NKC Electronics is one of the companies I routinely purchase from. Their prices are reasonable and the selection of items they offer intersects with my needs quite often. My favorite purchase is the Arduino Mega clone they sell, was made by Seeed Studios.
Their inventory is much greater than that of a company like Adafruit, and their products are more utilitarian than “cool.” Where Adafruit sells items that might be fun, NKC , like Sparkfun, sells things that are useful. Also, NCK offers a number of products it developed or helped to develop, which gives them a solid grip on their product line.
Someone into robotics would enjoy the NCK offerings; all are oriented towards the types of projects commonly built by regular folk. That isn’t to say that professional consumers of electronic components have no use for NKC, they certainly do. But with the generally low pricing employed by NKC, they do beat out similar companies. That’s one reason I shop their online store. Then too, they always seem to have what I need, unless my project gets too eclectic. Then I might have to spread my orders out to other companies.
NKC ships quickly and packs their shipments well. I’ve never had an issue with their shipping. I’ve never discovered that their packers missed an items as the readied for shipment, which has happened with the Robot Shop and Marlin P Jones.
The selection of sensors and interfaces they offer have provided me with much of the materials I use in making my robotic devices. In the vast majority of cases, the products have enough information links to answer any questions a customer has about the product or using it. While the web site isn’t the fanciest one out there, their goods are easily found and ordered. They take most credit cards and they also accept PayPal, my preferred method of paying for online transactions.
NKC is a good little company and one I rely on. But they deserve my business and anyone else’s that wants good products for a fair price. When it comes to Arduino products, they’re one of the best places to go. Their selection of the different versions of the ubiquitous little controller is excellent, selling Arduino, Freeduino and Seeeduino products. They have an excellent selection of shields and sensors as well, making them a go to spot for robotics and embedded applications.