Who is the typical customer at this shop? Is it purchasing agents from volume manufacturers, or engineers building prototypes? I'd guess it is the former, and the people building prototypes are lucky, in that they can piggyback off this ecosystem, and the sellers are happy to deal with small quantities.
Perhaps this type of shop has disappeared from places like the US because the volume manufacturers now do their purchasing via more efficient B2B Internet transactions, and the prototyping community in any one location on earth is too small to make this sort of shop profitable? From a prototyping point of view, the anomaly is the presence of this shop, not its absence.
A solution might be to recreate the "techshop" experience on the Internet, in a way that gathers the "long tail" of prototypers from around the world into a number that justifies a significant investment. A virtual techshop?
Every component would have a complete mechanical/electrical simulation model available. Want to see what a component looks like? Pull up a dimensionally accurate 3D model. The model can be rendered to get a visual picture, or pulled into any CAD package to check fit or do a dynamics simulation. Electrical components should be able to fit into a circuit simulation.
It should be possible to search/browse components, including a parametric search. Since we've got 3D models, it should be possible to render a display case where you can pick up and inspect each component.
Once a design is complete, it should be possible for the system to generate a set of purchase orders, and mechanical drawings for custom parts, directly from the design data. (This is what CAD/EDA software already tries to do, but typically stops at the BOM stage rather than progressing to a purchase order.)
it is mostly higher volume purchases. Almost all the stalls are setup by the factories around town. So the manufacturers go to huaqiangbei to take a look at their samples and find out their prices. If you go in there just trying to buy a handful of ICs they dont really want to do business with you. You have to tell them you are looking to get samples or making a prototype and will be back for a much larger order and then they will be much more likely to help you out.
They also dont talk about in the article but most of the malls there are separated by floors. On some floors it is all consumers electronics like tablets and pcs then on other floors it is all parts and components. So you can really see the whole manufacturing chain represented in these malls. The components are sold on one floor and the finished goods they are put into are sold in another floor
I can say from personal experience that the customers are probably a bit of both. Engineers walk through looking for parts for their prototypes, and then once the prototypes are complete, come back and set up a contract for 1,000's more of the exact same part for the production run.
To me, that is the real benefit. In America, you can make your prototypes with parts from Digikey or Fry's, but if you actually wanted to make a production run, you have to source all your parts from scratch.
I've visited SEG Market and saw people walking around with BOMs as if they were grocery lists, arguing with vendors over pricing and then walking down the row to talk to a different shop. Low volume stuff, like 1-3k pcs orders.
Perhaps this type of shop has disappeared from places like the US because the volume manufacturers now do their purchasing via more efficient B2B Internet transactions, and the prototyping community in any one location on earth is too small to make this sort of shop profitable? From a prototyping point of view, the anomaly is the presence of this shop, not its absence.
A solution might be to recreate the "techshop" experience on the Internet, in a way that gathers the "long tail" of prototypers from around the world into a number that justifies a significant investment. A virtual techshop?
Every component would have a complete mechanical/electrical simulation model available. Want to see what a component looks like? Pull up a dimensionally accurate 3D model. The model can be rendered to get a visual picture, or pulled into any CAD package to check fit or do a dynamics simulation. Electrical components should be able to fit into a circuit simulation.
It should be possible to search/browse components, including a parametric search. Since we've got 3D models, it should be possible to render a display case where you can pick up and inspect each component.
Once a design is complete, it should be possible for the system to generate a set of purchase orders, and mechanical drawings for custom parts, directly from the design data. (This is what CAD/EDA software already tries to do, but typically stops at the BOM stage rather than progressing to a purchase order.)
A dream, but dreaming doesn't hurt.