RS have an offer on with free delivery for your first online order. Quote promotion code RSNCFD, use before 30th June.
T&C don't explicitly bar you from using it if you've ordered from them before (it's unclear what 'first online' means in this context).
Looks like they're following CPC's lead...
Theo
Only valid on orders under 20 quid. How very strange.
Was looking for some rotary switches the other day, and RS were about 20% more than CPC for the same make and part number. I dunno if they still give a rebate based on what you spend over a year - but for a small buyer like me it's no contest.
Expensive, but good gear, though. No rubbish. But I'm going back a few decades..... is this still the case today?
Yes Maplins!!
I was looking for a 12V 1.2AH SLA a few weeks back, Maplins about £30:00 and RS about £10:00, in the end I got one from Screwfix for a few pence less than £10:00
I emailed a query to Maplins and they assured me that they provided the best service possible. Bollocks!!!
I'm reminded of the series of youtube videos where a guy dissects one of Maplin's jumpstarters, and finds the 17Ah SLA battery is a padded out case around a 7Ah SLA battery.
Just viewed that...very interesting!
I was a bit puzzled by that.
I think it's related to their normal terms:
Always: "Free postage for orders over 20 quid for account customers"
Offer: "Free postage (except for account customers with orders over 20 quid, who get it free anyway with no restrictions)"
In other words it's always free, they're just being clear which set of T&C the 'free' part operates under.
It is true that I only ended up at RS because of a single chip that I couldn't find at Onecall (ie Farnell+CPC). After years of being useless, Farnell's website is actually usable these days, while RS' is still ebay-style clunky. I almost never look there nowadays.
And Farnell will sell me 1-off the chip I wanted (though only in MSOP, which I'd rather not) while RS insist I buy 10. Sigh.
Theo
In article , Bill scribeth thus
All the same Yuasa type of course;?...
Sometimes have their uses when you need it right now and nowhere else is available..
In article , Dave Plowman (News) scribeth thus
Dunno .. we normally buy an item or item's in excess of 20 quid and do compare RS with Farnell/CPC etc and quite a bit of the time they are competitive..
Other way around surely?...
I've never considered buying from Maplin. When they want a tenner for some trivial small thing I can get elsewhere for 50p its not even worth a look. I'm not the impatient ill planned sort.
At one place they used to order from RS. Bit by bit we found everything was cheaper elsewhere. IIRC the upside with RS is the detailed specs that, at that time, werent readily available from other places. The net has wiped th at advantage out.
NT
Don't you love chinese manufacturers.
NT
When I moved from a large mini-computer manufacturer to a small startup in the mid 1990's, we wanted an RS account like I'd got used to. Called up RS and a large bundle of forms arrived, wanting the director's salaries, last 3 years accounts, my inside leg measurement, etc.
Next day, a Farnell salesman knocked on the door and offered us a credit account there and then. I've no idea if that was pure coincidence or not, but I took that. We never got around to filling out the RS paperwork, and Farnell got many thousands from us by the time I left.
A few decades ago they were known as reject spares.
They used to over-paint the manufactures number and print their own on the top of ICs.
Scrape off the paint and you would find the original number. In a batch of "identical" RS part numbers you would find components from different manufacturers that sometimes had major differences in the specifications.
Whereas their proper name was "RadioSpares".
as did Clive Sinclair.
Really? Of all companies, they had a pretty good reputation for the goods they supplied - although not for value.
And?
But did they conform to the published RS spec? I've used many of those over the years and they've always done what they say on the tin. If you needed a tighter spec you'd go for the more expensive individual product rather than a generic.
That's no recommendation. ;-)
did I say it was?
No. But sort of inferred it.
You inferred, you think he implied.
Chris
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