Maplins Closing

aVdub

Not brilliant news I know and thoughts go out to all affected by this terrible news.

Maplin staff made redundant as hopes of finding buyer fade

There are a few reductions showing in-store now and probably me to come.

Clearance | maplin

Greg Hook

Very sad news for all the staff.

But for the company, the writing had been on the wall for years. As with Toysrus they weren’t competitive anymore and didn’t really offer anything unique.

rousetafarian

It is testament to the fact that the news broke last week and only now a thread has been started.

The two brands above became irrelevant very quickly I’m afraid.

mike7

The possible closure of Maplins is sad news indeed especially for a generation of customers who liked to build their own equipment, pretty much from individual components or pre-built modules. Their main competitor in this type of business was Radiospares which was the hobbies branch of RS Components. A number of other similar companies operated around that time, one of which was Doram, which was later sold to a Dutch company. Now I guess people no longer have the interest, or patience to build their own speakers and amps, everything must come ready built 'off the shelf'. I guess like most of us our purchases from Maplin in recent years have been for cables and connectors which obviously don't make them much in the way of profit.

nheather

I first encountered Maplin in the early 80s.  I had been into hobbiest electronics and was doing an electronics degree.  This was in the days before the internet when the hobby magazines had a single or double page adverts of listings of electronics components. Ordering meant writing a letter (by hand because word processing and printers were rare then) listing what components you wanted and including a postal order or cheque.

And then Maplins turned up and it was amazing - a shop dedicated to electronics that you could browse and pick up the parts and tools that you wanted there and then.  A little more expensive than the mail order but not by much the convience outweighed the price.

Then the internet came out and then especially eBay.  Overnight Maplins range was limited and expensive.  But it still had its place if you wanted something there and then.  But clealy that wasn’t enough so Maplin tried to diversify and lost its identity.  It became more of a toy and gadget shop and components that it continued to sell became very expensive.

More annoying, shop stock became quite poor, and on the odd occasion I have gone to the shop I have been met with “we don’t have that” or “we only have one of those” followed by “we can order it in for you”.  At which point they had failed, if they are going to have to order then I can order myself and probably a lot cheaper.

Also, back it the 80s the employees were enthusiasts themselves and could offer good advice or suggestions.  Now they are moee like boxshifters knowing very little about what they are selling.

My summary - they don’t sell what you want, if they do then they don’t have it in stock, if they do then it is overpriced and if you need advice then you are best looking elsewhere.

The store in its final years didn’t have any redeeming qualities.

Cheers,

Nigel

IronGiant

Maplin started out as a small mail order business in the early 70's, and the first shops were simply retail outlets for that business.  Perhaps they should have stuck with what they were good at, who can say?

nheather

I think eBay is the killer.  As an example, last year I was looking at DIY circuits to do head tracking for computer gaming.

I found a circuit that specified a specific make and model of infrared LED.  Now you can imagin the hundreds of combinations of manufacturer, size and performance there are out there in the world.

Now imagine that Maplin, or any electronic retailer carriers the exact LED - practically zero.

Now in the old days, we would have looked at the LED, noted the emited light frequency, power etc. and selected an alternative that Maplin sell - and handed over £3.60 for a pair.

But these days, I just throw the model number into eBay and it finds the exact LEDs being sold by numerous sellers in China and what’s more I’ll get 20 of them for £1.50.

Cheers,

Nigel

noiseboy72

Maplin  ended up being the place you went when you needed a part in a hurry. Vastly overpriced and poor quality. This is no sort of business model and the failure was only a matter of time.

Amazon and CPC are now the best source of kits and components. Cheap, often available the following day and better quality

camelot1971

I went to the one in Belfast International airport yesterday - even though a lot of stuff was reduced 40% they were still dearer than Amazon.