Where would you get electrical bits? Maplin

[Jaded]

I don’t use hem very often, but they are a go to place for electrical bits. They might fold.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43219651

[ScumOfTheRoad]

Maplin? That's sad. Back in the day they had big thick catalogues which spotty geeks like me coudl flick through and a counter where a person would go off and get the resistors etc, you ordered on a paper form. Actually I bought some video connectors in Maplin recently, and these were in little drawers out on the shop floor.

I guess Maplin rather lost its way. the market for people buying resistors and capacitors must not be great. I saw lots of Raspberry Pi and robitics kits in maplin sotres, but these always seemed to be out of dat and for the Raspberry Pi hugely more expensive than online. I guess specialist sonline retailers like The Pi hut can keep up to data, and they dont have the expense of high street stores.

Then aplin seemed to go after the disco sspeakers, lighting and glitterball market - I dont know how well they do there.
And the car accessories market - which I admit to liking, having bought phoen mounts and a battery jumpstart pack there rather than in Halfords.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I blame Kim, buying all those electronic components on ebay. 

There's a Maplin just down the road from me and on the infrequent occasions I need something electrical, they're always helpful (both explaining which of various options fits what and letting me leave my bike by their counter!) and well stocked. They're rather expensive compared to other sources but make up for it, for someone who doesn't buy much and benefits from a bit of advice, by being accessible and informative.

As for Toys R Us, I thought they'd actually closed down a while ago.

[T42]

I'm surprised Maplin's lasted so long.  The only components shop in our area was replaced with a very important clothes shop over 10 years ago. A great idea, since there were only a couple of dozen clothes shops in Haguenau before that.

[ian]

I'm still surprised to see them, tbh. It's always easier to buy the same things cheaper online and it's hard to build a sustainable bricks-n-mortar business on distress purchases alone. I suppose if you really need a disco glitterball (I, for the record, have a glitterball in my garden, drives the cats mental). I bought some rechargeable batteries a while back, they tried to sell me half dozen things I didn't want at the till. I'm not sure how much that works other than to annoy me (in which it's quite successful).

I don't really see a way to make these businesses long-term sustainable.

[robgul]

Back in the day the aforementioned catalogue was great - but then over time they have turned into (at least at the one here in SuA) pretty much a toy-shop.

I too am surprised they've lasted this long - especially with the very high prices .... Tandy/Radio Shack had loads of shops and went the same way quite a while ago.

Rob

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

It's simply because their outlets failed to provide retail theater.

[tatanab]

Maplin? That's sad. Back in the day they had big thick catalogues which spotty geeks like me coudl flick through and a counter where a person would go off and get the resistors etc, you ordered on a paper form.

I recall them starting in a corner shop in Braintree 1969/70.  As you say, electronic components and nothing else.

[PeteB99]

BBC News reporting that they have now folded.

[Ham]

Sad. Didn't their first logo have a concorde on it? Maplin sands having been touted as a new London Airport? I may have an ad in an old Practical Wireless somewhere....

[ian]

I think any high street retailer is on borrowed time if they've not figured out a strategy to make themselves relevant and viable. If your business model is based around narrowing averting financial crises (sterling down, rents up, HMRC bill, loss of credit insurance) then inevitability beckons.

Clothes etc. can to a degree rely on the fact that people want to handle the goods and try them on (though many online vendors will ship easily returnable items, the last pair of shoe I bought online came in a resealable box with returns label, but there's a still a bit more hassle in arranging pick-up). And of course, they fill the leisure hole, where it's something to do on Saturday afternoon. I suppose that is theatre.

Apple did it famously by have designer shops full of shiny and an educated and helpful staff and leveraged it to raise their brand presence. Much copied now, of course.

Some shop rely on the stuff-you-need convenience (Robert Dyas etc. in London) but that's a limited business.

[Ham]

Sad. Didn't their first logo have a concorde on it? Maplin sands having been touted as a new London Airport? I may have an ad in an old Practical Wireless somewhere....

August 1973

[Kim]

It's sad, but Maplin as a proper component store died in the 1990s.  I remember going into the Sheffield branch in the early noughties wanting a couple of bipolar transistors (I wasn't particularly fussed about what, as long as it could sink a few tens of milliamps).  With some help from the guy on the component LEDs and speaker cable counter we eventually found one that was in stock.  There were another 3 in the Liverpool branch, apparently.  Should have gone to Bardwells^[1] I know, but that was the other side of town.

They've continued to be useful for things like wall-warts, A/V cables and connectors, and distress purchases of computer parts, but you can't run a highstreet chain on that.  I suspect the DJ tat^[2] and electronic toys market has now been displaced by online sales to the point where it just wasn't viable.  Pretty much the same thing that happened to Tandy, but in slow motion.  (I got some lovely bargains from a Tandy store in 1998 as it sold off a load of electronics and audio gear in a last-ditch attempt to re-invent itself as a mobile phone shop.


It's pleasing that the Maker movement has re-kindled hobby electronics, and there seem to be plenty of online businesses (as they pragmatically have to be) selling kits and components to that market - some of which aren't even based in Shenzhen.  And if your needs are more specialised the industrial suppliers (Farnell/CPC, RS, Rapid, etc) haven't gone away.  But you can forget about wandering into a high-street shop for a roll of solder and some headphone plugs.


_{[1] Arse.  They closed last year.  That really was an institution.
[2] Proper lighting and sound equipment has always been the domain of quirky businesses on industrial estates.}

[Karla]

I was about to write "What were you doing in Maplin, you should have gone to Bardwell's"

Then I googled and found that they'd closed too 

Then I noticed you'd already written that.  The Bardwell closure really does make me sad.

Maplin though?  If I want something with electrons in it, I order from RS and it arrives the next day.  If RS don't have it, Farnell.  Failing both of those, Digikey and if it's super duper specialist, Mouser.  There's even 'Rapid' if I really can't help it.

RS/Farnell are the Wiggle/CRC of the components world. 

[Kim]

RS/Farnell are the Wiggle/CRC of the components world.

I'd say RS/Farnell were more akin to SJS, on account being where you eventually end up, postage costs be damned, because none of the mainstream sellers stock what you're looking for...

[Canardly]

Shame I like Maplins, but the last three times I have been in one of their stores there were no customers therein. I have recently purchased a very decent Maplin branded external usb sound card from them.

[Karla]

RS/Farnell are the Wiggle/CRC of the components world.

I'd say RS/Farnell were more akin to SJS, on account being where you eventually end up, postage costs be damned, because none of the mainstream sellers stock what you're looking for...

That's Mouser.

(Given I'm up in the microwave circuitry clouds, I suspect we have different versions of 'niche').

[Russell]

That'll be my fault as I bought stuff from CPC recently.  However I did go in to Maplin to buy a couple of resistors.  They had virtually none in stock and tried to give me a 2K2 instead of a 1M.  Ended up with a 1.2M and a 1.8M instead of a 1M and a 3M.

[Kim]

I'm impressed they have anything over 1k.  Resistors are for current-limiting LEDs, innit.

[TheLurker]

... hobby electronics...

I always liked that mag. good for intellectual lightweights like me, R&EW was way over my head.

This whole thing got me thinking about where I used to buy components RS (at least while my kid sister worked for them), Maplin, Watford (although that was more computer stuff than discrete stuff) and any number of "corner shops" that no longer exist.   There was one on George IV Bridge (Embra) that I particularly liked, forgotten the name.  None of this self service nonsense.  You went in with your list and bloke in a brown "lab" coat ferreted around in wooden drawers for stuff.

[SoreTween]

Holy moley Bardwells!  I had totally forgotten about that place   I still have stuff from there in drawers at home I'll never use.  The boxes full of assorted parts on the pavement outside were a dangerous distraction on a damp* Saturday waiting for pub o'clock to come round.

*Dry Saturdays the draw of Yarncliffe et al would be irresistible, wet Saturdays pub o'clock came round rather early.

[orienteer]

Another user of my local Maplins here. Its closure will mean buying more online and just having to wait for it to be delivered.

In the 1950s London's Tottenham Court Road was mainly electical component stores, a lot of it army surplus. I used to buy items such as 12v DC relays to effect semi-automatic control of track circuits on my model railway. They withered away over the years, with a brief resurgence when the PC market emerged, then TV and hi-fi, but they've all long gone.

[hellymedic]

Our local Maplin closed and turned into a 'coffee' chain outlet a few years ago.

[mllePB]

Maplins in Brum city centre is a near neighbour of recent-ish Evans (bike) and the two shops make for an interesting comparison.
Who'd have predicted in the concord-era that the newer shop with the £k's item in the window would be the bike shop while the electronics shop is run-down and look ready to close?

[jiberjaber]

I have fond memories of Maplin as I used to work there in the early 90s from when the first store opened in Boro (headed up by Graeme Obree's brother no less, he used to be the crack store opening person who sadly died in a road accident a few years later but led a very colourful work hard, play hard life style) through its first take over by a far East outfit to when working the weekend there for the staff discount stopped being worth while as I had access to RS etc through my first proper job in electronics. I think I was there for about 4-5 years in the end through uni.

The far East take over signalled a big change in how the org worked and the downward trend away from hobby focused to tat.

Fun fact, the most profitable item was resistors, even at 3p each!

I've still got my name badge at my folks plus my letter of commendation for chasing an armed robber!

Sad day, but surprised they lasted so long.