Thursday, October 8, 2009

Canics Revamping web site

Canics is in the process of revamping our web site and work should be completed by months end. The purpose is to provide an easier RFQ process online as well as a more user friendly navigation experience. We will also auto populate the searched electronic component, electronic part or connector part number into our datasheet search, part search and 'quick quote' forms.
As we only provide pricing on a 'request basis', users must enter their company info and part number as well as quantity of the part required.
There are several ways of doing this: you can use the 'quick quote' section at http://www.canics.com/, e-mail us, call us at 1-450-447-6700, or by entering your details in the 'request quote' section of the part search results page.
Initially when you look up a part number on any of the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, Lycos, Live, and MSN, and that Canics is advertising this part, the part number is then automatically entered into our database upon clicking our link and the page you will see is the part search result page showing the different quantities of the item available or in stock at Canics.
Now that you found a source that can supply you the part you need, You can contact us immediatly using any of the above mentioned methods.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Canics and NASCAR


Here are some pictures from last years NASCAR race in Memphis Tennesee televised on Oct 25th. Canics was proudly displayed it's logo on the 01 car driven by Wheeler Boys. This year Canics will be sponsoring the "Boys will be boys" race team for the NASCAR season. You can visit http://www.boyswillbeboysracing.com/ to view more about the team. "We are excited about our sponsorship and wish the best to the whole team" says Canics president Steve Herscheid. Steve is a former 1/4 track race car driver and enjoys the sport.

Monday, March 31, 2008

Counterfeit measures

31 March 2008.

In a continuous effort to minimize the impact of counterfeit of electronic components in our industry, founder and CEO of Canics, Inc., Steve Herscheid, will be attending the first ERAI http://www.erai.com/ (Electronic Resellers Association International) 2008 Electronic Industry Supply Chain Conference in Las Vegas May 1st and 2nd, 2008.
The workshops are aimed at further educating industry professionals with regards to counterfeit and high-risk part mitigation as well as the latest visual inspection programs and techniques used industry wide and other related issues.
I will meet with other industry professionals, government officials and enforcement agencies that are addressing these issues.
At Canics this mitigation by means of 100%inspection is already part of our daily business and the workshops will only help us counter this adverse market. Canics currently uses an approved vendor list however, even the best vendor (even known distribution channels) are affected by this plague. The use of best practices and prevention are the best medicine.

Monday, April 23, 2007

ERAI special report: Chinese electronic component open market

The ERAI has released a special report regarding the Chinese Open Market for electronic components. Here are some snippets of the article:

"We know a large percantage of the parts coming from the open market in China are substandard or counterfeit, but we also know that because manufacturing continues to move in China, so will the excess inventory".

"We feel we have no choice but to sort through the substandard and counterfeit parts to find the good ones".
This is a popular response given by distributors willing to go through this process to locate a legitimate OEM source of supply.

"Dismantling and processing e-wastes (electronic component recycling) is easy money.....That is why the majority of people are invloved in this business in some way. Most of the activity in Guiyu invloves physical dismantling by hammer, chisel, screw driver and bare hand. The most high-tech piece of dismatling equipment witnessed was an electric drill. The immediate objective of most operations involve dismantling - the rapid seperation of primary materials.....such as circuit boards and electronic components".

Many components salvaged from pcb assemblies are reworked and/or remarked to custom requirements. Request for parts advertised on the net are often fulfilled from this market in this manner. The result is not surprising. The supplier sells an unknown origin or quality of a part to his customer only to find it unserviceable thus loosing his customers' faith and more often than not, his investment, as he most likely will not be able to return the goods for refund. The Chinese open market has developped a sophisticated network of sellers who can supply you what you are looking for one day and dissapear then next (of course only having received payment for the bad parts).

As an electronic component buyer you should be aware of this issue to better understand that although it is not the distributor who is originally at fault, they are just as guilty in dealing with this open market!

After having read the full ERAI article, I replied the following:

I feel that it is well known as to where some parts are 'really' coming from and it is generally known. However, it is the greed and determination of some sellers to supply parts to their customers at almost 'any cost' which is the real source of the problem. Many sellers are willing to take the risk of supplying unknown quality of parts in the hope that 'it flies by' and if it does, then they acquire a new customer in their database to further solicit and to whom they will likely be able to later provide more 'legit' parts not to mention, make money in the process. In a way, they support or even helped 'create' the need for second market / substandard parts. As you mentioned, the Chinese will make 'what you need' and they have really mastered the 'we can supply' side of business. Too many sellers are too eager to supply parts to gain a new customer (and for financial gain), that they will take the risk (once or twice) to do so. They should learn that if it doesn't fly then you lose the potential of gaining that customer for ever. We should not accept parts from unknown sources, especially sources who can supply us our own phone number!

For example, Canics only purchases from reputable and proven sources from Asia. In establishing the legitimacy of these sources, we have been supplied pictures of parts (magnification) and request an identifier such as business card or the like in the pic to make sure the pic is not picked out of a central database somewhere (which I am surprised they don't seem to have, yet!). We proceed via escrow with an inspection period long enough for our end user to test and accept the parts prior to releasing payment to the vendor. We always validate the following: How long has the members been in business, member since, comments made about them, check if any of their credentials have been reported in ERAI. We continue to do so until the vendor becomes a Canics 'proven source of supply'. If not, then we do NOT buy from them period, no matter how attractive the financial gain is.

I can't think of anything else I don't like in my daily activities in this business other than having to provide RMAs to our customers! Thankfully in the case of Canics, there are few to mention. We support a wide range of high-tech companies worldwide and have an excellent reputation and only have positive comments everywhere. Our customers may not like the fact that we can't supply a part, but better appreciate the fact that we do not try to sell them anything at any cost.

In conclusion, many sellers have to learn to not support this secondary market and one way to accomplish this is to better educate and make all brokers aware of the impacts of their bad decisions.

I hope this Blog has been of interest to our readers. I will continue to provide insight to the electronic component broker industry in our blogs and also demonstate how Canics has addressed the open market situation by implementing all preventative measures available today.

Steve Herscheid.
PDG, Canics, Inc.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Professional Associations

What is the added value of working with a Company who is member of certain Professional Associations?
As an example, Canics is member of BBB and ERAI. The BBB (Better Business Bureau), is world reknown for providing customers with the capability of verifying a vendors credibility prior to doing business with them. This ensures that the company with whom you wish to do business with is legitimate, clear of complaints and in good standing.
The ERAI (Electronic Resellers Association International) provides an investigative eye on the electronic industry, providing such information as the BBB along with a centralised database of submitted counterfeit and substandard parts as well as companys which have been reported for fraudulent activity.

With this information, Canics is empowered to verify that the part you wish to purchase is not a 'high risk' part and not sourced from a reported company thus providing our end customers with a greater degree of assurance. This being said, no one is 100% immune to the electronic component 'black market' and Canics does offer a full waranty for all parts we ship.

Canics, Inc. is an independant distributor of electronic components supplying quality parts to our customers satisfaction.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Misconceptions

Your Production run is scheduled in order to meet your customers delivery date only to realize that there is shortage of an electronic component ! You desperatly need 200 pieces of Qualcomm part 'Q4401I-1S1'.
After calling every known major distributor, you find out that there is a 16 week leadtime (or worse, the part is discontinued), the purchaser seeks any avenue they can.
Search engines such as Google are used to help locate any source that might help. The search for electronic component 'Q4401I-1S1' yeilds 178 results.
The purchaser frantically sends e-mails out to every Google result found for 'Q4401I-1S1' in the hope to have someone reply with a favorable offer.
What happens next can be catastrophic! Say 14 sources have been requested to supply this item.
It is common knowledge that brokers advertising this part can source the part however, the part is located at only 1 maybe 2 vendors who physically have the part. Now 14 sources are all calling these 2 vendors for quotes and the battle begins. For starters, the vendor posessing the part may 'jack up' the price because of the increase in demand. Also as a purchaser you now have to contend with many quotes coming in and not knowing which vendors will reply or not. The time to buy is crucial as you want to supply your production line but at what cost ? Do you buy from the first offer as he may be more likely to supply the part or go with the vendor who gave you the best price? Who is more reliable? What are the terms of sale? How soon can either vendor supply the part? Could I have bought the parts directly at the source? Who is the source?
The point I am making here is that it is not always a good idea to multi shop in parallel.
What the purchaser needs to do is call Canics (or go online at www.canics.com) for our quick quote (typically same or next day). You can rest assured that the quote you get will be a competitive one. Once you have a quote you can then seek 1 or 2 more sources to compare to. This way the 'heating of price' is avoided and you do not need to contend with multiple offers (real or not) and you can rest assured that your production run will not be jeopardized.

At Canics we receive hundreds or RFQs (requests for quotes) worldwide and we supply quality components to hundreds of customers. Canics is member of the ERAI and the Better Business Bureau which provides you the assurance that you will be served in a professional and courteous manner.
Steve Herscheid

Friday, March 16, 2007

Canics, Your Electronic Component Source

Canics, Your Electronic Component Source: