Digi-Key acquired me as their customer when I began
shopping online for a vendor that carries the majority
of their product lines, but in particular, they had a good
price on an item I thought would come and go quickly
(a prototype version of a surface-mount microcontroller;
the prototype version is DIP-20 package). There wasn't
much stock on these to be found online, and Digi-Key
seemed willing to take the risk to buy up a good lot of
them. What's more, when more of the same item became
available from the manufacturer (again, in limited
quantity) Digi-Key bought up a good supply of them,
and offered a good discount on quantity purchases of
them.

All the usual customer satisfaction issues went smoothly;
but the shipping kind of surprised me -- something about
the way Digi-Key packages things, I think, is special --
deserves unique praise. Of all the dozens of online
purchases I've made from vendors in several different
(unrelated) product industries, I've never seen anything
quite like the Digi-Key shipping department's own
'product' -- the shipping carton and packing materials.

All I can say (at loss for words) is these guys set a standard
for the competition, when it comes to the packaging (the
outer shipping carton). I can't think of a way they could
have improved it. Ironically, the one way I can think of
that might improve it a little is the same quality that
attracts me to it .. their logo is impressively emblazoned
on the shipping cartons, which I think might invite theft
enroute (esp. a blind drop from UPS to the doorstep).

OTOH I doubt any of my neighbors would have a clue
what Digi-Key vended (electronics parts for manufacturers
and researchers and students of EE).

Would I buy from them again? You betcha -- my first
stop when shopping for electronics parts online is
Digi-Key. I don't need the hassle of finding second
sources; if DK doesn't have it, only then do I look
elsewhere -- unless it's a can-wait item or something
I think an underdog vendor might have an older replacement for on a non-critical item -- bread and
butter things I can take a risk on with an untried other
source. That's when I'd pass on Digi-Key; when it was
a price-point issue I consider an industry-wide problem
and thought I could beat the system by scouring obscure
suppliers for surplus and this sort of thing.

Summary: No problems here; everyone should try them
one time and see for themselves -- Digi-Key deserves
the title of 'industry benchmark' and, I think, more. Can
they lower prices? I have no idea. I wish someone would
lead in this; I don't see it as being likely.