The Sinclair QL Forum

Maplin Electronics is now in administration.

Story on The Register

Maplin are still trading as normal, as the administrators are trying to sell it as a going concern.

Mark

Soon, if not already, there will be no reason for a man to go into the High Street.

Currys gone. Maplins gone. Borders gone.

It's all womens stuff left now. Clothes and shoes. I don't see any excitement there.

Right, 05:45 time to go to work. Will I get there today I wonder. Effing weather.


Cheers,
Norm.

Sad for peoples jobs, although it’s not like the Maplin of old. I remember as a kid, the excitement of a new Maplin catalogue with its futuristic sci fi covers. It was an event.

My Dad went in one a couple of years ago for some repair parts for electronics, and they just looked at him blank and couldn’t help.

vanpeebles wrote:Sad for peoples jobs, although it’s not like the Maplin of old. I remember as a kid, the excitement of a new Maplin catalogue with its futuristic sci fi covers. It was an event.

My Dad went in one a couple of years ago for some repair parts for electronics, and they just looked at him blank and couldn’t help.

I agree vanpeebles. For years, the nearest store was Chester, well over an hour away from me. Then, the Llandudno one opened to my delight, but by then it was just full of the same tat things you can buy on the internet, but twice the price. Like so many stores these days it just seemed full of things of no interest to me at prices I didn't want to pay.

Tandy gone years ago, now maplins. At least the likes of Farnell and RS deliver fairly promptly, but it was sometimes conventient to just nip down and get a veroboard or some connectors or something for a weekend project. Will have to be more organised in future...

I bought loads of stuff from Maplin before they got bought out the first time. At first, by mail order or by phone. Then by their dial-up modem link service. That was fun. Then with their first internet site.

Then they opened a shop in the nearest city to me. So I could go and see what the non-component items looked like.

Around five years later, they had three stores in the nearest city to me.

Then they started to become less useful. Instead being more of a box shifting company.

But when buying plastic or one of the limited range of metal cases that were sold in store, I found that much easier than ordering online and playing guess if it will fit, measure with a ruler, then compare dimensions. Then go for a final guesstimate and order...

Same with buying some types of switches or buttons.

Now, their website is rather more difficult to use. The search function is poor. The prices in store for components and parts are not attractive.

But some items are still priced okay (some tools for example, at least, when I last bought a tool a while ago).

Not been to a Maplin store this year, but did buy some plastic cases in December last year.

Mark

For me, Maplins was always the supplier of last resort, if nobody else could supply the item at a normal price. They also held vast stocks of obscure items of little use to most customers.

That said, sad to see them go.