Sad to see all the Maplins are dead, and visited a little computer shop in Dublin yesterday. Have seen a few shops around, but not many, and still haven’t spotted anything that looks like a Radio Shack or a Micro Center...not sure where everyone buys their computers here.
Mainly online, although there are a few independent computer places here and there. And there's always PCWorld/Curry's if you're absolutely desperate!
Maplin's story is an interesting one and, to some degree, they deserved their fate, in my opinion.
When I was a kid, passionately getting into electronics, Maplin opened one of their first stores in Manchester, which was about a 30 minute bus ride away from where I lived. Back then, they focused mainly on electronic components and produced a fantastic catalogue each year, containing lots of data on all the ICs they supplied, which I would spend endless hours browsing through, looking for new project ideas. There were very few high-street stockists of electronic hobbyist stuff at that time, except for a few small independent stores (such as the brilliant family-owned
Modern Radio in Bolton, which amazingly is still going strong after all these years) and the awful over-priced Tandy, which I believe took its name from the phrase '
Technology-
and-
you'. Tandy was effectively Radioshack's UK outlet, selling mostly Radioshack branded stuff. They sold a very limited range of electronic components at high prices, focusing mainly on consumer electronics, particularly stuff like RC cars, CB radios and small electrical toys and gadgets.
Maplin had great success with their relatively niche market and within a few years they were opening stores all over the UK. It was around this time that they started to get greedy. They began competing directly with Tandy, selling all the same product lines (but cheaper), moving further and further away from their niche market each year. Eventually Maplin put Tandy out of business and effectively became their replacement, focusing on the extremely competitive market of electronic consumer goods and computer parts and selling very few electronic components. From this point on they were doomed to failure. Had they instead focused on being the 'go to' high-street store for electronic components, while they may have had fewer stores, I think they would've survived. I buy most of my electronic components online from Farnell these days (who own Newark in the US I believe) but sometimes it's just handy to be able to nip out and pick up components at a local store. Had Maplin kept faithful to their roots, as a supplier of electronic components, I would've continued to use them to this day, as I'm sure would many others.
Anyway, that's my Maplin story/rant over! ..... Hope you have a great vacation!
