Sanjay: I guess this is where the purchasing managers earn their salary. At my company, I just pass on the BOM with the manufacturers info and part number to the purchasing department. They in turn look at the volume projection and decide whether to go with a distributor or manufacturer direct. The purchasing guys, I think, have developed key relationships with manufacturers and distributors that they tap to get the best price breaks. In your case I am surprised that you did not get any attention for a volume as high as 1 million pieces...I would imagine the manufacturer would have at least some interest in this... Well, to answer your question, is there an engineering contact you can talk to and get to the sales contact in a company...sort of the back door approach I guess...maybe online is not the best way to do high volume purchasing. Good luck though Madhu -----Original Message----- From: pic microcontroller discussion list [mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]On Behalf Of Sanjay Punjab Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2001 5:16 AM To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU Subject: [EE]: Secrets to getting best prices on electronics components [including PICs] (production quantities) I have developed some new technology for an automotive electronics application. Part of creating a solid business plan, is to get an accurate idea on how much an electronics device will cost to build, including cost for hardware such as ICs, capacitors etc. There however seems to be a few obsticles I am encountering. 1. Distributors like Digikey, Arrow and others will easily provide quotes for up to 10,000 pieces. But most distributors won't provide quotes for quantities above this. And for my situation, I need quotes for up to 1 million pieces per device. It is as if, my company is too small to be taken seriously. Distributors that WILL provide quotes for up to 1 million pieces, come back with quotes that are BARELY any cheaper than the 10K quotes. Something just doesn't seem right. 2. For quantities as high as 1 million, I assumed that I can bypass the distributor and talk directly to the component manufacturer, such as Microchip, National Semiconductor etc. However I have the same problem with Manufacturers. National Semiconductor for example provides a straight quote online for 1000 pieces or above and by phone,fax,e-mail , won't provide better quotes for quantities as high as a million. 3. I just don't get it. I go out to circuit city and I see a Walkman for $10, or a Computer mouser for $10 and wonder, how they get the price of thing so low, considering the quotes I get for many of the components I am using. Now I know, some can say, these Walkmans are made by large corperations and make millions of these a year. But how about those realtively low volume electronics devices, like a $40 (retail price) Golf Score Keeper device which included an LCD display. Some collegues have told me to look oversees for the best quotes. Thats fine for common devices like capacitors and resistors, made perhaps by generic companies. But for components like PIC microprocessors, specialised ICs, I just don't see how an oversees vendor can get better prices than whats offered direct from the manufacturer in the United States. I guess I don't really have a specific question. I would just like to get some insight on how electronics device makers, find ways to get electronics components, including ICs so inexpensively. Perhaps I am missing something. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details. -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.