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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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15 years ago

Buying DE0-nano...

I saw some promotional material for the DE0-nano today, and it had me convinced: I want one! Only $79!

Then when I entered my order at terasic, they want $36 for shipping and $30 for money transfer. That almost doubles the price. Suddenly I'm no longer interested.

So does anybody know if there are any resellers that will ship one to me for around $80 without so much of the additional costs?

I can understand that the DE0-nano is too new for a regular terasic-reseller to have it already. So I'm also interested in shops that also sell the DE0 (at normal prices), I'll just wait for them to start carrying the DE0-nano.

(Digikey resells some terasic boards, but not the de0, so I'm not expecting the 'nano from them......)

18 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    I doubt You'll find it cheaper... Use PayPal, so money transfer wouldn't cost.

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    I don't get offered "air parcel" shipping option which i expect would be cheaper than "UPS/DHL/FedEx Global Express". Because of my location, The Netherlands???

    I don't get offered any payment options like "paypal". How do you achieve that?

    Lots of "far-east" shops offer "free shipping", which if you do the math (compare with non-free-shipping sellers), costs around $1 to maybe $6 for the slightly larger items. And I can live with the "two to three weeks" of shipping time that normal air parcels take...

    So: If I order at Terasic, how do I get to pay by paypal and ship by normal air parcel?

    (I'll send them an EMail and ask /them/....)
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    Well, they have PayPal logo on their page, I suppose PayPal is supported. Contact them for exact info. I have never bought anything from Terasic yet.

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    Apparently that charge is not added to the total if a page later you decide not to go for the bank transfer. Too bad for them I started looking for other options before going further.

    That they have a logo on display doesn't mean they WILL accept my money that way. Just like they indicate "air parcel" option on that order-page, but have it grayed out. Just like the ebay seller that offers shipping "worldwide" and then excludes a list of over 100 countries..... ("paypal offered to customers living on the west coast of Switzerland")
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    Write them an email then :) I've tried to do a test and buy Altera USB Blaster, which costs 50USD. Here are the results:

    1. The shipping available is only UPS/Fedex/other_expensive_company, so the price for shipping is 70USD o_O.

    2. Indeed, they doesn't offer PayPal, so it is only available as bank payment.

    Triple the price for the item? :)))
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    Well, socrates, the site apparently is a bit confusing for people like you and me: if you pay by paypal or creditcard you don't have to pay the bank transfer fee. Too bad for them they scare off people like you and me before we get that far.....

    They have a regular deal with altera to develop the development-and-educational boards. So I don't think they can offer to ship FedEx and then just throw them in the mail. Altera would find out and be unhappy with them about it. Also you can ask FedEx to pick up your DE0-nano if you give them your FedEx account number. That way they don't see that extra $50-$70.

    So the question remains: Why don't they offer simple "mail" service?

    They are in Taiwan. Possibly their mail service is just as expensive as in the US. Anything I buy off Ebay in the US has enormous shipping costs. If it is even worse in Taiwan, then it might be that the extra reliability for just a few dollars extra is worth it.

    On the other hand, they might have had bad experience with normal mail of clients claiming not to have received their goods and then they have to resend at their cost.....
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    100% bad management. Postage is not a problem of a buyer. It is a problem of the seller. If the shipping price is 125% of the item price, what can You say about the company?..

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    Hi there!

    My name is Allen, a marketer here at Terasic Technologies. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience that our shipping policy has caused.

    Very basically explained, the air parcel option is not a very practical solution for us to ship overseas due to Taiwanese shipping policy.

    We usually recommend customers to order from distributors.

    You can find the DE0-nano on Digikey at http://search.digikey.com/scripts/dksearch/dksus.dll?detail&name=p0082-nd.

    Again, I'm very sorry for the inconvenience. If there are any troubles with the option above, you can email us directly at sales@terasic.com and we'll try our best to solve your problem.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    Allen,

    Thank you very much for your reply. I know that Digi-Key stocks most DEx boards, so I did look at Digi-Key. I couldn't find the DE0-nano on their site a few days ago when I started this thread.

    The cause could be that their search doesn't find it when I type DE0-nano, or that they just recently added the product (I did send them an Email asking them to do just that...). Anyway it looks as if this is indeed a better(cheaper) option.

    Thanks for your help! Let me tell you that such a reply on a forum helps a lot in the image for your company.

    (On the other hand: I did send an Email to sales@... My question with "Why don't you offer air-parcel shipping?", was answered with: "Please choose FedEx/DHL".)
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    15 years ago

    Rew! Hello! I bought de0-nano on Terasic Technologies`s store (20.04.2011) and now I am waiting my parcel. I paid through paypal.