Octopart occupies a unique place in the world of electronic components.

As a resource for data on millions of parts and a destination for comparing prices and inventory across hundreds of sellers, we are able to see many facets of the electronic part industry simultaneously.

The way these different elements collide and interact on Octopart often leads to a lot of interesting questions being asked aloud during meetings. And lunches and outings and over Slack... (we do a lot of question asking at Octopart.)

Of course, we are extremely sensitive to the privacy of both our users and of our partners. As such, we shy away from collecting personal information whenever possible. The user survey results were collected entirely anonymously, for example. Even so, the data that reveals itself through the course of Octopart’s role as a hub for part information can still tell an interesting story without compromising anyone’s privacy. We are also very cautious whenever we present any statistics; we want to avoid making suggestions or predictions on the industry at large. We are all too aware that while our view is unique, it is far from complete. We try to keep that fact top-of-mind whenever trying to answer a question.

With that being said, we’d like to share some information from our recent user survey (with the caveat that this is not a complete report). We have decided to take the time to really dig into some numbers and then report on the answers to a few of the more interesting questions that we ask ourselves.

Without further ado: Survey Results!

Categories Respondents are Buying and/or Researching

We asked our users to tell us which categories they were engaged with, be it through researching part information, buying directly, or both. Unsurprisingly, Passives and Semiconductors came in almost tied and our traffic data certainly reflects that (but more on that in the future).

• 85.8% said Semiconductors
• 85.2% said Passive Components
• 83.4% said Connectors & Interconnectors
• 64.2% said Electromechanical
• 60.5% said Power
• 29.3% said Industrial Control

How important are the following when researching a part?

We asked respondents to rate the importance of factors they consider when they search for parts and/or make their selections. In other words, sources of information, ways to find or share that information, etc. Datasheets stood out as THE most important factor when researching a part, with over 67% reporting that they were “extremely important” as part of their research. Not very surprising, but interesting that Datasheets beat out its closest competitors (factors that users rated “extremely important”), Lifecycle Status and Price & Stock Comparison by about 27% at 40.9% and 40.2% respectively!

(Column labels from left to right: Datasheets, Lifecycle status, Price and/or stock comparison, Lead times, In stock at my preferred distributor(s), Industry search engines (Octopart, Findchips, etc), Compliance information (RoHS, REACH, etc.), Application notes, Reference designs, Image of part, Available CAD models, Technical specifications on the search page, Historical data (pricing, stock levels), Expedited shipping options, Knowing how often the part is used in other designs, Search engines (Google, Bing, etc), Advice from applications engineers available, Custom quote, White papers, Coworkers/Peers, Technical articles/blogs, Webinars, Videos, Industry publications/magazines, Textbooks, Tradeshows, Social media)

How likely are you to conduct a search on Octopart without knowing the part number?

We weren’t exactly surprised to see so many users willing to do a search without the part number on Octopart. After all, if you had participated in this survey you are at least familiar enough about Octopart to be signed up to our newsletter. It’s likely you already know that our search algorithm can understand more descriptive queries than just MPN. That isn’t exactly the case for new users on Octopart, but we’ll take a look at that in our deep dive later on. Still, the vast majority of respondents ranged from “extremely unlikely to neither likely nor unlikely” to perform a search without an MPN.

Which recent update to Octopart have you found to be the most useful?

So, this one was for us but we thought you might find it interesting, too.

We wanted to know how our recent updates had been received by people using Octopart. It was no great shock to see “Up-to-the-minute pricing and availability” leading the pack. After all, for a long time, it was one of the most frequently requested features from our users. What are some of the other requested features we have yet to implement, you might ask? Good question! One we hope to be able to answer that shortly, so stay tuned!