I've been doing a lot of ordering at work, and I've noticed a couple of
useful things:

http://onecall.farnell.com/ is a combination of the Farnell and CPC
catalogues. That means if you want to check the ranges of something at
both you can do it on one website.

OneCall is Farnell/CPC with the negotiated Higher Education discount (19% on
most things, excluding things like test equipment), though it doesn't show
the reduction until you're logged in with an institution-linked account.
What's interesting is that staff and students of appropriate HE institutions
can also get the discount for personal purchases (over 20 pounds value,
ordered online, free postage). You just ring them up and give them an
academic email address and they register you. First order must go to your
home address, then they ship elsewhere.

So if you have any university connections or know someone who does, you can
get substantial discounts...

Theo