What's the problem? So they don't have prices on their website? So what? All you have to do is call them. I know phones may seem like archaic devices for some, but they still work.
That's the point-I don't want to be bothered calling salespeople and getting prices. Maybe the only exception is if I'm ordering right from the manufacturer as it's only one place to call per part. But you usually need huge orders in the 10,000s to 1,000,000s before most manufacturers will deal with you directly. I actually
was dealing with Cree and Ron Hall directly a few years ago. He was very helpful, but unfortunately the customer bailed on that project, and we never needed the large order of LEDs which we anticipated.
Anyway, fairly small parts orders even in the 1,000s usually leaves people like me stuck buying from distributors. You mentioned it took you 5 minutes. Fine if you're ordering only one part and checking only one or two suppliers. Now picture if you're me and you're looking for the best price on maybe 15 different parts for 500 of a board you'll be building. Maybe you find 15 potentional suppliers for each, and of those 15 perhaps only 3 actually have the price up on their website. So that means 12 phone calls for one part, perhaps 18 for another, and so forth. I could easily spend 2 or 3 days on the phone just asking prices. Besides that, even though it sounds like ETG's salesman was a nice guy, a lot of these people I've dealt with pre-Internet when I had to were as pushy as hell. It sometimes took 20 minutes to finally get them off the phone without being excessively rude. And then they'll sell your contact info to their fellow associates and you'll end up with 20 cold calls fishing for business. I've had it with that. If websites have prices on the other hand I could check dozens of places for parts in a few hours. Who do you think I'll be ordering from? Especially if I find one place like Mouser who has everything I need, has real time inventory, and whose prices I know in advance. And eBay lately is great for a lot of things. I've found stuff at 10% to 25% of what I'd pay elsewhere. Granted, it's a little hunting around, but the savings are worth my time. On the other hand, I remember back from the days of dealing with phone salespeople that prices were usually within pennies of each other. Hours of phones calls might at best save $20 or $30 on a 1000 quantity part order. Hardly productive use of my time.
I guess my point is I know phones exist, and they're fine if maybe I'm having a long, involved discussion with a potential customer about the specifics of a project. I just don't feel I should have to jump through hoops just to get a price. I don't even mind large minimum orders if they want to weed out the hobbyists. Heck, I don't even mind having to call a salesperson to actually give them an order, but not before. Lack of pricing is a huge problem in the electronics industry which goes way beyond LEDs. I think part of the problem is these businesses assume that any business dealing with them will have somebody in the procurement department whose job it is to spend all day calling for quotes and negotiating prices. They forget that the biggest growth is in small operations of a few or even one person. These operations just don't have the resources to do business this way. Let's hope ETG, LED Lighting Supply, and for that matter a bunch of others see the light. It's not like POS software is rocket science any more. The software Cutter uses even converts to US dollars.
