Element14

Feels like a scam to extort customers. I submitted an order for a high endurance thumb drive 4 weeks ago for ~$150, on backorder with a lead time of 5+ weeks from the UK. A week later, when they processed the order, they advised me that the price had been revised to ~$185; I accepted and they confirmed the order. Yesterday, 3.5 weeks after the… Read more

order was initially submitted, they advised me the price was now ~$420. I complained about the lack of professionalism and asked how the price could possibly have increased by almost 300% in the last month, to which they advised the product was no longer available and cancelled the order. Moving forward I will assume this business is a scam and purchase elsewhere.

Element 14 used to be my go to supplier that is until they stopped storing items in Australia then everything had to come from overseas. Typical delivery was no longer overnight but extended to 5 to 7 days which worked in most cases. Now, for some reason, we're talking up to weeks before it ships from overseas and this does not work at all for… Read more

this customer. Avnet obviously have no interest in this business as they are systematically destroying it for many.

My experience was good, the item I ordered arrived to me in Oz from the UK within 5 business days as advertised. Use laptop or pc platform to place your online order successfully

Fast delivery, positive experience – Delivery from element14 was within 5 business days. Raspberry Pi 5, 8GB was packaged well and order arrived as expected. I was initially hesitant to place an order after reading bad reviews, but I cannot complain. Interustion with element14 for me was very positive. Show details

Maybe send things together? – Hard to see how they can be making money, but not complaining…I ordered just over $100 of electronic components. They were delivered over a period of 5 business days, in 8 separate packages. They all seemed to come from Sydney, and the express post costs would have been close to $100…the only annoying part is AustPost wouldn’t leave the item… Read more

without a signature (maybe didn’t knock, someone was home) so I had to go and collect from the post office multiple times.

Pathetic service. I put 1 star just because it doesn't allow me to put zero. I ordered more than a month ago for 50 CD4017 integrated circuits made in Malaysia, the components were sent to a warehouse in UK to be shipped back to Australia. A trip around the globe for something I could have had in 2 days. On the top, I paid 3 times the normal price… Read more

for the same item offered on eBay. Don't order to element14!! Since they moved their operation to UK it has gone down to the sewers. Also, the courier DHL is a disaster. I don't know why DHL is allowed to operate in Australia.

Dont buy from element 14 – Ordered on the 1/8. My goods were sent via DHL. When checking the tracking it says handed to a 3rd party. There is no information who the 3rd party is. Element 14 are telling me it has been delivered even though I am in Victoria and it was handed off in Sydney. Show details

$180 order is sitting somewhere till August waiting on 2 items showing "in stock" – ordered $180 worth of parts, was careful to pay attention to the lead time and available stock quantities. All the parts I ordered had a lead time of 3-5 days and had available stock, after all dont want to have things held up due to a part on a 3month back order, when there is a suitable alternative in stock. After waiting a week and not hearing… Read more

anything about the order, i logged into my account and checked its status, it was still at awaiting processing. The order showed some items being ordered in and had due dates, but most didnt. I get an email 2 days later saying that a plug i ordered was no longer stocked, so i had that refunded so far so good. Checking the order later that day, i could see everything now had an due date, except 2 Raspberry Pis i ordered. They had an back order date of 08/08/2024, when i asked about why they were on back, when they were in stock when i place my order on the 26th of May 2024, the response i got was "well more stock is due in August and thats when the ones you ordered will arrive." Then when i asked about switching them to the version with headers, same price and they showed 1,000 in stock, they said no they have already released the ones on back order from inventory. So my $180 order is now sitting somewhere, waiting till till sometime in august when the last 2 items will arrive and they can send it out. Yeap, totally makes sense.

GO ELSEWHERE – I ordered 4 harder to find banana connectors (quite specific type with threads for screwing through a bulkhead) on the 3/4/24. There was 552 in stock when I ordered. They shipped two and they turned up within a couple of days. I waited a week and the others never appeared. I've contacted their useless online customer support multiple times and… Read more

they told me the rest has shipped (and gave me a bogus tracking number) so I waited a couple of days and nothing showed up so I contacted them again and they said it will ship in a couple of days. The whole time the website showed shipping of the rest as 20/5/24. It is now the 23/5/24 and nothing has shipped. They said it's shipping next Wednesday now. I don't believe it. I won't use them again. In the 1990's we used to ring up Farnell (before 5:30pm) and a nice lady on the phone in Sydney would take your order and you'd get it the next day. Since Avnet purchased Element14, it has gone downhill. My advice would be go to DigiKey or Mouser. Give these clowns a miss. I tried to give it zero stars but it wouldn't let me.

Probably try elsewhere first in future – Should’ve checked this site first. Ordered a RP5 which was on promo, a week and two marketing emails later get an email stating terms and conditions of the promo and saying it’s out of ‘promo’ stock but I could proceed at full cost. Fully understand the theory even though the T&Cs definitely weren’t as well quoted during the purchase, but taking a… Read more

week and putting a charge against my credit card before confirming sufficient stock is a bit unprofessional. And technically I would’ve thought charging my card would count as order processed per T&C. Actually ordered a case for it a day later from a more reputable store and I’ve already received it

Poor fulfilment, poor customer service – Short changed me on item counts in an order, then when I asked them to rectify it (with photographic proof of the issue) they credited me back instead and then forced me to go through an incredibly annoying process of waiting multiple days for a phone call from them in order to confirm the "order" for the $2.33 worth of replacement parts rather… Read more

than just sending them out or confirming it via an online form, during which they failed to notice that I had previously updated my phone number despite me notifying them of my new one (which was already on record with them anyway), wasting time all around. Additionally, their contracted-out customer support seems to have difficulty understanding their own system and the English language and their fulfilment staff don't seem to understand their own system either as they'll confuse Australia Post postal tracking codes with UPS ones, so if you click the link in their order form it'll try and run an AusPost code through the American UPS website, which obviously doesn't work. Add to that that some items that are shown as well-stocked on the website when you order will be marked as "on backorder" as soon as they hit your invoice, and you're just going to have a bad time with these guys. They used to be great, I have no idea what's happened to them.

Service has gone downhill BIG TIME – Really terrible service lately. My recent order was placed over a month ago and STILL no shipping information for 2 of the items. One of them is now no longer stocked, and I assume I'll never see it. Customer support has been useless. A shame, as this company used to be great. Show details

I WASTED SO MUCH TIME WITH THEM AND I'M WARNING OTHERS NOT TO BOTHER! – i placed an order for 3 RPI-0W on 9/08/22 they would send an email most months since then sometime in November of 2023 they cancelled my order with no Email notice or warning in my experience they have shipped 0% of the order i have placed with them and they have been a MASSIVE waste of time and at this point i cant be sure they have ever shipped anything Show details

Excellent professional service provided – I received an item shipped from NSW to NZ. This company provided a excellent prompt professional service. The item was extremely well packaged. Show details

Cancelled order without advising me – I ordered a product which was put on backorder and then due to a delay in supply the order was cancelled without any notification to me and when I requested an update on this I was advised that I would have to re-order (with a price increase) and I would then go into the end of the queue as a new order. When queried there was no response from the sales team. Show details

Components arrived on time from UK – I ordered 5 0.96" LCD display components showing in stock in UK. Promised delivery was 5-8 business days from order. Nothing seemed to be occuring until suddenly order was shipped from AU warehouse. Arrived exactly 5 business days later! Show details

unprofessional – Recently I ordered, on line, 30m of special audio cable. Within a few days 3m of the cable was delivered via "Express Post" also an email requesting me to print a pdf page and present it to my local post office to collect a parcel. I did this. You guessed it, 27m of the cable. So much for my three runs of 10m. Poor performance Element14.

Want your order shipped same-day, as advertised? Not going to happen – Want your order shipped same-day, as advertised? Expect an email in your just, addressed "Dear Customer" (probably why it ends up in junk - because they're too lazy to look up your name) asking you for all the details you entered at checkout. Expect this to also put your order on hold so it won't ship same day as advertised. Not the company it used to be.

Extremely poor customer service – Extremely poor customer service and lack of knowledge that should keep any reasonable buyer or potential buyer away from this company. Yet another Aussie company that has gone down the drain, Show details

Used to be good but gone downhill – I have been using Element14 for about 6 years, it seems that in the last year they have gone downhill. I placed an order on the 20/11/2022 and expected it to take around a week to ship as some of the items were coming from their international warehouses. I chose to have all the items sent in one shipment instead of receiving 10+ parcels. On the… Read more

8/12/2022 I received an email saying that they were missing two capacitors from the order and that they were expecting them to arrive in 5-6 days. They said if I wanted I could contact them and they would send the in stock items out. Since one of the capacitors was needed I didn't respond as I thought I would wait for the missing items.

On the 28/12/2022 I received a reminder on the previous email, I responded saying what I wanted done and said if they wanted they could send the in stock items.

I never received a response.

On the 31/01/23 I sent an email asking if there was an update on it. Since my previous email got no response I also included the other email addresses which had been cc'd into the emails from them.

I still got no response.

I have been busy so only on the 21/02/23 did I decide to phone them up. I logged into my account to get the order number before I called only to see it said cancelled. I had not been informed of this. On the phone the guy who was clearly in India, from what I could understand told me the payment had failed and they had tried to contact me. I had never had any contact about payment.

It is now clear that they do not have local support and they are all in India, all the email addresses had foreign names.

If companies screw up I give them a chance depending on what their response and actions are. Since I haven't even got responses or notifications of the order cancellation this is the end of my dealings with Element14/Farnell/Avnet.

They have wasted too much of my time.

Website stated 5-8 business days delivery, 2 weeks on and order is still "On backed order" and "Not yet shipped" – I bought a water atomization module on 10/09/2022, been receiving a couple of emails on the orders being processed and so on. Website stated when I purchased that there were 134 stocks available worldwide (and still is) for 5-8 business days delivery. It has been 2 weeks and today I received an email asking for the product review when I still… Read more

haven't received anything. Hoping that it might take another 2-3 days for delivery, I went on to see the status of my order and it is still "On backed order" and "Not yet shipped"

If it takes you a month to ship, you tell your customers a month, not 5-8 business days. I have requested to cancel my order and give me a refund, will see how Element14 respond.

Complete liars….AVOID!!!! – Been waiting for an order since April (now late July) and have been told it had arrived and was being shipped out shortly…. That itself was 5 weeks ago and since that one reply they now ABSOLUTELY REFUSE to even answer me! APALLING BEHAVIOUR! When they were Farnell I never had problems but since Avnet took over they’ve just gone downhill. AVOID LIKE COVID!!!

poor customer service, poor delivery times – Ordered a product through the au.element site only to find it was being shipped out of UK, because of this ther was a declaration required for usage of the product which was sent week+ after the order and payment was made, finally turned up over a month later, only to find they had sent a US version 915. no question looking at destination as to… Read more

whether it was valid for use here, and when i found out it was US chipset, i enquired as to whether it could still be used here (on my au915 gateway etc) the only response i got was a link to the item i ordered. no answer of the ability to use it, or even advice on returning the product for exchange.... useless, i'll never buy from them again.

Really surprised with the poor reviews... I had a great experience! – I was searching for a particular item and came across Element14 in my Google search. I'd never heard of them so I thought I'd check here and was almost scared off by the negative reviews! But then I noticed not many of them are verified purchases, however the ones that were verified seemed positive so gave them a shot. No issues whatsoever! I… Read more

ordered my item over the weekend and it arrived via express post (signed, tracked) by Tuesday afternoon. It came in a padded bag and there was plenty of comms prior in regards to when it was shipped and when it would arrive.

I encourage anyone who's considering using them but wary of the reviews- take a careful look at who's actually reviewing (their profiles) and whether they've uploaded a proof of purchase of not. It almost scared me off, but I'm glad I didn't listen to them.

This isn't a sockpuppet review folks and I haven't been offered a reward to give it. I've reviewed stacks of retailers (both positive and negative), and I really hate seeing such a massive amount of negative reviews for what was a faultless transaction.

Poor accounts process – I've dealt with element14 a few times now and won't continue. When purchasing online and paying by card, they leave the payment pending for a week, then send an email with invoice attached requesting payment by bank transfer. Instead of making it easy to pay by bank transfer in the first place, we have to chase around and the delivery is delayed… Read more

unnecessarily. Ordering the items online is fine but payment is messy and delivery delays not acceptable - and it has nothing to do with Covid delays. The simple process of order/pay/receive is made unnecessarily complicated for no logical reason I can see. Why have a "cart" system when they won't accept the credit card payment (nothing to do with a problem with our card or insufficient funds). I have not had one straightforward transaction with them since I started dealing with them.

Atrocious customer support and slow delivery – Items "In Stock" aren't always the case. Items shipped more than a month after ordering when they were apparently ready to ship within days. Customer support was rude and ineffective and I had to follow-up multiple times just to be ignored. Order wasn't received and support have not been helpful in resolving the matter. Only after a threat to… Read more

issue a chargeback from my credit card did any movement happen.

As others have said, they've become quite unreliable and there are better options available.

They lost my business both personally and through my corporate accounts

In stock items - great! – Ordered some components that were 'in stock' for a good price, so ordered them and they shipped same day with arrival very next day via Aus Post. So for in stock items; fantastic! A lot of online sellers have logistics problems with non-stocked items as they rely on their suppliers, so for surety of supply I would suggest only ordering items that… Read more

are held in stock at their warehouse as their inventory management system seems to reflect actual availability, unlike many other online sellers.

Totally unreliable – I've been working with Element 14's parent company, Farnell, for decades and I've been indirectly responsible for an order volume in the millions each year. They've been 100% dependable and usually shipped all items within 24 hours of ordering. Now with Element 14 in Australia, it's an entirely different story. Very few items are available for… Read more

immediate shipping, and the ones that are listed to be ready within 5-8 business days don't get dispatched even after 14 business days. There's absolutely zero feedback as to why this is happening and you end up calling their totally useless Indian call centre over and over in vain.

I've now instructed the R&D departments of all companies I advise to explore sourcing components from more reliable suppliers, such as LCSC. Even though they are based in China, they are on average faster and cheaper than Element 14 in Australia.