4 ms·

This. I buy a decent amount of hobby electronics from eBay and AliExpress because yes it is cheaper. When I need quality, Mouser, DigiKey, and McMaster-Carr are

This. I buy a decent amount of hobby electronics from eBay and AliExpress because yes it is cheaper. When I need quality, Mouser, DigiKey, and McMaster-Carr are there for me. But the minimum $7-9 shipping is the main reason is forego them. I’d gladly pay 2x for small electronic components (vs directly from China options) if shipping wasn’t a problem.

fermienrico 6y ago
For any serious person trying to develop a little bit beyond hobby projects: Think about an hourly rate of $80/hour for yourself. If you have to spend an hour trying to fiddle with subpar shady parts, you've already paid for the shipping 8 times over. Also, it is painful to wait for these packages from China. Digikey ships same day and its at your door step in the morning (I overnight it) and if you use $7, it is usually 2-3 days. Plus, you're supporting legit businesses and not the shenzhen market. I can understand total hobbyist who cannot afford $7 shipping often. But even then, you can bundle all your parts and order once. Any engineer who earns a salary can afford $7 shipping. If you're a business, there is absolutely no excuse to penny pinch here. You're losing money by using unreliable parts, if not now, at some point in the future.
- bigiain 6y ago
  > I can understand total hobbyist who cannot afford $7 shipping often. But even then, you can bundle all your parts and order once. Or, like me, pretty much go "Meh, its counterfeits all the way down!" and frequently tack on a buck or twos worth of other "That's interesting looking, I might want one of those one day, I'll grab a few on this order" stuff when you're buying things you need for a current (hobby grade) project, so you've got a few boxes full of (hopefully sufficiently well enough labelled and documented" junk on-hand for the next random project idea... I bet I have a dozen or so "DS18b20"s here from that approach. I _think_ I could probably find then in under 10 minutes if I had an idea that needed one right now. Maybe... (Actually, I do have that idea. I want to put temp logging on a little LiPo battery that sits under a small solar panel to run an ESP32. I _think_ it's probably failing early because the whole thing gets too hot in the du5rect sunlight. Logging will confirm/deny that, and let me measure changes with insulation and/or fan cooling. Maybe I'll go hunt for one tonight...)
- fpgaminer 6y ago
  > But even then, you can bundle all your parts and order once. I fall for this trap every. single. time. _HOURS_ spent racking my brain to think of all the things I might need in different scenarios, so I can be absolutely, positively, 100% sure that I have everything in that one single order. ... and end up placing 2 to 3 more orders before the project is done.
  - fermienrico 6y ago
    Hahaha I can totally relate. Always ends up being a few packages.
- amelius 6y ago
  But why can't digikey just charge for what it costs them to send the items? Now it feels like I'm paying some kind of tax.
  - alibarber 6y ago
    Because the cost of someone picking up a reel of 10000 resistors, from a warehouse that has to be rented heated/cooled etc etc doesn't scale down to that 1 resistor, even if the shipping cost might... I know, it sucks! - I have seen many suppliers that cater for hobbyists around the world and will mail you a resistor in an envelope. But I'm sure that they don't make enough money to send you a certification and guarantee of authenticity with it, which is why real industrial users won't mind paying $50 for a handful of components because those guarantees are worth far more...
    - amelius 6y ago
      > Because the cost of someone picking up a reel of 10000 resistors, from a warehouse that has to be rented heated/cooled etc etc doesn't scale down to that 1 resistor I understand that. But please charge me for what it costs. Don't let people with small orders pay the price for people with large orders. They already get discount for their order size! Or if this is not possible at least call it an order-picking fee, don't lump it in the shipping costs.
      - fermienrico 6y ago
        Shipping costs are actually transparent at Digikey. It is exactly what they pay to USPS.
- joshvm 6y ago
  > If you're a business, there is absolutely no excuse to penny pinch here. Most of these sites offer free shipping to trade accounts with no MOQ as well. But also you want that customer service as a business. Mouser once sent me a replacement camera at work (university) because they supplied one with the wrong interface. No doubt we have a big order book, but I've had similar experiences with RS as a hobbyist customer - ordered tools which are not up to scratch or slightly out of tolerance - "just keep it, we'll send a replacement".
bigiain 6y ago
Same. I read through this thinking "What, my team sensor on the data logger for my coffee grinder might be more than half a degree out? You know what? I totally don't care, and wouldn't have spent an extra 50 cents to get that much accuracy..." I do have ethical qualms about supporting/funding "stolen IP", but then I've kinda got ethical qualms about the whole concept of IP anyway, and if you wanted to go hardline on IP compliance you'd probably have to avoid everything out of China (and everything that contains components out of China)... I wonder how often Apple get counterfeit components slipping through on Foxconn production lines, and how much effort they put into stopping it beyond extensive QA - which only ensures any counterfeits that make it through need to be close-enough to functionally equivalent to pass all the tests? The "test after" approach kinda pushes towards more IP infringement rather than less, since it's likely parts built from stolen designs would pass more often that parts reimplemented according to the spec?
- lutorm 6y ago
  If you don't need that accuracy, why would you use a DS18B20 in the first place. You can use a dirt cheap NTC.
  - andi999 6y ago
    Maybe you want to save on the A/D hardware?
selectodude 6y ago
That's actually how much it costs to ship stuff when it's not being exceptionally heavily subsidized by the utterly broken Universal Postal Treaty.
- pravda 6y ago
  Digikey would be charging more then $5, but competition forces them to not charge outlandish shipping rates! It didn't used to be that way -- mail order suppliers used to charge high fake "Shipping & Handling" fees. That's why Amazon introduced 'free' shipping.
- kuschku 6y ago
  Orders with DHL across the EU are pretty much $4, without any other company ever handling it. Deliveries don't have to be that expensive. Going further, if I'm in Germany, and order from a local place (e.g. a local ebay seller), I pay like $0.80 for postage on a delivery. If I order from a reputable store... it's like 2 weeks waiting time with $15 on delivery. In the past there used to be small stores everywhere selling every tiny part, but nowadays...

fermienrico 6y ago

For any serious person trying to develop a little bit beyond hobby projects: Think about an hourly rate of $80/hour for yourself. If you have to spend an hour trying to fiddle with subpar shady parts, you've already paid for the shipping 8 times over. Also, it is painful to wait for these packages from China. Digikey ships same day and its at your door step in the morning (I overnight it) and if you use $7, it is usually 2-3 days. Plus, you're supporting legit businesses and not the shenzhen market. I can understand total hobbyist who cannot afford $7 shipping often. But even then, you can bundle all your parts and order once. Any engineer who earns a salary can afford $7 shipping. If you're a business, there is absolutely no excuse to penny pinch here. You're losing money by using unreliable parts, if not now, at some point in the future.

bigiain 6y ago
> I can understand total hobbyist who cannot afford $7 shipping often. But even then, you can bundle all your parts and order once. Or, like me, pretty much go "Meh, its counterfeits all the way down!" and frequently tack on a buck or twos worth of other "That's interesting looking, I might want one of those one day, I'll grab a few on this order" stuff when you're buying things you need for a current (hobby grade) project, so you've got a few boxes full of (hopefully sufficiently well enough labelled and documented" junk on-hand for the next random project idea... I bet I have a dozen or so "DS18b20"s here from that approach. I _think_ I could probably find then in under 10 minutes if I had an idea that needed one right now. Maybe... (Actually, I do have that idea. I want to put temp logging on a little LiPo battery that sits under a small solar panel to run an ESP32. I _think_ it's probably failing early because the whole thing gets too hot in the du5rect sunlight. Logging will confirm/deny that, and let me measure changes with insulation and/or fan cooling. Maybe I'll go hunt for one tonight...)
fpgaminer 6y ago
> But even then, you can bundle all your parts and order once. I fall for this trap every. single. time. _HOURS_ spent racking my brain to think of all the things I might need in different scenarios, so I can be absolutely, positively, 100% sure that I have everything in that one single order. ... and end up placing 2 to 3 more orders before the project is done.
- fermienrico 6y ago
  Hahaha I can totally relate. Always ends up being a few packages.
amelius 6y ago
But why can't digikey just charge for what it costs them to send the items? Now it feels like I'm paying some kind of tax.
- alibarber 6y ago
  Because the cost of someone picking up a reel of 10000 resistors, from a warehouse that has to be rented heated/cooled etc etc doesn't scale down to that 1 resistor, even if the shipping cost might... I know, it sucks! - I have seen many suppliers that cater for hobbyists around the world and will mail you a resistor in an envelope. But I'm sure that they don't make enough money to send you a certification and guarantee of authenticity with it, which is why real industrial users won't mind paying $50 for a handful of components because those guarantees are worth far more...
  - amelius 6y ago
    > Because the cost of someone picking up a reel of 10000 resistors, from a warehouse that has to be rented heated/cooled etc etc doesn't scale down to that 1 resistor I understand that. But please charge me for what it costs. Don't let people with small orders pay the price for people with large orders. They already get discount for their order size! Or if this is not possible at least call it an order-picking fee, don't lump it in the shipping costs.
    - fermienrico 6y ago
      Shipping costs are actually transparent at Digikey. It is exactly what they pay to USPS.
joshvm 6y ago
> If you're a business, there is absolutely no excuse to penny pinch here. Most of these sites offer free shipping to trade accounts with no MOQ as well. But also you want that customer service as a business. Mouser once sent me a replacement camera at work (university) because they supplied one with the wrong interface. No doubt we have a big order book, but I've had similar experiences with RS as a hobbyist customer - ordered tools which are not up to scratch or slightly out of tolerance - "just keep it, we'll send a replacement".

bigiain 6y ago

Same. I read through this thinking "What, my team sensor on the data logger for my coffee grinder might be more than half a degree out? You know what? I totally don't care, and wouldn't have spent an extra 50 cents to get that much accuracy..." I do have ethical qualms about supporting/funding "stolen IP", but then I've kinda got ethical qualms about the whole concept of IP anyway, and if you wanted to go hardline on IP compliance you'd probably have to avoid everything out of China (and everything that contains components out of China)... I wonder how often Apple get counterfeit components slipping through on Foxconn production lines, and how much effort they put into stopping it beyond extensive QA - which only ensures any counterfeits that make it through need to be close-enough to functionally equivalent to pass all the tests? The "test after" approach kinda pushes towards more IP infringement rather than less, since it's likely parts built from stolen designs would pass more often that parts reimplemented according to the spec?

lutorm 6y ago
If you don't need that accuracy, why would you use a DS18B20 in the first place. You can use a dirt cheap NTC.
- andi999 6y ago
  Maybe you want to save on the A/D hardware?

selectodude 6y ago

That's actually how much it costs to ship stuff when it's not being exceptionally heavily subsidized by the utterly broken Universal Postal Treaty.

pravda 6y ago
Digikey would be charging more then $5, but competition forces them to not charge outlandish shipping rates! It didn't used to be that way -- mail order suppliers used to charge high fake "Shipping & Handling" fees. That's why Amazon introduced 'free' shipping.
kuschku 6y ago
Orders with DHL across the EU are pretty much $4, without any other company ever handling it. Deliveries don't have to be that expensive. Going further, if I'm in Germany, and order from a local place (e.g. a local ebay seller), I pay like $0.80 for postage on a delivery. If I order from a reputable store... it's like 2 weeks waiting time with $15 on delivery. In the past there used to be small stores everywhere selling every tiny part, but nowadays...