Where to buy Siemens in the USA

I have been working a lot with Siemens in Europe and China. We used very good vendors with decent discounts.

Recently I moved to the USA and been working on different PLCs (AB, Mitsubishi, Panasonic...).
Now I am starting a new project and considering Siemens S7-1200. Unfortunately, I have a hard time to get in touch with any distributor. I wrote e-mails to everyone listed on Siemens web page, I wrote an e-mail to Siemens itself... and got no answers at all.
So now I am seriously worried about availability and support in the US.

Could you recommend some source for Siemens PLC hardware, most preferably on the west coast?

E&M would be one if you're in California.

https://www.eandm.com/

https://new.siemens.com/us/en/company/distributorlocator.html




I think Allied is one of the bigger, another is AWC. Do shop around, big deviation in price.



PLCCable got some Siemens stuff too, great company to deal with.

boneless said:

https://new.siemens.com/us/en/company/distributorlocator.html

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I wrote to all of them in radius 300 miles and got 0 answers.

Thank you for all the other suggestions, I'll check them out.

walkir said:

I wrote to all of them in radius 300 miles and got 0 answers.

Thank you for all the other suggestions, I'll check them out.

Click to expand...

Does not in any way surprise me and that is not limited to Siemens. Beckhoff dealer returned my call about a month later; luckily I was not and I'm not in a rush for their hardware.


With regard to buying Siemens, my Canadian experience is :


I do work in three provinces and the Distributors of their automation hardware are usually very large electrical suppliers with chain stores across the province and I have pretty much not choice but to deal with them. One distributor bought the distributor in adjacent province and expanded to pretty much corner the market in western Canada. Their prices was +35% or higher than Ontario's distributor. I wrongly made the assumption that they each could only sell in their territory which is not the case. I now purchase all my Siemens hardware from Ontario and have it freighted west. Once I realized that I started pricing other hardware like SICK KEB and Phoenix Contact and they are also cheaper in Ontario.



The local Siemens distributor was talking to me in a way that I had to prove myself (the company) to them to get a good discount while the Ontario distributor gave me a good discount right from the start which now makes me wonder how much do larger companies who buy hundreds of thousands of dollars annually pay for the same hardware? Certainly much less than I do.


A sample of the best prices I get (in Canadian dollars)attached.

Try these guys
https://www.appliedc.com/
I know they are Siemens distributers but hey are here in east coast
but I am sue they would ship them anywhere

In my experience, you are more likely to get a response if you call versus emailing.
These guys are on the phone all day, and do not check emails like they should, and an unknown may not get much of their time.

I have worked with a few multinational companies that get better prices in Germany and have the parts shipped over.

Sometimes you can't give your money away. Over here you just have to say a manufacturers name aloud 3 times and there's a sales guy pestering you for weeks.

With Siemens in the US, there are several levels of distribution, because Siemens bought out several other companies here and absorbed their distribution, but that was mainly for motor controls and switchgear, so those distributors don’t have expertise in automation. Only the top level are allowed to sell automation systems. In California, that is E&M, but they only have one warehouse and two offices, one in the SF Bay Area and one in the LA area.

Nobody reads mail any more by the way... call them or go to their website.

boneless said:

PLCCable got some Siemens stuff too, great company to deal with.

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Thank you

We dont have a lot we try and sell what we use or use to build trainers but we do have some 1200's and starting to get some 1500's

Steiner Electric is the main Siemens supplier in Illinois. Good prices and very good support.

kalabdel said:

The local Siemens distributor was talking to me in a way that I had to prove myself (the company) to them to get a good discount while the Ontario distributor gave me a good discount right from the start

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Who is your Ontario distributor?
Maybe they can ship it to the US.

When I worked for Siemens, E&M was my distributor. They have a fairly good inside sales staff who vet all of the email inquiries before turning them over to what they call "Business Developers", salespeople who follow up on leads. So my theory would be that your email inquiry was picked up by them, but didn't include enough information for them to vet you or your company. They will not typically bother responding to individuals with no company identified or at best, those inquiries get sidelined for when they are slow. Either that, or their BDs are swamped and not getting to you in a timely manner. They have been advertising for that position a lot lately.

In my experience, Siemens thinks they are doing you a favor by letting you buy their stuff. This attitude passes on to many of their distributors.

I agree that calling is better than email. If you don't get attention from the inside sales staff call and ask for the sales manager or president. Nothing like hearing "I thought you'd like to know you just lost my business" to light a fire under somebody.

Fortunately, Siemens doesn't usually have exclusive territories.

https://new.siemens.com/us/en/company/distributorlocator.html

Walkir

Just call E&M.
Trust me , you will want local support.

And Tom must be confused with AB
I think it’s a Milwaukee thing