Bill Turner wrote:
Bull. SS of N is one place I will never buy from again. They do not
remove out-of-stock items from their website when sold out, but they
continue to take orders for them. In a couple of days, they notify you
the item is no longer in stock, thereby wasting your time you could
have spent looking elsewhere. This has happened to me several times.

Actual phone conversation:

Me: Can you check stock on part number xxxx?
Them: No.

No explanation, no "sorry", nothing but "no". These are not my kind of
people.

A lot of old-line surplus businesses do not fare well with the
expectations of the modern order-it-today-get-it-tomorrow-morning
world.

Some other businesses (e.g. Digikey, which was not always a big
business, think back to their QST ads 30+ years ago where their only
product was - gasp! - a digital keyer) have made the transition
remarkably well and are in fact the benchmark of a modern catalog parts
house.

I think it is still valuable to have the "not really sorry" surplus
places remain in business though. I've dealt with them long enough that
even when I don't get a "sorry" I think I understand where they're
coming from - and in many cases I also know who to ask for who knows
the real story. The part-time help at the order desk is unfortunately
not as good a resource as the guy who's been running the business for
30 or 40 or 50 years.

Tim.