Quote:
Originally Posted by Electronic M
When ordering parts from online vendors the worst way to do it is to order 1-9 pieces of 1-9 different parts at a time....you don't hit volume price breaks and your paying $8 for parts that fit in a $1 greeting card envelope.
The best way to do it is to buy $100+ of parts once every 6-24 months, set it up so you stock 10-100 of each value cap and or resistor you may need for any set your likely to encounter. And only restock when you need enough of enough different parts to hit the price breaks on over a dozen things. Building that stock is expensive so start with the think you need most and every reorder pad with some parts you need less often until your stock is good...
If you buy 100 15ohm resistors at $0.05 a pop and had 32 other different parts on the same order then your 15ohm resistors cost $0.25 to ship divide that by 100 and each 15ohm resistor costs 2.5 cents to ship for a total investment of 7.5 cents per resistor...or $5.25 for 100 15ohm resistors. Now contrast that to radio shack at let's say $1 for 2 resistors...if you buy 100 resistors that is $50 throw in the gas to drive there and you are at over 10x the price of ordering in bulk online....
They will let you claim that $8 flat rate shipping option if you buy 2000 pieces (200 different part numbers at 100 pieces each part)...If you buy over 800 pieces online (regardless of whether it is 1 sample of each cap and resistor you could ever want or 800 identical parts) the shipping cost per part is less than 1cent...
I have been known to put some projects on hold for months till I need to fire off a large part order so 1-3 parts I don't stock can get nearly free shipping on a bulk restock order.
Radio shack and frequent small online orders you end up paying a lot for convenience...If you do a lot of resto work, money is tight and or a resto is not a rush job think about how much money you are throwing away on convenience...
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I understand what you are saying and I would seriously think about doing that if I didn't have such a tight budget to work with, and also the fact that I don't do enough repair jobs/restorations to warrant me stocking up on nearly 1000 parts just to get free shipping, it just isn't something I can do right now unfortunately.
Otherwise I would be doing what you suggested.