and then actually listen to the feedback. Overall there seems to be near universal agreement on several significant pain points. DK needs to remember that their target market is different than that of Amazon or Walmart, they are not selling to typical consumers, they are selling to engineers and technicians. Whether professionals these are technical people and there are specific criteria we use when searching for components. Having to click that switch to show all parameters may only take a moment but I have to click it EVERY SINGLE TIME for EVERY SINGLE PART and it drives me absolutely crazy. It is clear they did not run that by any actual engineer before deploying it because it hides parameters that are important nearly every time.

[Zeyneb]

Based on the post of Ben from Digi-Key, they are not sharing why those changes have happened! You claim you're willing to listen to customers from the Eevblog forum. Yet we are kept in the dark what marketing and maybe other forces are in play at Digi-Key that influences how the website should behave.

Have the guts to be transparent in this!

[Tomorokoshi]

They need to have an actual engineer spend a few minutes with a proposed change and then actually listen to the feedback. Overall there seems to be near universal agreement on several significant pain points. DK needs to remember that their target market is different than that of Amazon or Walmart, they are not selling to typical consumers, they are selling to engineers and technicians. Whether professionals these are technical people and there are specific criteria we use when searching for components. Having to click that switch to show all parameters may only take a moment but I have to click it EVERY SINGLE TIME for EVERY SINGLE PART and it drives me absolutely crazy. It is clear they did not run that by any actual engineer before deploying it because it hides parameters that are important nearly every time.

In the past I participated in some kind of field test review process for Digi-Key web site activities. I haven't heard anything about it for a while. Maybe I got dropped off the list, or perhaps it got discontinued due to cost, enthusiasm, etc. I imagine that type of field testing is not easily used with whatever Agile / Sprint / New-age-foolishness that is showing up everywhere, and I suspect northern Minnesota is no exception.

That said, I have also used the Feedback feature many times to comment about incorrect data, website problems, or website feature requests. I'd say about 1/2 maybe got addressed, which actually isn't too bad.

[Tomorokoshi]

Based on the post of Ben from Digi-Key, they are not sharing why those changes have happened! You claim you're willing to listen to customers from the Eevblog forum. Yet we are kept in the dark what marketing and maybe other forces are in play at Digi-Key that influences how the website should behave.

Have the guts to be transparent in this!

By all means please let us know the inner secrets that are at play where you work as well.

[eevcandies]

DK needs to remember that their target market is different than that of Amazon or Walmart

Well that sounds like a confusing statement---Digkey isn't some brand new company that didn't exist on the internet for the past 20 years, they certainly know  who buys their components....or do they?
Having price sorts that display in random order, ignoring filter selections, etc, etc, simply has no explanation.

who are working hard to fix many of the display, sorting, and other usability issues.
Why was incompetence allowed to occur? 
What will happen when sunnydeal wants to sell their "chips" on the marketplace?     
That's the next digikey disaster about to happen. ...goodbye digikey, they had a nice ride all these years.

[asmi]

Their mobile app is also deteriorating. It used to be my go-to tool I used to research parts, but now it can't open about half of datasheets and so it's becoming borderline unusable

[SilverSolder]

I just took Digikey for a test drive, using "555 timer" as a generic search term to see what happens.  Overall I didn't get an impression of it being unusably terrible or anything.

I agree that there is never any reason not to show all the filter options at the top of the product page - why would you want to hide a random selection of them? - Waste of time.

I actually like the "marketplace" idea -  it can be made to work, I think.  Makes Digikey similar to using sites like www.octopart.com to compare suppliers and locate difficult-to-find parts - it makes the Digikey site more of a one-stop-shop.  As long as Digikey is the guarantor of transactions in their marketplace...  it is in Digikey's interests as much as customers' that "bad actors" are kept out of the marketplace, and customers are made good if they ever do run into problems with a "bad actor" despite efforts made to make that unlikely.

Obviously for this whole concept to work, the search functions have to be laser accurate... we can't be dealing with any of the modern "approximately right" search algos that could only have been developed based on input from focus groups consisting of unusually dull computer illiterates...

[eevcandies]

Makes Digikey similar to using sites like www.octopart.com to compare suppliers a

Octopart list distributers like Arrow, Mouser, Digikey,Ffarnell...not BanjoMan37 or BugChips82

If you want to do that, use Octopart, not Digikey.  A few years from now you will be saying, I remember when we could count on the parts ordered through Digkey, now half our boards fail from junk that accidentally gets ordered there. 

"555 timer" as a generic search term to see what happens.   ---you can see what happened, is they can't even sort a list of a dozen prices properly...imagine when you are looking at a list of 300 different opamps.

[SilverSolder]

Makes Digikey similar to using sites like www.octopart.com to compare suppliers a

Octopart list distributers like Arrow, Mouser, Digikey,Ffarnell...not BanjoMan37 or BugChips82

If you want to do that, use Octopart, not Digikey.  A few years from now you will be saying, I remember when we could count on the parts ordered through Digkey, now half our boards fail from junk that accidentally gets ordered there. 

If I made a mistake ordering stuff on a site that is very clear about what is going on, why would I blame the site?

The problem is surely just this:  How obvious is it who you are buying from.

[ataradov]

I also just noticed, they don't show price breaks anymore. Now you have to type different amounts manually to figure out what the price would be. Now you can't just round up to 250 even if you only need 200 if 250 happens to be a price break. How stupid (or malicious) are people that though this was a good idea?

Nevermind. Price breaks just moved around.

I thought sorting issues had to do with price breaks, but it does not seem to be the case. They really just can't sort by price.

Yeah, I think my Mouser shopping will increase after that update.

[ataradov]

Ok, I figured out the sorting issue. The parts that are sorted out of order because they sort by MOQ price no matter the quantity entered. So in case of 1111 pcs, they take the price of 1000 pcs as it is the closest price break. And what they show you in the list is the price for 1000 pcs. But the final order will also include 111 parts at a higher price.

So instead of completely removing the listings for items that don't fit the search criteria, they do this mystery math.

[floobydust]

I can't find the Marketplace mentioned in the terms and conditions. From August marketing: "According to Digi-Key, all Marketplace suppliers are fully vetted, quality partners of Digi-Key."
Is the the case? What is the return policy, and why are you bungling saying anything about it?

But here you have to suck it up:
"Chip Outpost. Chip Outpost Products are excess inventory products. Chip Outpost Products include, without limitation, excess electronic components that are provided directly from the Product supplier or as part of a supplier-authorized channel return from a franchised distributor. Digi-Key believes that Chip Outpost Products are high-quality; however, these products may include certain imperfections, including, but not limited to, aged date codes, or may have been discontinued and/or obsoleted by the manufacturer. Chip Outpost Products quantities are limited and are not available for backorders. MANUFACTURERS' WARRANTIES DO NOT APPLY TO CHIP OUTPOST PRODUCTS. ALL SALES OF CHIP OUTPOST PRODUCTS ARE FINAL. If you purchase a Product designated as a Chip Outpost Product, you understand that the Product is obtained by Digi-Key on a Non-Cancellable/Non-Returnable basis; therefore, your purchase of a Product designated as a Chip Outpost Product is Non-Cancellable/Non-Returnable, except for the Chip Outpost Limited Warranty (see Section 17 below)."

[eevcandies]

If I made a mistake ordering stuff on a site that is very clear about what is going on,

So far that is a complete fail...attached is a pic showing return of a transistor ...which ones are digikey parts & which are not???  there are a few of each, but you can't tell here, then look at the listing same thing...yeah they go out of the way to make it crystal clear.

[ataradov]

Lol. Package on that transistor is shown as "Bag". Ok, cool.

And no parameters are shown, defeating the point of parametric search.

If they insist that this is not malicious, they need to make marketplace products disabled by default or at least ability to disable them in the profile.

Now in addition to having un-hide the parameters, you also need to un-click the marketplace garbage.

Hopefully there is a big enough scandal with that soon so they are forced to rethink if it is worth it.

[SilverSolder]

If I made a mistake ordering stuff on a site that is very clear about what is going on,

So far that is a complete fail...attached is a pic showing return of a transistor ...which ones are digikey parts & which are not???  there are a few of each, but you can't tell here, then look at the listing same thing...yeah they go out of the way to make it crystal clear.

I guess the "Supplier" column doesn't do it for you?

Obviously, you have to know all those names by heart, but... 

Yes, I agree, basically.  The third party vendors need to be flagged as such right up front (an extra column, with a flag "Third Party Vendor", for example).  That would enable viewers to make informed decisions.

[eevcandies]

Ok, I figured out the sorting issue.

sorry, you have been had....i doid another search , this time for 1000   you can see the prices are to be sorted in increasing order.
Well it starts with a $1.59 part (and that IS the 1000 price),
then goes DOWN  to a $0.231 part, then DOWN $0.128, then UP to $0.129...and upwards

[SilverSolder]

Ok, I figured out the sorting issue. The parts that are sorted out of order because they sort by MOQ price no matter the quantity entered. So in case of 1111 pcs, they take the price of 1000 pcs as it is the closest price break. And what they show you in the list is the price for 1000 pcs. But the final order will also include 111 parts at a higher price.

So instead of completely removing the listings for items that don't fit the search criteria, they do this mystery math.

Does the "mystery math" at least end up with the item in the correct position in the list?

[SilverSolder]

I'm not seeing the price sorting issue.  Does it only appear if you select a "View Prices At:" quantity?

[Edit: Yes, I see it now, even with Quantity 1,000 for the 555 timer example]

[eevcandies]

I guess the "Supplier" column doesn't do it for you?


NO it does not ...that is the component supplier the digikey parts dont' say Digikey...they say different suppliers  (for example littlefuse,  Belden ,wire, texas Inst)  They make no indiscation who is a "marketplace"

[ataradov]

I'm not seeing the price sorting issue.  Does it only appear if you select a "View Prices At:" quantity?

All you need to do is search for "lm555cm" and enter 1000 pcs and sort by decreasing price. You will see the sort order is incorrect.

And yes, it does not depend on the price breaks. It is just incorrect.