Maplin stores

[Al (astral highway)]

The (for me) iconic store on Tottenham Court Rd has been languishing for decades. Even 15 years ago, they had just a few handfuls of carbon resistors at a time, often with gaps between the standard values. Over the last five years, they gradually ran down their stocks of active components , which was never vast to start with. David (WW), yes, they did seem Tandyesque at times ; for example , both stores for a period offered hobbyist starter/bargain lucky-dip packs of diodes, capacitors and resistors.

All hobbyist electronic components, spools of wire and PC etching kits etc. disappeared over the last year or two, even the Velleman kits that I remembered seeing probably 20 years back. They tried selling drones, low-budget audio, home security systems, PC memory , Arduino and Rasberry Pi and random consumables . A real hotch-pot just and no clear reason to go there. Senior direction in the company seems to have been clueless about how to stay relevant to anyone at all.

[dave walsh]

Probaly lots of other factors Al but you are right in the sense that it's Global not local thinking [which might have helped ] Too many years when you can't go wrong-then you do! Tim Martin saw what people needed. Wetherspoons has done quite well since!

Dave W

[Mooly]

Originally Posted by Paul Stenning

In the components area (where you have to ask for what you want) they have a separate drawer for each component... containing two resistors, capacitors or ICs if you are lucky. Well the Bournemouth store does anyway, that's the last one I've been to. I don't know whether they all do or not.

The store in Blackpool sounds similar. The 'component bar' is a large oval counter in the centre of the (massive) shop floor, probably around 20ft by 4ft on the inside as I recall. Outwardly it is a smart oval counter, on the inside it is loaded with drawers.

I found this while searching Maplin stuff:
https://www.roadshowpromotions.co.uk...-Tour-Ends.htm

I see their idea of 'UK' was predominantly east coast based.

[Paul Stenning]

It's just an area at the back in the Bournemouth shop, with a counter next to a code-lock staff door. Loads of drawers behind, some on rotating carousels. This is a smaller town centre shop though.

[Radio Wrangler]

On my rare visits to their Edinburgh shop, that's what got to me. Lots of money spent on an expensive shop and fittings, loads of drawers in the component part, but the drawers almost empty. Limited by edict to only two of every item. Lots of shop, not much of the stuff they were supposed to be selling.

I remember visiting an amateur radio shop near Darlington. There were a few people in chatting but there were only three or four radios on display. There was plenty of shelf space. It was like one of those museums with little on display, but lots and lots of 'presentation'. It just feels sterile. I didn't buy anything... there didn't seem to be anything to be bought.

David

[evingar]

Originally Posted by astral highway

A real hotch-pot just and no clear reason to go there. Senior direction in the company seems to have been clueless about how to stay relevant to anyone at all.

Nail on the head.

Not enough of any one thing to attract people to it.

If you want components you will go somewhere (probably on-line these days) that has a meaningful range and stock.

If you want home entertainment, you will go somewhere that has a meaningful range and stock.

Of you want drones / automation (etc etc) ............. ditto

The only time I set foot in the tiny Newbury store was to get some memory for a NUC I had bought after I cocked up ordering it on line (wrong type).

What I got there was over priced and too small, but dug me out of a temporary hole as I needed to get on with the project over the weekend. Such occasional "distressed" purchases won't keep then afloat and as they only had 1 memory stick in stock of that type I consider it a lucky break they could help at all !

[Mooly]

This (from the web) is typical of my local store and this view would be of around one quarter the floor space, so as much to the left and same again behind. All floor space in other words.

Normally the store would also have about as many customers as you can see in this shot.

[Refugee]

At our local store in Chesterfield they were putting up a huge banner announcing the closing down sale.
The store was new build not all that long ago either.
I spent just over £10.

[Sinewave]

I went in there to buy a wireless mouse, I didn't buy one as the prices are a bit high still. I've not had a proper look at the place for some time, but noted the prices on most things probably haven't helped their situation.

I'll be back there soon when my MT2017's have arrived and are ready for me to collect.

[The General]

I went to our local store in Milton Keynes yesterday, with its big 'store closing' signs in the window. More customers than I'd ever seen. I overheard one of the staff saying he was still hopeful that a buyer could be found. Well in the unlikely event that happens I hope for their sake its someone who understands the business as the current owners clearly didn't. As others have said, it's no good having a stock control system based purely on popular sellers, 'cos when you ask for four 68k resistors & are told there's only two in stock, after a while you go elsewhere & then there's hardly any footfall in the place. Shame, I used to buy Eminence speakers from the MK store for my jukebox restos.
Mark

[raditechman]

Many years back Maplin only had a few shops, but they were well stocked. I used to regularly visit the Hammersmith store in King Street and normally got all I needed. (There was a Tandy a few shops away too).
Then they started opening shops all over London. So I tried Hounslow, Kingston, Edgeware Road and others, but could not get all I needed to complete my order at one store. It seemed that as they got more stores the amount of components was spread out so instead of one store with 50 10K resistors the same 50 resistors was 10 of each in 5 stores, having to make visits to several branches for one order soon put me off.
I still occasionally purchase an urgent plug or cable from their shops.

It seem that there are no more electronic hobby shops now, and the computer fairs seem to have ended too.

Fortunately I still have a good ham radio store not too far from me.

John

[dazaaa1]

2 cans of Servisol Super 10 for under a tenner at my local store, probably the best deal I've ever had!

[ionburn]

I went into our local store this morning. Stock reduced between 20 and 50%. Not a mega saving, considering they were more expensive in the first place, but for things you want they seem to be considerably cheaper than most places now.

[G8HQP Dave]

Originally Posted by raditechman

Many years back Maplin only had a few shops, but they were well stocked. I used to regularly visit the Hammersmith store in King Street and normally got all I needed. (There was a Tandy a few shops away too).

For many years Solihull and East Birmingham were adequately served by the Maplins in Erdington. I would guess that this is a cheaper location than Solihull town centre; convenient for me but not really necessary.

Is there any chance that a potential buyer might read this thread and learn from it?

[G6Tanuki]

Originally Posted by G8HQP Dave

Is there any chance that a potential buyer might read this thread and learn from it?

The time for a potential rescuer has long passed: they're selling-off the stock to clear the shops, and preparing to hand the keys back to the landlords. There's nowt left - except the liabilities.

Perhaps if UK bankruptcy-law had the equivalent of US "Chapter 11" protection then something could have been made out of it via a restructuring and debt/liability offload. But we don't - so it's Sayonara for Maplin.

[G8HQP Dave]

I thought I heard a member of staff telling someone that the website would continue - maybe he was just doing wishful thinking?

[MrBungle]

Probably will. It’s cheap enough to run that to clear assets out.

[high_vacuum_house]

I went into my local Maplin this evening and bought some enamelled copper wire. The shop is looking very spartan and run down with many empty shelves and all of the tools gone with almost no components in the drawers. Looks like they have already pulled the plug from the IT system as they were using a duplicator book for the receipts and the aincient mechanical copier for card transactions!! Hadn't seen one in use for many years!

Still wanted silly money for various items such as rolls of standard looking speaker cable (£90 a reel)

I cannot see this branch lasting more than a week or so as they are still fully staffed.

Christopher Capener

[gridrunner]

I'm sad to see Maplin go. It's a sorry but familiar tale of over expansion and loss of focus, headwinds in retail and culminating in an inability to service a new debt pile taken on from a leveraged buy out. I used to go into the Manchester Oxford Road branch all the way back to the 80s - it must therefore have been one of their first stores to open. Very small, with the components, kits and tools stashed away upstairs and looked after by knowledgeable staff. It did well owing to its proximity to UMIST and the universities and always seemed to be busy. I remember buying a weather station kit and at some point a weather satellite receiver kit. The Maplin catalogue used to be something you'd want to buy, complete with the Sci-Fi artwork on the cover.
The added sadness here is that the few viable stores will go with the patently unserviceable ones (Canary Wharf anyone?!), it's an existential event that reminds me of the Modelzone collapse a couple of years back. Very similar pattern there and it swept away a bunch of former independent model shops, including Manchester Models on Deansgate - a place that had survived since the 1950s. Manchester like some many other places is a pretty sterile place to shop now.
I have heard people say Maplin's core business died along with the 80s hobby scene. I disagree with this. With the Pi, Microbit, Arduino, alibaba and 3D printing, the maker scene is every bit as vibrant today. Maplins operating on a much smaller retail footprint and a strong online presence, going back to its roots and perhaps thinking about turning over some of its space to code and maker clubs for kids (think explore learning but fun and with soldering irons*) - that's a business that might still have been viable. But with no vision and being turned over for a short term profit, we've arrived at a place where I doubt we'll ever know now.
*H+S permitting!

[IanBland]

Gridrunner, I generally agree. But there is no doubt in my view that there was a definite lull in hobby electronics before the arrival of the Pi etc. That was when the catalogue and everything else shrank and they shifted to selling reassuringly expensive tat. At some point they ceased to be anybody's first thought as a seller for anything. For instance, they sold computer components. But the range was small, and more expensive than anyone else. So in most respects they ended up as a shop of last resort. You're prepared to pay over the odds to get something in a hurry? Maplin. Otherwise, get it cheaper online.

Probably by the time the current microcontroller boom came around, it was too late to make themselves the go-to place for them or anything else. In the 80s, us electronics geeks had to go to Maplin because there wasn't really anywhere else. RS et al did not want to know you if you didn't have a company letter head. Well, there was Tandy, I even bought some components there (those cute card packs of 10 resistors, remember them?), but mostly it was Maplin.

On the table next to me is the power supply for an amplifer I built in 1988. The amps themselves were the famous 100W Mosfet kit, and I went to King St. and got them, a pair of big toroidals, 4 humongous 10,000uF can capacitors, heatsinks, diodes, fan, pots, knobs, connectors and a big metal case to put it all in. But keeping all that in stock in business terms means shifting significant quantities of all those components and I think that must have been fading even before the online competition onslaught.

And as we've all said, the release of the catalogue was a major event as it was also used by us all as a reference. But I just look up my datasheets online now. Heck, the rubbish Maplin website doesn't even link to datasheets. If you can actually find anything on it.

Just now as an experiment I searched "100k potentiometer" and the first few search results were 10k. How any manager considered it fit for purpose is beyond me.