
UK Electronics Store Maplin Goes into Administration - s0l1dsnak3123
https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2018/feb/28/markets-fall-interest-rate-fears-brexit-pound-growth-gdp-business-live?page=with:block-5a9686eee4b04d4554d1f3c5#block-5a9686eee4b04d4554d1f3c5
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lucideer
I don't know if this is the case for all Maplin's but my own associations with
the brand are exclusively negative, so this is one rare case of a physical
shop being outdone by online stores on more far than just price and
convenience.

My local Maplin opened shop around the corner from one the oldest, most well-
loved independent electronics shops in the area and drove them out of business
by virtue of location and size alone. They didn't even bother to undercut
them, and their staff were untrained and clueless, they were just a few
hundred metres closer to foot traffic and had more shelves to browse, sparing
shy customers the awkwardness of having to ask for an item from the back.

I'm actually a little surprised they've done so badly when they seem to have
no competition on the street and the margins must surely be enormous given
their extortionate pricing.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Even with large margins you still need some volume.

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andyjohnson0
Not surprising really. I've been into a few of their shops and they always
reminded me of the last days of Tandy / Radio Shack: cheap stuff and unhelpful
staff. I'm sad for the people who will probably lose their jobs though. Very
hard to compete with online suppliers in that space.

My local Maplin is/was the only physical shop in reasonable travelling
distance for emergency purchases of things like perfboard or solder. But when
they stopped selling even a basic selection of components I switched to ebay
and haven't been back there.

~~~
Already__Taken
They should have doubled down on things I can't easily know to get online.
connectors, buttons, displays, enclosure, anything I'd like to get my hands on
to feel or wouldn't know the name of to even search for.

I thought i'd get some buttons for a control panel, the selection was terrible
and what was there was nasty and cheap feeling but cost a lot. Ended up just
getting some crimps I needed and those were such poor quality I ended up re-
crimping the project next day once amazon turned up.

~~~
andyjohnson0
That would be great for you and me, but "normal" people don't need such things
and business customers use RS[1] or Farnell. You can't maintain a retail
network selling to hackers/makers.

[1] Whose physical shops inexplicably don't even open at the weekend. Grrr.

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SmellyGeekBoy
Sad times. I remember going there with my Dad to get all the bits to build a
crystal radio - one of my earliest "geeky" memories. I learned to solder on
that project - can't have been older than 10 (1994ish). The sales assistant
even gave me some advice on winding the tuning coil.

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heavenlyblue
I would not say sales assistants in today’s Maplin know anything.

~~~
andyjohnson0
Anecdote: A few years ago I tried to buy some 555 timer ICs from a local
Maplin shop. I knew that they had a basic stock of components in a back-room
(not on display), but it took me nearly ten minutes to convince a shop
assistant to even look for them, and what to look for. When he finally
returned with a tube of ICs, he was amazed that such things existed and
insisted on showing his find to some of his colleagues - like he'd discovered
some lost relic. Never again.

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arethuza
I used to love reading the Maplin catalogues when I was a kid in the late 70s
and early 80s - rarely used the shops though - they mostly seemed full of
rather tacky electronic toys/gadgets rather than components.

~~~
orf
They still had a great components section at the back, and some not too bad
products. The staff seemed more knowledgeable than your average tech shop as
well.

It's a shame :(

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arethuza
Yes, I was being a _bit_ harsh there - the components sections were good - the
reason why I did occasionally visit!

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kypro
Doesn't surprise me at all. Maplin is a terrible store. I haven't been in a
while to be honest, but a lot of the stuff they sold there seemed like it was
cheap Chinese imports. Their music and hardware sections seemed okay, but not
very competitive. The staff like in most large retail stores were useless as
well.

I used to work part time in a small independent computer store while I was
studying, we sold a lot of the same stuff as Maplin, but we were 100% about
the service. We knew people could get stuff cheaper online, but they couldn't
get the service. You might know your WIFI doesn't reach the whole of your
house, but you might not know what the best solution is. Do you buy a more
expensive router, a different brand, a range extender? These are the kinds of
things you'd be unlikely to find answers for in Maplin. You might as well just
take a guess and buy something cheaper online.

People don't go to stores like Maplin just to buy things anymore. The business
model doesn't make sense if you're competing with online retailers. You have
to offer the only thing online retailers can't, service and peace of mind.

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pbhjpbhj
It's a shame but far from unexpected. My local hardware store shutdown about 8
years ago: the sort of place where you asked, expecting a no, "don't suppose
you've any toggle switches?" and they passed you a battered cardboard box with
20 different types in then made up the price on the spot.

Didn't discover Maplin really until after that place closed. Useful to have
close, but I barely ever visited.

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nanna
The comments here so far about why Maplins has gone into administration miss
the point. It's not _just_ about being outmaneuvered by online shops. In their
words:

> The business has worked hard over recent months to mitigate a combination of
> impacts from [1] sterling devaluation post Brexit, [2] a weak consumer
> environment and [3] the withdrawal of credit insurance.

So it's

[1] Brexit having caused the value of the £ to fall (in respect of USD). Gah,
Brexit.

[2] Lack of customers. This is probably partly to do with online stores
sucking up their custom but also to do with general lack of consumer spending.

[3] Withdrawal of credit insurance. Anyone able to explain this one?

For context its worth adding that Britain's ToysRUs has also just gone into
administration too, following their US parent.

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crdoconnor
It's worth bearing in mind that Brexit / value of £ is a handy scapegoat
because it takes the heat off the board and executive team.

I worked for a company that anybody would have imagined would have suffered
_heavily_ from Brexit but it actually ended up coming out ahead because the
benefit of weaker competition getting torched outweighted the negatives of
lower aggregate demand.

I'm sure Brexit had _an_ effect, but I'm equally sure it was deliberately
exaggerated. I would imagine it was nearly all online competition and their
failure to respond that killed them.

3 is probably simply a tacit recognition that their situation is not going to
improve and that they are not a good credit risk.

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billpg
The first rule of Brexit Club is that bad things are never the fault of Brexit
- but _always_ someone else's fault.

Those damn remoaners talking Britain down, _they_ caused Maplin to fail!

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crdoconnor
Honestly, the only sane contingent on the Brexit<->anti-Brexit spectrum are
weak remainers. The rest are either crazies with a near religious fervour (at
the extreme ends of the spectrum), those chronically incapable of seeing any
point of view other than their own or the easily duped. Some people are all
three.

Regardless, the first rule of _executive_ club is to shift the credit and
shift the blame - such that you get the credit and somebody (or something)
else gets the blame.

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pjc50
I think the PM counts as all three by now; today's absurdity is "absolutely
committed to dithering" [on the issue of the Irish border]
[https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/968828871356403712](https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/968828871356403712)

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crdoconnor
I heard her approach to Brexit described as incompetently executed
realpolitik. I think that's an accurate assessment. I don't think the actual
outcome matters much to her at all - just staying in power. Also she's getting
played. Hence dithering.

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wepple
RadioShack in the US, dick smith in Aus/NZ, and now maplin. I do wonder if
these stores may have survived if they could downsize and stick to what they
started doing: electronics supplies and kits?

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wolfgke
> I do wonder if these stores may have survived if they could downsize and
> stick to what they started doing: electronics supplies and kits?

Is this such a large market?

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wepple
I’m honestly not sure. I think it would be a tiny fraction of what they were
trying to target, but it does seem to be growing with the whole maker
movement. Don’t forget he UK has seen some fairly ambitious plans to get
electronics into education (see microbit)

The tricky thing as a CEO/chairman would be accepting that you’re
intentionally downsizing your company to maybe 10% of its size, in an attempt
to survive vs staying at 100% and attempting to survive with the same old
plan.

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matthewmacleod
That's a shame. I was kind of pleased that they'd managed to make it as long
as they did.

Honestly my impression is that they just have far too many stores, most of
which are empty most of the time.

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DanBC
But also that everything they sell can be bought from Aliexpress at a fraction
of the price.

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ealexhudson
I think most people are unaware of that, and also when you buy from Ali you're
invariably paying steep customs fees (tax + holding charges).

They were ridiculously expensive for stuff like cables, they were reasonable
on common IT kit (wifi extenders, etc.) and sometimes ok on PC components, and
often they had some really great offers.

I think a lot of people don't realise quite how broad their catalogue was -
they sold disco gear, speaker cables by the metre, all your discrete
components and gizmos, plus a bunch of smart home stuff, telephony, etc. And
as others said, they had decent staff who could often give good advice.

It's very sad that they've not been able to sustain a place on the High St.

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pjc50
> when you buy from Ali you're invariably paying steep customs fees

Are you sure? Whenever I've done it I get parcels which have completely false
customs declarations to avoid the fees ("samples", "gifts", zero value
declarations etc)

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gambiting
Even if you are not caught by customs control, you are under legal obligation
to pay the tax yourself(from the real value, not the fake one declared on the
parcel). I know vast majority of people don't, but import enough and someone
will come knocking on your door one day.

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robtaylor
The number of times a cable or adaptor from there has saved the day...

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bnastic
How they managed to survive this long is more interesting than the fact that
they eventually folded

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billpg
The benefits of Brexit... They just keep never starting!

