HiFi Subjectivist ¦ Audio Forum ¦ NVA User Group

Anyone going to miss Maplins if it closes ?

I do enjoy going in my local store. Bought bits and bobs from there over the years - diy components, soldering equipment and general tools. Used to be good to wile away the time when the wife is faff shopping. Looked at some drones last time i was in.

Typical private equity management.

No. Tired shops. Limited range. Far too expensive. Good riddance.

Will not miss it one bit... I must have been in two different shops no less than five times in a row, never ever had in stock what i wanted.. The last one was for a vintage 2 Pin connector for a Quad '33' this geezar told me he'd never heard of them & does not stock them. So off i went for a soldering iron tip [Which they did not have] & guess what i passed, yep the 2 Pin connector in question 6th time lucky aint good enough..

Since when didvprivate equity management not determine your sales portfolio

I use them regularly, I have two within a 1-mile radius of my house. Which probably tells you that their property portfolio is far too large and that each shop doesn't see a large enough potential audience. They could have got rid of three city centre shops in Sheffield and put one bigger shop with decent stock on a retail park close to Meadowhall and likely got the same business (if not more due to greater stock depth) with fewer overheads.

They had a turning point many years ago when they should have gone the way of Farnell, centralised, become more of a distributor and moved solely to the web. But instead, they spread themselves too thin and started stocking disco balls and RC toy crap from China.

This week I shall mostly be stocking up on their excellent 4 pin DC power plugs and sockets and 13 amp switched and fused IEC inlets.

The shop was great in the late 1970's to late 1980's then they lost there way, went to "Me to sales" like Argos and Dixon and not the DIYer's this had a knock on effect killing the creative new designers from doing home projects and thus magazine like Elector, Wireless World etc.
The move was wrong, it killed the original market which killed the DIYer market and the mags which killed the Maplin market and other like them Henry Radio etc
So now we are back down to "Dumb Down TV " and silly crap TV adverts like buy this Chinese made Thingy it will change you life oh the one next week will be better etc.

They had great guys working for them like John Dudley who designed all the PCB's for Maplins kits without CAD CAM, he also laid the circuit board for me at Inca Tech and was a great friend.

I was building stuff as a kid in the 70's and Maplins were not the supplier of choice even then. The only time I would use them was if I needed something only they did in combination with one of the mags. For general components places like Watford electronics was far cheaper and easy to use with PO payment. I don’t think Maplin was ever powerful enough to kill the DIY market, I think the home computer did that. As I remember the mags at the time was Practical Electronics and Wireless, Everyday Electronics and ETI. Elector started being available towards the end of that period and Wireless World was not DIY by then and was aimed at the Pro world. Likewise Home Radio with their wonderful catalogue full of line drawings was aimed at a market that started disappearing at the same time, less and less radio amateur were building their own, and there was less of them anyway, killed in part by CB and again the home computer.

The world moves on, we just need to point at the opportunists who try to take advantage of any angle into more slurp. Most of the DIY market has been killed, people seem not to have the time or the patience. To a degree I see all these slurp accessory market tweaks as a poor replacement in peoples minds, "making it mine".

I am watching Steve and Stu with interest. Some of their ideas are making me wince, but I am not interfering, they find their own way, what would be the point otherwise. If it proves to be fun for us to read and the end results not too disastrous and magic smoke ridden I may let others have a go, but they have to prove they are up to it.

Dr Bunsen Honeydew wrote: ↑Mon Mar 05, 2018 2:54 pm
I am watching Steve and Stu with interest. Some of their ideas are making me wince....

What ideas?
I don't have any.