Quote:
Originally Posted by Heatercathodeshort
I bet a lot of unsold stock ends up in a skip. They will have to vacate premises in a given time and any extensions to clear stock will be very expensive. J.
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Keep an eye on your local car boot sale.
As I mentioned previously, there are a number of traders who have been selling ex-Maplin stock at car boot sales around London. I've seen it at Denham, Taplow, Hounslow West and Epsom car boot sales. This has been going on for about a decade. Over the years I've had quite a few bargains. Typically they sell Maplin items for 5% to 20% of their original price. Sadly, once Maplin has been liquidated, such bargains will be no more.
I suspect the source of this stuff is
Wellers Auctions (used to be in Chertsey but now appear to be in Guildford). I occasionally found Wellers lot number stickers on some items. So I reckon any unsold stock will be gathered up and auctioned off by the administrators.
It's a sad end.
Back in the 1980s I was quite excited when Maplin opened a shop in Bristol where I lived then. It's hard to imagine now, but the big component suppliers like RS, CPC etc were TRADE ONLY and wouldn't sell to ordinary people like me. Maplin seemed amazing - a vast choice of components available right away with no trade account needed.
Of course, the world has moved on. Demand from hobbyists wanting components just isn't enough to keep hundreds of expensive High Street shops going. Like Tandy before them, Maplin moved on into toys and gadgets, successfully at first, but then people started realising they could buy online from other suppliers more cheaply. And they lost their previous component-buying customers too. I wonder if Maplin could have survived by becoming like Screwfix or Toolstation with a few, large warehouse type outlets, fully stocked, rather than having hundreds of small shops with small amounts of stock. But it's too late now.
It seems like the end of an era. No more High Street electronics shops, apart from a few independents. RIP Maplin.