On Thu, 01 Mar 2018 11:26:41 +0000, Ian wrote:

Apropos not much, I always considered Maplin a bit of a toy shop rather
than a serious electronics components supplier, even back in the 80's.
I was spoiled by having Electrovalue in walking distance though, anyone
remember them?

I was thinking about them yesterday when the whole Maplin thing blew up.
Let me see...Englefield Green, Egham?

Used them quite a bit although only by mail order.

Spent hours queuing there on Saturday mornings. Problem
with Maplin was they never seemed to have everything in stock, and if
you're building something, missing even one part is a killer.

Indeed, although I used their phone services (touch tone, then BBS) to
order.

Later discovered Farnell, and even got a trade account set up while
still at Uni, at their suggestion. This was in sharp contrast to RS, who
wouldn't even let me have a catalogue. Put a lot of business in Farnells
direction since then, and precisely none to RS.

I happened to meet someone at a computer auction in Essex, and they put
me on to CPC. I use CPC, Farnell, Rapid and RS depending on what I want.
More esoteric stuff comes from Mouser and Digikey.

Not surprised Maplins are on the rocks. As has been said, town centre
retail is dead. Battle the car-hating councils obstacle course to get
there in the first place. Pay more in parking than for next-day
delivery. Dodge the chuggers and beggars to get to the one store you
actually need to visit.

Although they did (originally) have a policy of using the less expensive
end of town in many case. In Chatham it was Luton Arches (next to the
murder scene I mentioned before), in Brighton the London Road shopping
centre (the most down market of the three main ones). In Canterbury it's
Vauxhall Road, which isn't much better.


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