[Al (astral highway)]

It's sad, but unremarkable.

The company has struggled to compete with low-cost component availability online, for several years now. I notice that one of the flagship branches in central London completely stopped stocking anty electronic components a while ago, and moved more to consumer electronics, but without any obvious USP in price or quality.

To put this in context, I went online and looked up a Chinese factory. It advertised on its website its wholesale prices, but I was surprised that these were in quantities as low as 100 off. The dollar equivalent price for bluetooth headphones was $4 for an item that would cost over £40 in a store like Maplins. I also saw semiconductors for low tens of US cents each, that would cost in some cases well over 15 times per unit more when Maplin were still selling these sorts of things. That takes some beating, with so much online distribution available.