#Digi key price manual#

A useful startup idea would be a location-based mobile app that would tell you which bodega nearest you carries the cheapest cigarettes. Thus I'm not sure a good online business could be made aggregating the various prices of cigarette distributors. Depending on how low you go on the convenience store food chain, often times the 'distributor' is just a guy with a truck. The stores themselves are usually locked into one distributor for junk food/smokes and another for liquor. However, since I grew up in the town where Digi-Key is located and once dated the daughter of a bodega owner, I must proceed.įirst, bodega and convenience store owners don't order smokes from Philip Morris, they get all their stuff from various distributors. I really don't want to make any more comments, because I'm sure they are equally irrelevant. They would like customers to purchase their higher-margin items based on past experience purchasing lower-margin items even though the higher-margin items might be cheaper elsewhere. They would like to avoid doing business with customers who are concerned solely about price.

#Digi key price manual#

It has invested in a web site which provides an excellent user experience and they would prefer not to make it easier for customers to use Digi-Key's web site as a reference manual for lower cost competitors (whether or not you believe this is inevitable). I can immediately think of some (non-evil) reasons for Digi-Key to prefer not to have Octopart include its pricing. I agree it would be nice if they cooperated with Octopart but to say that makes them evil is absurdly hyperbolic. I don't believe that they are engaged in any immoral enterprises. I have found their prices competitive - as another poster said - lower on some items and higher on others. I'm not sure what other evidence of goodness you seek than customers' experiences with them. And between good and evil there's a nice-sized neutral middle area which it appears you have transited in one fell swoop based on your sole piece of evidence. It didn't seem like all that much more evidence was required to refute your one piece of evidence that Digi-Key is evil because they don't want Octopart to list their prices.Įven if I had no evidence, my default assumption would be that they were good until confronted with significant evidence that they were evil. Ironically (despite the recent fiasco) I would consider Southwest to be a very innovative, pleasurable-to-fly airline. some airlines (Southwest) can still only be searched via their site. Your comparison to travel is an interesting one, because despite Travelocity/Orbitz/Kayak/etc. In other words, perhaps someone could legitimately believe that Octopart is an inferior (non-innovative) approach to part search, and that allowing your products to be searchable via Octopart would confuse and hurt, rather than help, your customers. I don't think that necessarily makes them evil, however, because control can mean controlling the customer experience for the better.

Why? Well, I can't speak for them (although I worked there for 2.5 years), but I would guess it's because they want to maintain control. What about McMaster-Carr? Not a chance in the world they are going to open up their pricing and availability to an Octopart site. You'll have to ask Digi-Key how getting rid of Octopart helps their users.ĭigi-Key is certainly not the only ones in this space that doesn't want price comparisons. We keep Digi-Key on the site because it makes our users happy. They have specifically told us that they don't want us to exist because they don't want price comparison. The only thing that Octopart is trying to do is make it easier for people to find parts and Digi-Key has said that they don't want that to happen. I used to go straight to American Airlines to buy tickets and that was fine but how much nicer is it to buy tickets online now? I even travel more because it is easier to find things. Part search today is like travel search in 1995. I think that what frustrates Paul is that Digi-Key is actively trying to block innovation in part search because they don't want price competition.

They have a lot of parts in stock and they ship things right away so we don't have any qualms with their service.

We have had good experiences ordering from Digi-Key as well. Personally, we don't view them as evil (or ourselves as good, for that matter).