Bench Talk

Four days of coffee beans, lottery tickets, virtual journeys, and the most famous back scratchers

This year’s electronica, the world’s largest trade fair for electronic components, systems, and applications, focused primarily on the Internet of Things. Themed “Connected Worlds—Safe and Secure”, electronica hosted 2,913 companies from more than 50 countries presenting their solutions for safer networks to 73,000 visitors from more than 80 countries.

For Mouser Electronics and its employees, the days from November 8^th to 11^th, 2016 were long and a little exhausting—but also a lot of fun. It is not every day we get to talk to long-time customers in person, tell potential new customers all about Mouser, or even chat with our colleagues from our different offices all over Europe.

For Mouser, the show was a big success and our stand offered many things to discover. Here are some impressions from Mouser employees working the floor:

Coffee Area

Our customers past, present and future, as well as some of our suppliers loved what was often referred to as the ‘best coffee at electronica’. The baristas worked hard to produce anything from English breakfast tea to frothy cappuccinos with freehand milky hearts or leaves. Needless to say, Mouser’s coffee area was busy as a hive and one of our most popular areas. This gave us the great opportunity to talk to customers as they either queued or stayed on the stand to consume their drinks.

It’s great to know our customers recognise the customer service we provide. They are often surprised that our stock gets from Texas to most of Europe in 2-3 days—many think the warehouse must be in Europe. Some customers were also astounded that stand duty staff were real Mouser employees and were really happy when you could pair them up to someone from the customer service team that they deal with from the different offices. I also will never tire of the 101 uses of a Mouser back scratcher that customers tell you about and the queue that forms when you have an armful to give out.

Dev Kit Lottery

What’s true in life, was true for our Dev Kit Lottery at electronica 2016. Happy, smiling faces are winners. Every visitor was invited to pick a lottery ticket for a chance to instantly win one of about 1,600  Dev Kits. For many, the prospect of immediately taking a Dev Kit home was reason enough to participate. Unfortunately, not everybody could win a Dev Kit, but nobody had to walk away empty handed. Some of our consolidation prizes were even more popular than our Dev Kits. Quite a few visitors were more excited to get their hands on one of our famous back scratchers, which was probably our most popular goodie.

The Dev Kit Lottery area was as busy as it could be and never really quiet. While we were handing out lottery tickets, we had the chance to talk about Mouser’s extensive services, and many visitors provided positive feedback regarding the website and how easy it is to navigate or place an order.

Solution Pod area 

Matching the trade fair’s theme, our Solution Pod area showcased different IoT- and Wireless-Solutions from several manufacturers. Another highlight in this area was the presentation of several projects from our Empowering Innovation Together, including the real glove and shield from our Project Heroes, created by Grant Imahara and Alan Pan,  the announcement of the winning 3D designs from our ISS Design Challenge, and the 3D printed car project Essence of Autonomy.

It was less crowded than the Dev Kit Lottery—which was really no big surprise. The huge advantage here: We had a lot more time to talk to existing customers who were very happy with Mouser’s outstanding services. According to them, we stock products no other distributor offers, we have competitive pricing, and our website is the preferred one for everyone who is searching for parts by parametric values. We couldn’t have been happier about this feedback.

However, we really appreciated any constructive feedback. Only through our customer’s feedback can we learn more about them and improve our services. That is something we always strive for.

Virtual Reality – 360° warehouse tour

Many exhibition visitors stopped by our stand to take the virtual tour of our gigantic warehouse in Mansfield, Texas. It is not every day that you get to visit a 57,000m² warehouse without having to travel for hours. Our favorite feedback (and the one most heard) was “Wouahhhh!”. Visitors were impressed to see Mouser’s sophisticated, automated equipment, especially at such speed. In addition to all this excitement, we gave away cardboard VRs, so everyone could try this unique and remarkable experience at home and share it with friends.

Check out our VR Video below, either in your browser or skip to the page to use your own VR Headset:

Presentation Area

As a distributor of some 600+ manufacturer, we were really proud to stage presentations by some of our suppliers at this year’s electronica. The new technologies and applications presented were well received by an interested audience, who was listening despite all the turmoil around the Mouser stand. Being rewarded for their attention with one of Mouser’s most advanced giveaway, operating from -40 to +127 °C with a 15 cm range—our 100%-analog-PCB ruler—all attendees left with a big smile and new inspirations for their future designs.

Thank you, to everyone who visited our stand and contributed to make this electronica the success it was. See you again in two years!