Digikey lost my saved carts

[apelly]

FAARK!

Their website is slow as a wet week, but I persisted; they have a part I can't find anywhere else. Over the last few weeks I've been adding bits and pieces as I need them for my current project, and other odds and sods as I think of them. There were hours of research in there. I'm pretty sure I have the data sheets for the stuff that was tricky to find, so finding them again will be a lot simpler, but fuck! What's the point of giving me multiple carts and syncing them with dropbox, of all places, if you're software is so loose some random event is going to erase them?

Digikey needs a punch in the face!

/rant

So, this is obviously an amateur mistake, and I won't be making it again; this is the second time, the other time I switched to element14.

Do you guys save your orders in a spreadsheet and upload them when you're ready to go? Or have you got a better way?

[dr.diesel]

I've had that happen to me as well, Grrrrr.

Wish they'd save CC info as well, or offer Paypal as an option.

[lapm]

This is why i keep my shopping list on my computer and google drive. Most big distributors will accept CVS format file dump or copy&paste to text field to basket.

[suicidaleggroll]

People actually use that stuff?

Put your info in a BOM spreadsheet on your local system and then upload it when you're ready to order.  I get pissed off when companies try to save my cart content from weeks prior, it means when I go to actually order it my quantity gets doubled.  I can't imagine anybody actually relying on a website's "saved cart", it's just a nightmare waiting to happen.

[mikeselectricstuff]

I'd never, ever trust a website to keep an order open for more than a few hours without saving.
 And definitely not til the next day, as updates etc. that tend to lose carts typically happen overnight.
And that's if I already have a BOM to work from  - results of parts research is even more invested time.

 

[corrado33]

Did you look into your "orders" page? They will often keep unordered "orders" there. I still have ones from years ago stuck in there...

[rx8pilot]

Did you update your profile at all? Name, position, address, etc? I did that and it created a whole new profile and I 'lost' all my order history and un-ordered carts. I have other places to get the data, but it was a bummer. I called the webmaster and he told me nothing is deleted and he only needed to merge the records. Boom - it was all back.

I use the system as a scratch pad, but have other places as well including Evernote and local spreadsheets as I design. I have been burned enough times to justify keeping data in multiple places if it has any value.

[tom66]

Farnell did this to me a few times, so I've taken to saving the cart as a CSV  file to my PC as often as possible.

[TopLoser]

I think I've lost, misplaced or mangled quite a few customer orders this week! If only I could blame my online shopping cart instead of my dodgy memory and shoddy eyesight!

[Dave Turner]

You mean that some companies retain a cart for more than 30 minutes?

Not electronics - but I buy cat food online - the prices are good but the web site is sh**. I login in, search for deals, add stuff to the basket - and go to checkout. 9 times out of 10 my basket mysteriously empties and I have to start everything from scratch.

Sometimes I ring up to talk to a human bean (sic), generally they are helpful and even offer cheaper equivalents.

Hmmm! I wonder if there is a market for knowlegable staff?

Note even EEVBlog replies suffer from this timeout.

[dr.diesel]

You mean that some companies retain a cart for more than 30 minutes?

I keep stuff gathering in my Amazon cart for weeks!

[Mr.B]

I use Mouser for most of my purchasing.
They have a "Project" feature.
I just spend days/weeks adding to my named project.
When I am ready... One click - Copy project to cart...
Done.

[c4757p]

DigiKey has that too, it's just a saved cart. Set the name at the top.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

DigiKey has that too, it's just a saved cart. Set the name at the top.

Lol don't forget the topic name.

Yes I have dropped a couple of carts.

I try to remember to save a local copy as well just in case but doesn't always happen.

[c4757p]

Wasn't sure, I've only had it drop unnamed carts.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Wasn't sure, I've only had it drop unnamed carts.

Oh ok I was assuming they would work the same.

Not electronics - but I buy cat food online - the prices are good but the web site is sh**. I login in, search for deals, add stuff to the basket - and go to checkout. 9 times out of 10 my basket mysteriously empties and I have to start everything from scratch.

This is because the info is temporarily resident in the web server as a session variable. These often have a no refresh timeout of about 20 minutes. After that your session is deleted and with it all your info. Normally happens when you get a telephone call.

Most other sites eg. Amazon would use a cookie stored in your browser to lookup your user in their database. Once they have this they get your cart.
This will be ok until you clear your cookies. Even if you delete cookies hopefully all will be restored next time you log in.

[cimmo]

This is because the info is temporarily resident in the web server as a session variable. These often have a no refresh timeout of about 20 minutes. After that your session is deleted and with it all your info.

Why is this the default value?
Whoever designed this clearly has no real world experience of online shopping.

[apelly]

Well, as expected, not a lot of sympathy here for me.   

Not a lot of advice either. Do you create your cart, then export it, or build it in your spreadsheet by copy and paste?

I've never tried it, but with good data it should be easy to upload to all the major suppliers and compare prices.

[SL4P]

CLOUD

[SArepairman]

this happened to me once and i got mad pissed lol. always save digikey in notepad.

[con-f-use]

The only time I ever lost a cart, was my own fault: I foolishly cleared my cookies because of a problem with another website. Then I realized the mouser cart was empty. "Shite!" Since then I have an extra bookmark folders named "cart-projectname-date" and put the URLs in there (having them in the cart still). When I'm done, I delete the whole folder.

Regular backups of your harddrive help as well.

As for sympathy: At first I thought "stupid you for trusting a website, and digikey most of all - they suck." Then I read about syncing to dropbox, and now I'm thinking "digikey sucks even more for implying your cart is save and for using dropbox." So for what it's worth, you do have my sympathies, because they kind of guaranteed the safety of your shopping-list and failed. On any other website that doesn't, it would have been on you. Every computer-user of more than a year, should have learned the importance of backups and made it a habit. Especially in times of cheap (cloud-) storage.

[bombledmonk]

Digi-Key syncs to dropbox? ... or did I read that wrong.

[Dave Turner]

HackedFridgeMagnet - Thanks for the explanation. Unfortunately it takes time to browse, check data compare prices etc. Oh well - just have to live with it.

[Mechanical Menace]

Why is this the default value?
Whoever designed this clearly has no real world experience of online shopping.

So if you forget to log out or lock your computer there's less chance of someone else coming along and abusing your login. What would you rather have happen, lose a form you haven't submitted or find out someone's slagged off everyone on a forum you like in your name or even worse ordered stuff on your account?

[mikeselectricstuff]

Something I just remembered with Farnell is that you should log in before,after or during filling a cart - thinks seem to remain in definitely. If you  have previously done this, then create a new cart, when you log in, the old stuff gets merged with the new one.