Mouser shipping tip to save money.

[adafruit]

The lack of an estimate is mostly due to charging actual rates, and the entire nightmare of dimensional weights, packing materials, and zones.

That still doesn't explain why they can't estimate a shipping quote. I mean, they HAVE a page that shows the cost per pound for each shipping method. No reason why they can't keep a weight per unit for their entire inventory. If you buy xxx of gadget xyz it will weight (xxx * weight per 1 xyz) lb + ~abc from the weight of the box and packaging. Even if it's off by a few cents or dollars I wouldn't mind. Better than being surprised after it ships and you receiving a bill that's $10-20 more expensive than expected.

this is much harder than you think - weight, size, special packaging, delicate stuff, stuff that is long and thin or wide and flat. you can estimate but if you're short then people complain.

[adafruit]

Then people complain when it's off, etc. That how S&H turned into a profit center for most companies. Digikey's shipping rates are always less than I expect, and probably half of what companies that do weight- or dollar-based S&H charge. Mouser I've not used as much, but it's in the same general boat.

digikey has also negotiated very good rates with the shippers. small companies may not be inflating the rates! you can always use ups.com or similar to get an estimate, a lot of times you will see that what you think is a lot of $ is really the going rate for an insured package

[richms]

The lack of an estimate is mostly due to charging actual rates, and the entire nightmare of dimensional weights, packing materials, and zones.

That still doesn't explain why they can't estimate a shipping quote. I mean, they HAVE a page that shows the cost per pound for each shipping method. No reason why they can't keep a weight per unit for their entire inventory. If you buy xxx of gadget xyz it will weight (xxx * weight per 1 xyz) lb + ~abc from the weight of the box and packaging. Even if it's off by a few cents or dollars I wouldn't mind. Better than being surprised after it ships and you receiving a bill that's $10-20 more expensive than expected.

-robodude666

Have a look at the knapsack problem in programming.

Basically you are expecting them to spend a lot of programmers time trying to solve that for their items, having the dimensions and weight of every box and item available, and trying to work out a best fit programmaticaly to give you a price, when probably 95% or more of their customers just dont care what the shipping costs.

[pstemari]

I was actually thinking of the big catalog companies when I said that.

UPS rates are notoriously vague and they really stick it to individual shippers, followed shortly by small businesses. If I ship personal packages from work the mailroom charges me my employer's corporate rates, and it's astonishingly cheap. I imagine big catalog companies in general get similar rates.

[mightyohm]

The most ridiculous overuse of packaging that I have ever experienced was with an order from Newark. Every sub-item was in its own padded envelope, with way more packaging than was necessary (how much padding does solder wick really need?). I was so upset about it that I called their shipping department, and they said to make a note on future orders. Apparently they really do read the shipping notes!

[richms]

When I orderd 2 pic micros from DSE in NZ, it came in a large box with bags of air. I also had 2 sim cards on the same order (or was it 4?) anyway, they came seperate because they were backordered.

Again, a large box and bags of air in it. Insane when both could have gone in something much much smaller

[Len17]

Again, a large box and bags of air in it.

It's amusing that the Sealed Air Corporation makes a living selling bags of air.

Here are a couple of examples of really excessive packaging (both from the same company):
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/18/hp_packaging/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/23/enormouse/

[pstemari]

Not bad, Certainly competitive with the two rolled maps from Amazon I received shipped in a carton roughly 18" square and four feet long.

On a strict ratio basis, nothing beats this screw (picture), but there's a point when an item is so small that any shippable package is huge in comparison.

[richms]

friend ordered the screws and caddy to put a second HDD into his dell, as he was in the UK at the time and dell over there dont sell parts to end users for some reason, he had them sent to me here, it came in 4 boxes about a5 sized and 30mm high. One had 2 screws in it, one had 4 screws, one had the sata plug bit, and the last had the metal bit.

Was going to cost heaps to ship to the UK, so I repacked into one box and still have a massive amount of space.

The screws in a box make that amazon screw look positivly sane,

[jmsaavedra]

I love Mouser for one huge reason: the Projects! You can save entire orders as projects and share them publicly. I know other sites let you do similar stuff, but Mouser's interface is great for it.

I made this instructable about making a protoboard Arduino compatible : http://www.instructables.com/id/Perfboa ... e-circuit/

And to go along with the instructable, a Mouser project with everything you need: https://www.mouser.com/ProjectManager/P ... 20ea42b1c5

So awesome!!

I can also attest to Mouser upgrading my shipping when I spend near/over $200

[tinsmith]

You can import lists of PNs into Digikey.

I believe you can also get free shipping if you mail them a check...I haven't tried this recently though.

[pstemari]

Yeah, Digikey's BOM manager is pretty good. Like everything else on the Digikey site, it tends toward a very minimalist approach, but that's a good thing more often than not.

[johngineer]

Just posting a recent observation, which has some regard to George's original statement:

"One thing I *do not* like about mouser is that they don't give you a real estimate of your shipping before you check out. They add the shipping charges when they bill your CC - you never really know what it's going to be. After a while you start to get a feel for what an order will cost in shipping - but there can be some real surprises."

I got really tired of this too. I'd place an order with Mouser and they'd bill my CC with the total + shipping estimate. Then they'd revise the shipping charge from the estimate to the real cost (sometimes up, sometimes down) and bill my CC again. The original charge would then be cancelled, but this might take 4 or 5 days if I placed my order at the end of the week.

I'm not sure if it's a new option, or just that I never saw it before, but recently I noticed that there is now a USPS shipping option at Mouser. I've placed a few small (< $50) orders using this option, and I've been pleasantly surprised. Not only is the shipping cost lower than UPS or FedEx, but in all 3 cases I received my order a day earlier than I expected, and my card has not been charged multiple times to account for discrepancies between estimated and real shipping cost. For large orders, this may not be optimal (if you can get free upgraded UPS/FedEx shipping by hitting some threshold, that might be better), but for small orders it's great!

[whitnasty1]

Actually, Newark is based out of norther South Carolina, around the Greenville,SC area. I live in Wilmington, NC which is on the NC/SC border, and I always receive my packages the next day from Newark with UPS Ground. I have always had great experiences with Newark, and they are my go to supplier. I am a design engineer at Sturdy Corporation in Wilmington, NC and we mainly deal with DigiKey, Newark, and Arrow Electronics, and Newark is still by far my favorite, except when ordering extremely large orders for production, DigiKey can sometimes have better pricing. I am not the most patient person on the planet though, so I chose to go with Newark 99% of the time. UPS Ground from DigiKey takes a while sometimes, and whoever said they were debating switching to USPS... I would advise against that, there is no guarantee of when your order will arrive, and I have ended up waiting a pretty good amount of time sometimes when using USPS, I personally will not use them anymore unless it is the only option available.

[Sembazuru]

For those of us in the mid-atlantic region, if you are looking for tools or mechanical stuff, make sure McMaster Carr is on your short list. Their prices might not be the best, but since they ship out of NewJersey I can get overnight shipping to northern Delaware with UPS ground. I've even gotten stuff delivered same day for orders placed in the morning requesting ground shipping. I was shocked (yet extremely pleased) the first time that happened.

I hope Lady Ada and her crew knows this. (Yes, kissing up to the teacher on my first post)

What!!?!?!?!???!?!??!! I got "Your message contains banned spam words. Please rephrase your post without the following words : J*rsey" (my edit) on my first attempt to post! I know it is part of the name of an extremely low-brow TV show, but come on. It is part of the name of a state, as well as the name of a region of England, as well as a type of cow. Someone needs to rethink some of the words in the spam filter...