Component Pricing

[ruffrecords]

I have recent come a cross an anomaly in the pricing of a single component, namely a small zinc die casting I use to attach PCBs to front panels. It is a standard part for Eurorack systems made by Schroff.

In the UK I can but one from Farnell for £3.54

http://uk.farnell.com/schroff/60807-181/bracket-to-fix-pcb-to-panel/dp/2292872?MER=bn_para_1TP_LastViewed_1

This is what first alerted me to the issue because I am pretty certain last time I bought some they were half that price. So I checked Newark (Farnell's US offshoot):

http://www.newark.com/schroff/60807-181/printed-board-bracket-plug-in/dp/65T0174

Where they cost $2.04 each which at current exchange rates is about £1.51 which is close to what I remember them costing.

So I did a general search for a Schroff 60807-181 and it turn out Digkey does them for a merr £0.95

https://www.digikey.co.uk/products/en?keywords=60807-181


The interesting thing is Schroof as far as a know is a Swiss company so why can I buy this part cheaper from the US than I can in Europe and more importantly why is it so expenive from Farnell?


Cheers

Ian

 

[JohnRoberts]

I have seen out of whack prices from several websites (not just electronic components).  I think some vendors are experimenting with dynamic pricing (trying to charge what the market will bear). Some electronic component vendors may attempt to capture overhead/handling costs for low volume SKUs.

Another distortion for small quantity purchases is shipping costs that often exceed the value of the parts.

JR

 

[PRR]

> Schroof as far as a know is a Swiss company so why can I buy this part cheaper from the US than I can in Europe and more importantly why is it so expenive from Farnell?

This fooled Marx too. Having the means of production is pointless without efficient distribution.

Many good producers are poor distributors. They are too tied-up in casting and drilling thoughts to work on pricing, promotion, and shipping.

DigiKey has a lot of practice in pure distribution.  Top-page in Google. They can predict stock levels needed from extensive experience. They know the effect of pricing. Their warehouse is like a slingshot. They negotiate bulk rates with shippers.

Another aspect: DigiKey and others may place large quick-cash orders with producers on the commitment that the producer will not under-cut them on price. The producer loves the fact that a distributor will take whole crates and make the part easy to find and order. Much better than waiting for many small sales to appear. I can think of many parts which I can get from the factory, or a distributor, and the factory price is almost always higher. (True, why would a distributor carry a part available cheaper from the factory? But I think this leads to artificially high factory prices so that distribution will be thrown onto distributors, who probably do it better.)

Back when we sold small bicycle parts, we'd get 10 for $1 or $2.50 and sell them individually. The honored rule was "double it and add a nickel" ($0.05). Double, because you didn't always sell the whole box of 10, and half was a good bet. The nickel was the profit. (Probably a buck now.) But there are a lot of idiots in sales today. I think some of them apply the rule over and over, so a 10 cent part winds up $0.60 or $1.25. Farnell sometimes seems this way to me.

BTW: I don't see that Schroff has manufacturing in Switzerland?
https://schroff.pentair.com/en/schroff-na/locations

 

[iampoor1]

Some electronic component vendors may attempt to capture overhead/handling costs for low volume SKUs.

I have always wondered what kind of overhead is added to a part on digikey or Mouser if it is stored on the other side of the buildingplaysdrums from the shipping department. They must know how many cents it will cost to retrieve it.  8)

 

[JohnRoberts]

>
Another aspect: DigiKey and others may place large quick-cash orders with producers on the commitment that the producer will not under-cut them on price. The producer loves the fact that a distributor will take whole crates and make the part easy to find and order. Much better than waiting for many small sales to appear. I can think of many parts which I can get from the factory, or a distributor, and the factory price is almost always higher. (True, why would a distributor carry a part available cheaper from the factory? But I think this leads to artificially high factory prices so that distribution will be thrown onto distributors, who probably do it better.)

Back when we sold small bicycle parts, we'd get 10 for $1 or $2.50 and sell them individually. The honored rule was "double it and add a nickel" ($0.05). Double, because you didn't always sell the whole box of 10, and half was a good bet. The nickel was the profit. (Probably a buck now.) But there are a lot of idiots in sales today. I think some of them apply the rule over and over, so a 10 cent part winds up $0.60 or $1.25. Farnell sometimes seems this way to me.

I had a funny situation (not funny ha ha but funny weird) about pricing of the key component in my first Popular Electronic kit back in the mid 70s. In hindsight I seriously underpriced everything about my first kit, and apparently the Matsushita BBD chip I used and resold in single quantities was priced well below the distribution single piece price. I was buying them in 100pc quantities so marked up my selling price a fair ( remember I have always been thrifty) amount from there. 

The distributor was not amused, in fact they threatened to cut me off, and since they were the only distributor in the US for that Japanese IC, that could have been a real problem for me.  I finally convinced them that the damage was done as hundreds of thousands of magazines were out in the world, so there was little I could do about it at that point. 

As happened with other articles I published in Popular Electronics over the years the exposure my article got from the roughly half million circulation was felt by the vendors of unique parts. even though it was a "hobby" magazine, real engineers saw it, and the positive exposure from seeing a working design helped them sell more parts too. 

JR

 

[efinque]

The honored rule was "double it and add a nickel" ($0.05)

When I used to work in sales we used to divide the price we paid by 0.7 which (with the VAT rates here) gave a very accurate retail price for a product (sometimes too cheap because of shipping costs but we were advised to order in bulk from the supplier to avoid them if possible)

 

[ruffrecords]

BTW: I don't see that Schroff has manufacturing in Switzerland?
https://schroff.pentair.com/en/schroff-na/locations

Yes, you are right, they are German.

Cheers

Ian

 

[Rob Flinn]

Ian,

If you buy certain resistor ranges from RS the price can vary as much as 10 fold for resistors in the same range from the same manufacturer.  For example a 68k might be £0.12 each but the 47k might be £0.01 each.  I complained about it to their CS dept but that thoyght t was OK .....  Work that one out .

 

[ruffrecords]

Ian,

If you buy certain resistor ranges from RS the price can vary as much as 10 fold for resistors in the same range from the same manufacturer.  For example a 68k might be £0.12 each but the 47k might be £0.01 each.  I complained about it to their CS dept but that thoyght t was OK .....  Work that one out .

Perhaps more popular values they buy in larger quantities so they get a better price? Just a guess.

Cheers

Ian

 

[maq3396]

Pricing across borders or betwwen distributors can be baffling!
Comparing the same item between Amazon.com and Amazon.ca frequently demonstrates significant, and absurd,  differences in price.
Not sure why this exists but it seems to hold true regardless of the country of manufacture.

 

[PRR]

> 68k might be £0.12 each but the 47k might be £0.01 each

More Ohms should be more money, no?

You should see what they charge for glass beads (infinite Ohms).

 

[john12ax7]

I've seen situations where it's cheaper to buy 10 pcs than 1. Like 10 resistors $0.01 each,  1 resistor $0.15

Food pricing can be very strange too.  Some stuff sells for cheaper in far away regions than it does where it was locally produced.