In article ,
alan_m writes:
On 28/02/2018 14:25, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In the late 90s, Maplin did seem to be going into competition with the
likes of RS, with a much increased range of components and bulk discounts.
I've kept a catalogue from then as it has lots of useful info - not just
sales stuff. In those days RS were even more expensive relatively than
now, and difficult to get an account with for a small business or paying
hobby.
But IIRC, they changed hands (or management) round about then, and also
direction.
Was this when they re-branded Maplin Professional Supplies and then went
down the Kentucky Fried Crap route and re-branded again as MPS? The
large company I worked for at the time allowed purchase from them but it
didn't last long - I suspect because RS/Farnell ended up cheaper.
Account customers got a large discount from RS/Farnell when the annual
spend was in the £100,000s. However, it was not unusual for RS/Farnell
to suspend the supply of components when the invoice wasn't paid on time 
I worked for a startup ISV in the late 1990's, and although we were
mostly software, we bought quite a lot of hardware. Initially, that
was all through Maplin because I knew them from my hobby, but eventually
we wanted more specialist things they didn't stock, so I applied for an
RS account. Back came reams of paperwork to fill in. A few days later,
with the paperwork still in my in-tray, and Farnell salesman knocked on
the door and said "Can I open a credit account for you?". I said yes, and
they didn't require any paperwork. Maplin and RS both lost out to that.
It was one hell of a coincidence - I did wonder if someone inside RS
was leaking data out to their competitors.
When I was at Sun Microsystems, we often put in CPC orders for staff
(not for Sun itself - CPC wasn't on their list of suppliers).
CPC set up a Staff sales scheme for us with a 10% discount after which
it got to around 2-3 per week and the annual value over £25k.
I think Maplin made some wrong decisions over the years. I think there
would be a market for them to be something resembling CPC retail outlet,
and although electronics reduced as a hobby in perhaps the 1980's and
1990's, there's no reason they couldn't be a key part of the maker
movement today. I did write to them some months ago (probably too late
in hindsight) suggesting they should do things the mail-order companies
can't, such as running evening events in their stores for people
(particularly children) to bring their Pi and Microbit and other
electronics projects along and get help from each other and other mentors,
and have parts available to purchase, and it would cost them very little
to set this up.
I think they missed a big opportunty. That may mean there's a chance
for someone else to see this and buy part of the business, but that's
generally harder than fixing things before running in to the buffers.
And as someone said, I really can't imagine why bothering to stock
up with loads of £14 HDMI leads when you can buy them from Poundland
100 yards away.
--
Andrew Gabriel
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