Amazon is great at sending way more boxes than necessary.
----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest Internet Exchange http://www.midwest-ix.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Hohhof" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, September 3, 2015 9:44:11 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT eCommerce There are some places I shop exclusively using their online stores, like McMaster, Allied and Tessco. With Tessco you need to click “Confirm Price” at checkout which also checks availability. I have never had any of these companies screw up an order. Mouser, Newark, DigiKey as well, they are all very reliable and have good online ordering. McMaster takes the cake though, I think they have the world’s best online store. Baltic I usually order online but if I need it next day I have found to check if it shows “pick up at will call” as a shipping option, if not, then “in stock” probably means drop ship from somewhere else like Streakwave or Primus. I have never had Jon at Streakwave (Ohio) or Mark at WAV mess up an order or tell me something was in stock that wasn’t. But I email or call them. It’s quick and easy. I think we all face the issue that you spend an entire week of days in the field and can’t order parts until bedtime when places are closed and an online store with accurate stock status is a great thing. But I can also shoot an email to Jon or Mark, go to bed, and check my email the next morning or they will call me. What I really hate are the places that want you to sign the quote and FAX it back with a credit card authorization. Actually they don’t bother me anymore because if there are any left like that, I just don’t buy stuff from them. It used to be common practice. Two places I shop less than I used to are Newegg and Amazon. I don’t know what happened to Newegg, I think they have really gone downhill. One place I do buy from that I used to steer clear of is Tiger Direct, they used to be an outlet store, but they are pretty mainstream now. At Amazon, I don’t buy a lot of stuff from third party sellers unless it says fulfilled by Amazon. Even then, a lot of stock is comingled, and there is a risk of getting grey market goods or outright knockoffs. I’ve had Amazon do stupid stuff. Like one time I ordered 10 surge strips, and it turned they had quantity=1 at each of their warehouses, so the UPS guy literally delivered 10 Amazon boxes each with one surge strip in it. Now I order surge strips from Tiger Direct. Also one time I was having trouble finding Bishop/Plymouth butyl mastic tape and Amazon had some, when it came it was not Bishop at all, it was a Chinese knockoff. Returning it was easy, but it shouldn’t have happened. From: Tyler Treat Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2015 9:05 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT eCommerce I always had great luck with Matt Kahle. But I was always the type who'd pick up the phone and call. Hey Matt I need this Ok, how bad? Really bad, Ok you'll have it tomorrow. He actually met me in Bloomington one time after same day back to back lightning wiped out my backhaul stock. Then again, it's important to ask if everything is in stock or where it's in stock. Chicago was overnight UPS for us, so if something wasn't coming from there it was pretty obvious. ___________________________ Mangled by my iPhone. ___________________________ Tyler Treat Corn Belt Technologies, Inc. [email protected] ___________________________ On Sep 3, 2015, at 8:27 PM, Adam Moffett < [email protected] > wrote: Dan Ortega at CTI was a badass. I would send one email and everything I wanted would show up two days later. I don't know how he managed it, but that guy got stuff done. Our post Dan Ortega experiences were never as good. The only thing as reliable as Dan Ortega is Amazon. Maybe Dan Ortega was an android. <blockquote> I'm fairly happy with CTI (our rep: James until last year I think, and now Jonte) for cases where high-touch is OK. Ordering everything for a tower being built 3-4 months out with a licensed backhaul is a good example. In those cases a few clarifying phone calls and a email thread isn't the end of the world. They're pretty good to us and I have reasons to want to send them business. It's ordering the one-off/small project items that can be irritating. My usual order cycle is: email what I want (include exact part numbers), get a quote back, make sure the price is sane and part number is correct (if it's even listed), then email back saying yes, and it hopefully(1) shows up next day. 1) That's the part where things break down. I'm never sure if they have stock, are sending from a 3rd party (maybe a warehouse further away, maybe stock levels aren't in sync). Cambium is never a problem. Ubiquiti is hit and miss, other things, vary wildly. The uncertainty is frustrating. Although lately Jonte has gotten really good about letting me know when items have long lead times or are out of stock and finding alternate items. I do appreciate that. Aside from stock uncertainties, it feels wasteful of my time and theirs to have to go through a "traditional" sales rep interaction cycle for small/uncomplicated orders. At this point if we're replenishing stock by ordering a case of UBNT gear and we haven't run out yet, we'll order it from CTI. If it's for a small project (e.g. AF5x link+spare or some UniFi APs) I'll order from Baltic because the stock levels on their website are accurate--if they show it in stock and I order before 3 PM I know that it will be in my office by noon the following day. Inaccurate stock levels on Streakwave's web store have bitten me on nearly every order I've placed with them... On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 3:28 PM, Mike Hammett < [email protected] > wrote: <blockquote> If it wasn't for Jeff Broadwick, i wouldn't do business with CTI... too complicated. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest Internet Exchange http://www.midwest-ix.com From: "Jon Auer" < [email protected] > To: "Animal Farm" < [email protected] > Sent: Wednesday, September 2, 2015 2:32:38 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT eCommerce On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Forrest Christian (List Account) < [email protected] > wrote: <blockquote> Don't discount just adding your products to amazon and the like. I love it when manufacturers do this (and use Amazon's warehouses). I've been seriously tempted to just do it with /someone's/ very awesome APC-compatible surge cards... I was very happy when Telect was doing that with fuse panels and fiber trays. There's so much less cognitive load and time spent in going to Amazon, searching part number, and clicking buy now instead of emailing Power&Tel or CTI, getting a quote, approving the quote, placing the order, etc. </blockquote> </blockquote> </blockquote>
