Farnell UK Avis 1 026

We have paid for express delivery, yet the parts are still not being received on time. It is concerning that Farnell management has been unable to resolve these ongoing delivery issues despite facing them for many years. At the very least, management should consider expanding delivery options by working with additional courier services, as is standard practice for most companies. Furthermore, UPS has proven to be less reliable compared to other available carriers, which further reinforces the need to offer alternative delivery options.

Ordered from Farnell as I needed a few components urgently, despite the ridiculous processing charges for small orders, naively thinking I would receive it the next day as I used to. When I saw that the order hadn't been processed after 2 days I tried to contact them over chat, to ask for the order to be cancelled. They will happily tell you that they "placed a note for cancellation", which is clearly only a way to fob you off. Order of course arrived 3 days later, despite the "cancellation".
Removed from my list of suppliers.

The most ridiculous replacement process ever.

I made a single-item order. The item came defective. I proceeded to ship it back, and farnell internally made a new order to send me the replacement. I started to be pestered to pay for the replacement item on top of the original payment. Now I paid it to stop being pestered.

10 emails later, I am waiting for my original payment to be returned. The customer support is incredibly bad at communication and the process is absurd. I would rather pay 10% extra than deal with them again.

[Edited] FIY, I reached out to the support email in the reply and forwarded the full thread of communication but they didn't even bother to respond. I literally got better support from aliexpress. Shame on farnell and their procedures and useless support.

I've been dealing with Farnell for 20+ years. Everything was fine until they decided to get rid of their UK-based support team, who were very knowledgeable and helpful. I've just been on the phone with someone for the THIRD time now to try to resolve a payment processing problem, which they accept is at their end. I urgently needed the parts for a new design by the end of the month, but that is not going to happen now.

This company just goes from bad to worse, they are now trying to wriggle out of complying with UK law regarding returns.
They force you to their online returns portal, I completed this a week ago, heard nothing back, I called the Serbian call centre today and was told that I had been sent an email asking me to take photographs of the items I wanted to return.

Firstly I had no email, secondly, why on earth would I need to spend even more time sending photos, this is clearly attempt to wriggle out of returns.
Used to be such a great company...

Largest range of components warehoused in the UK. Reasonable prices. But delivery. Don't expect next day. I hardly ever get that. For example, today's order I made last Wednesday evening and I just got it now (Tuesday afternoon). If I call Farnell they just call the courier and tell me what they said. If Farnell could just sort out their delivery and customer service they would get mostly 5*, but it's been like this for years so don't hold your breath.

Good: Product range is amongst the widest
Bad: Website is glacially slow following changes to the user interface - sometimes you wonder if the internet is down, it is *that* slow.
Bad: Order fulfulment is dishonest. Date of order in tracking is typically declared as 1 day after the actual date of order placement. Picking of parts to ship is then a further day's delay so shipping probably occurs on 2 days after the order is placed. Delivery quoted as 1-2 business days on their homepage is therefore BS.

ordered some urgent parts on a UPS next day before 1pm and the parcel never arrived, spoke to someone in Serbia and they said it hadn't been despatched yet...despite me ordering it at around 4pm. Still waiting for it 2 days later, rang them and the serbian woman told me I'd have to get a returns number and send it back when it comes. Absolutely feel messed about and my client is pulling his hair out and blaming me. Once again farnell makes me look incompetent.

ordered some components and they missed to send one box with 50 backshells, instead of this they asked me to pay again for item with hope that they will refund me.
no refund after one week finished.
smells like SCAM.

Farnell message is useless, because they did not answered me to emails.

Ordered a connector, took next day delivery which was quite an expensive order.

Courier claimed we were closed - reception is manned all day
next day - same, called UPS, oh maybe he couldn't find you - had a phone number etc didn't even attempt to call. Gave them directions (Big white building on the corner at the junction opposite Aldi. No other large white buildings about.

Anyway another couple of days go by with package delayed showing on the tracking.

Live Chat Agent: 1 - i'll escalate with UPS will be out in 1-2 days - didn't arrive

Live Chat Agent 2 - Ohh you need to give it another 1-2 days - no delivery

Phoned - This agent at least emailed me back - still no delivery, no option of sending out another one without me paying for it first, no option of another courier, UPS can't trust to catch a cold right now let alone deliver a parcel.

So after 2 weeks parcel still not here and only just been given a refund.

While the customer service agents are polite they are of no use getting a resolution to an issue, only 1 out of 3 emailed me back after lots of promises.

I have used them before a while ago and didn't have any issues. Looking at other reviews though it seems customer service has gone out the window if there are any issues at all, you are pretty much on your own.

I will not use this company again, the connector we were looking for is only supplied by them. So we have decided to swap out the connections on all the products to something available elsewhere as we cannot be held to ransom when dealing with Farnell, Our clients are very disappointed in us as we couldn't get the parts in the timescales we said.

This is the biggest issue - their incompetence in getting parts out makes us look bad, and the constant fobbing off it will arrive in 1-2 business days - especially when you paid for next business day delivery is a hard pill to swallow

While the apologies by email its pretty empty apologies with no solutions offered, With that I can't award them any moire than 1 stars

Garbage since Avnet takeover - no UK staff so trying to discuss anything in the slightest bit out of the ordinary is pointless. Been trying to order for two weeks now, but prevented from doing so due to their internal classification of our company as a 'reseller' when we're actually a manufacturer

I can't believe how badly this whole experience went with this supplier.

We received vital consumable filters that were already past their printed expiry date.
When this was queried, the supplier dishonestly claimed that the printed date was the date of manufacture, a claim that is factually incorrect and contrary to 3M's own data sheets.
We provided conclusive proof, including product data and photographic evidence , demonstrating that the goods were expired and unfit for purpose.
Despite providing irrefutable evidence of their mistake, the supplier has failed to replace the expired stock, issue a refund, or provide any communication regarding a plan of action.

We are left with unusable, expired goods, and the supplier has ceased all communication, demonstrating a shocking lack of customer service, accountability and ethics.

Save yourself the headache—avoid this supplier at all costs

Farnell was for a great many years my number one supplier for R&D components, small quantity production, consumables and tools (think business of £100k+ per year in the early noughties, with the company of which I was technical director). All materials were then of well-known trusted brands, supplied quickly and (given the high service level) at reasonable prices. They could be ordered from a catalogue that was superbly presented, and both quick and easy to search - in stark contrast to the dreadful web site today. Orders could even be collected same-day from the Leeds trade counter, which was happily local to my business and staffed by wonderfully helpful people. All this is now gone; it's very sad and frustrating especially when you actively would like to support what was once a trusted and relatively local company. Latest farce: I find myself in urgent need of a tube (couple of dozen) of bog-standard SMD op-amp IC's, and am faced not only with hefty minimum charges (despite being a long-standing account holder) unless I order extra stuff I don't really need, but also find that the branded (Texas Instruments) op-amps are now about four times the normal price. Even RS - traditionally significantly more expensive - sell them far cheaper. If I want them at the usual price I'm now expected, it seems, to buy the in-house "Multicomp" brand which is made who-knows-where and comes with no traceability as far as I can see. Erm - no thanks. Back then to Mouser (who seem to be able to deliver just as quickly these days, despite despatching from Europe into post Brexs**t Britain) or even - yes - RS Components. Why on earth Avnet bought this highly respected, R&D / industry-focused business simply in order to make it another of their CEM-obsessed suppliers I do not know. I hope they do. They seem to be losing customers and goodwill hand over fist.

Has been gradually going downhill for the last few years.
1) unreliable delivery, next day is now an extra cost option.
2) Outsourced customer support could be a lot better. Different staff contradict themselves and make false assurances (re delivery)
3) Admin seems patchy, such as communications they claim to have sent, not arriving.

I've been using them since the 1980's, but honestly if they can't offer a reliable next day service then Mouser and Digikey usually arrive within 3 days, carry a better stock of electronic components and don't apply as many "standard supply multiples" (which often result in waste if you only wanted one piece.
I write with a heavy heart really, as Farrell were my go-to for years.

Their reply is total nonsense really, as what made things worse was total non disclosure of any warehouse issues from customer support. Rather they simply made empty promises that the items would arrive the next day. This simply isn't acceptable from a professional grade supplier. Following their reply if I could give zero stars then I would, but sadly 1 star is the lowest score.

I didn't know it was possible to get to the bottom of the barrel and keep going, but Farnell have managed!

We all used to know the score, Farnell stocked just about everything you needed, and if you ordered it you would receive it the next day with free shipping regardless of whether it was a 50p pack of resistors or an order worth several thousand pounds. You accepted that the cost was higher, but the service was wonderful and you happily paid slightly more for this.

Over the past few years, the complete enshitification of the company has occured, from regularly not delivering when they should to adding minimum order values and additional shipping costs. This was before last weekends screw up which has meant that our order has sat processing for over a week.

This is completely unaceptable, and there is no longer any reason to purchase anything from Farnell, and if at all possible we will not again. They have departed from their sole reason for supplying industrial customers, and I fear the damage has now been done.

Farnell once completed research into customer need, they found customers want the right thing in the right place at the right time. Farnells competitive edge was that they would get you a hard to find part the next day, it would be expensive but it would be there next day.
They now don't deliver next day unless you pay, the item price is still very high but they want you to pay, if you don't pay for the service then you'll be lucky if you get it in 3 days, even if you meet their minimum £40 order level. Parts ordered 2 days ago, still not arrived or expected to arrive within 2 days.

How can Farnell have fallen so far from grace, terrible decisions made to try and save a few pounds zero and I mean zero customer focus. You can order from Digikey or Mouser, spend £33 or more (£40 for farnell) and you will get the item in a similar time frame to farnell, it will most likely be cheaper and you'll get better customer service.

My experience has been items now taking 3 days to arrive, customer service, saying they will come back and then ignoring emails for 3 weeks about specific issues. I've never seen a company decline so far so quickly, hugely frustrating.

I have been begging farnell to fix their login system. The indian call centre staff are not passing on the information that logging in is a problem and Farnell is losing business every day. What incompetence is this?

Details:

I log in on my mobile phone. No problem. I log in on my company desktop and get the error. "If you have an account with us, it has been locked after too many incorrect login attempts."

A password reset works but immediately I get the same error. Farnell are so incompetent. Who throws away long standing relationships so they can save money on their call centres.

I never post reviews but I am honestly at a loss. I placed an order via their website where it took my card details but no payment was taken as they needed to first confirm the order. Upon confirmation, I receive an email with an invoice to EFT the outstanding amount, I do so immediately.

Goods arrive on time, have not yet used them because of all this. I then see on my bank statement that they charged me twice, the EFT and the online payment where they took my card details. I contact them for a refund highlighting the mistake - which could have been an honest error if not for how it has been handled - it takes forever for a response, only for them to say that there is no double charge. I provide my bank statements and further proof that the £70 was charged twice. But I have had no response and have followed up several times since. It has now been 1 month and 3 weeks since the error occurred and over 3 weeks since they last responded.

This is really appalling. It was my first encounter with this company and I cannot believe they cannot refund the amount.

02/10/2025 - I have still had no response from them. They asked for Bank Statements as proof, this was provided a month ago. They said it wasn't enough and they now needed POP. I provided that, and no reply to 3 further emails, over 2 weeks ago. Completely disgraceful.

Already concerned by the consensus of my many colleagues in UK electronics (your CUSTOMERS) that Farnell is losing its' way, and now find Farnell doesn't even accept PayPal any more ??
You are a distributor so your reputation RELIES on getting that right ! starting at the online purchasing experience and ending with fulfilment. But you are FAILING TOO OFTEN and your competitors are doing better. Don't forget that your group shareholders also read reviews !!
Method of payment matters - A LOT. If your competitors (like Mouser) accept PayPal then we and many of our colleagues (your CUSTOMERS) will look elsewhere because it's easier and safer for US. Thank-you for listening.

On 28th July 2025. I attempted to place an order for 72-9245 CABLE TESTER, SATA/ESATA MINI. The Farnell website displayed an error message stating that the payment failed because it was rejected by their system. Believing this order had failed, I immediately placed the order again, and this time their website immediately told me that the payment was successful. The next day (Tuesday) at 09:25am I received two order confirmations, and I was charged for both transactions. I wrote to Farnell explaining my issue, and after a few emails back and forth, the issue was resolved.