Avnet and Arrow, does anyone actually use them regularly?

[Howardlong]

It's been a bit of a conundrum for some years, I am trying to work out why an SME let alone a tinkerer would use Arrow or Avnet as one of their "go to" distributors. Neither seem to be geared up for anything more than larger outfits with dedicated procurement teams and large production runs.

Whether it's high MOQ, limited product range or their lack of in stock items, neither Avnet nor Arrow seem to be interested in marketing to the SME segment that I'm in, where I order in small R&D quantities as well as low to medium sized production runs (ie, say 500 to 5000 units).

I can't remember if it was Arrow or Avnet, but I remember finding a difficult part showing availability on one of their sites so I called up their UK sales line. As the part was in their Asia wearhouse, I couldn't order through the UK, I had to deal directly with their Asia outfit. It just seems bizarre that they're the same company (or so they'd have you believe) but don't act like it.

More recently Arrow have been sponsors of Simone Giertz' Youtube channel, so someone somewhere thinks the tinkerer market is what they want to get into. As an aside I also note that they very recently decided to stop sponsoring her channel, citing that they woke up to find (somewhat amusingly) that she occasionally partakes in the lingua franca of the construction site, something they could've discovered in about five minutes by actually watching her channel before coming to a deal.

[ZeTeX]

I used arrow before alot because they like giving free worldwide express shipping like every month. I got samples from avnet and no more than that.
Also arrow can be sometimes much cheaper than other distributors.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

[Howardlong]

I womder if they market differently in different countries?

[tggzzz]

I used Avnet once, for two items. Item A (Avnet's MicroZed) had a three week lead time, item B was in stock. Fine.

Order accepted online, received email restating those facts. Fine.

A couple of days later I happened by chance to see on their website that they would only dispatch the order once "in stock" item B was back in stock - and that would be in 20 weeks, i.e. 4 months.

It took a lot of my time to remove item B so they would actually send item A as promised.

Completely unacceptable. Never again.

[Jay1011]

I avoid Arrow except as a true last resort because its website has almost an unusable interface.  The scroll bars rarely work (in Firefox at least), the search capabilities suck, you can't sort/select in any sane manner, and in the end their pricing is rarely any better than Digikey/Mouser.

I've only used Avnet once; honestly I had forgotten all about it until I read this post.

There's also Newark/Element14, which I find no reason to use over Mouser/Digikey except that they always seem to have sales on some subset of "jellybean" parts.  For example, you can often find a few capacitors or simple logic gates/LVDOs with great prices, I assume because they're trying to get rid of excess inventory.  It's worth a look every now and then.

Like most of us, I primarily use Digikey and Mouser, depending on who has what in stock when I want to order.

[mikeselectricstuff]

I wonder if Arrow were one of the sponsors that Simone lost recently... she has an amusing vid on the subject if you've not seen it.

Like others have said, I'd only use them for full-reel qtys if they're cheaper, or if nobody else has stock.
I often buy Osram white LEDs ( about 1M+ to date I think) and occasionally TI drivers from EBV, who are part of Avnet.They are mostly OK most of the time but can be dopey on occasion ( have heard similar from customers I've sent to them with a BOM) , and not great for help with part selection (e.g. "tell me the cheapest PLCC-6 RGB LED you have 50K of in stock"). They do often hold large stocks. One significant advantage is that when I order many reels of LEDs, they will send me a list of all the bin codes they have in stock and let me choose the ones I want, so I can get everything in the same or cosest intensity/colour temp groups

For the odd single reel from them I tend to just go to Avnet Express, which works fine and is quick, though prices for larger qtys are usually a bit better via a quote from EBV. 

Not dealt with Arrow recently but have had disappointment in the past, like quoting prices higher then Digikey.

[Howardlong]

The Simone thing was what triggered me to come up with the question. Simone is definitely aimed at the tinkerer market so I couldn't quite work out their angle, as Arrow at least in the UK, isn't really geared up for the tinkerer market at all.

RS used to be like this ten or so years ago, but with an even smaller market, small volume orders supplying R&D, education and repair shops, and increasingly electrical contractors. This was, and still is, at the expense of gaining a market in medium to large volume. Quite why they still insist on individually pre-packaging SMD parts rather than supplying in cut tape I'll never know.

[edavid]

In the US, Arrow is usually quite a bit cheaper than other distributors for small quantities.  I know that doesn't make sense, since they are supposedly more production oriented, but here are a couple of examples I looked up recently:

LMP7702MA qty 1: Arrow=$2.83 DK=$3.72
LT3080ES qty 1: Arrow=$2.59 element14=$3.63

I've never found a reason to order from Avnet.

[Amazing]

I find that Xilinx parts are sometimes available from Avnet and nowhere else in the US.  I rarely order from Arrow, although recently I purchased a bunch of obsolete rotary encoders from their UK sister company (I think?) RS Electronics.  I was impressed by their willingness to send me parts from the UK with no hassle.

One of my clients is a small electronics manufacturer, and I very commonly see Avnet boxes on their loading dock, so they must be useful for something...

However, Digikey and Mouser are my first choice for prototype parts due to the fact that their websites are great for research, and that Digikey in particular will save my old orders and let me keep BOMs online which is really convenient sometimes.  Parts selection is such an time consuming hassle that the extra cost of Digikey/Mouser is worth it for the convenience.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Istr it was Arrow who were doing something with Indiegogo at Maker Faire this year

[Smokey]

For buying a ton of parts for a manufacturing business, Arrow and Avnet are like 90% of all orders with Avnet getting a bit more since they have better prices typically.  After that Future gets like 5%, and Digikey/Mouser/etc get the last 5% collectively and it's mostly strange parts Arrow and Avnet don't carry.   
You almost never order parts directly from the web site for the big guys.  You get a real live sales person that you go through.  You send them a spreadsheet (a BOM, or multiple BOMs) of all the parts you are looking to get along with quantities, and they come back with pricing and availability.  They will also label all the packaging with your internal part number, which is pretty sweet.   Push all that work off to them.  Plus you can negotiate pricing with a real live person.  When everything is set, you issue one PO and you are done.

Without a real live sales guy Arrow and Avnet don't really work well with just the web interface, but that's fine.  A one time order for 10 resistors from some dude isn't making them any money anyway.

[Rog520]

I used  both Avnet and Arrow regularly for fulfilling small (~100 unit) production runs, but it's been several years since I've done that. On many items they will undercut Mouser and Digi-Key by a significant margin, even for single quantities. They're the #1 and #2 distributors in the world so they must be doing something right.

[Howardlong]

I find that Xilinx parts are sometimes available from Avnet and nowhere else in the US.  I rarely order from Arrow, although recently I purchased a bunch of obsolete rotary encoders from their UK sister company (I think?) RS Electronics.  I was impressed by their willingness to send me parts from the UK with no hassle.

RS (Radio Spares to us very old farts) is part of the Electrocomponents group which icludes Allied in the Americas, I'm fairly sure it's not associated with Arrow.

Pretty much here in the UK if I need something quick it's Farnell then RS then Mouser then Digikey. Farnell and RS are domestic, so have next day delivery, whereas it's 2 or 3 days with Mouser and Digikey. RS have a number of trade counters where you can just turn up but I haven't used them for some years as their in-store stock is pretty lousy, being mostly aimed at contract electricians. On one occasion I used RS's same day courier service for a job to me in London, and then I hand delivered and installed it at the client near Amsterdam that evening for a shipment to Plesetsk the following day. It's now in orbit.

[Amazing]

RS (Radio Spares to us very old farts) is part of the Electrocomponents group which icludes Allied in the Americas, I'm fairly sure it's not associated with Arrow.

Arrow... Allied... I get those two mixed up.  Thanks.

It's now in orbit.

Awesome...

[Howardlong]

It's now in orbit.

Awesome...

I never said it worked ;-)

[coppice]

It's now in orbit.

Awesome...

I never said it worked ;-)

A device from RS working? Slim chance.

[Someone]

It's been a bit of a conundrum for some years, I am trying to work out why an SME let alone a tinkerer would use Arrow or Avnet as one of their "go to" distributors. Neither seem to be geared up for anything more than larger outfits with dedicated procurement teams and large production runs.

Play the game and use a broker, as silly as it sounds they do big enough volumes to have good standing with the major distributors and can get prices you won't find without direct negotiation. Think of it as having a procurement team who works only for a slim commission.

[calexanian]

Allied generally has more in inventory and sometimes better pricing. they typically do not have as many bleeding edge parts in quantity. Certain things they are the best source for. They are like the McMaster Carr of electronics though. Its in there somewhere, you just have to find it. Online tools are not as good as DK or Mouser and that hurts for overnight stuff. For out not time sensitive stuff we use Future electronics and EW electronics. EW is also our agent for custom Asian stuff and PCB's. I will say thing. Digikey and mouser have screwed up a few times on my and their return policies suck. I may start using Allied and Newark a bit more this year.