Maplin "in talks to sell the business" - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2018, 06:11:11 pm
content: The next chapter in the continuing decline of Maplin is being written and, based on past experience, it doesn't look good.Quote from:https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/20/crunch_time_maplin_in_talks_to_sell_the_business/Previous discussion here:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/maplin-'insurers-cast-doubt-over-future-of-maplin'/msg1359910/#msg1359910

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2018, 06:54:04 pm
content: Maplin are going down the pan because a) they have no business focus and b) the service is carp.E.g - they have an item which, unusually, I know I will find useful, and I'm headed out towards their store this evening.I note they are offering a £5 voucher if I do the "order online, collect in store" thing. Need to spend £10 but what I want is £10.98 - great.Web site says in stock and I can collect in 30 mins, even betterComplete the order to find that it is "not available" and I can wait 5-7 days for it to be delivered to store. WTFChances of bothering again, slim.

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2018, 09:29:55 am
content: .......and, of course, despite placing the order after the end of business yesterday and trying to cancel first thing Maplin refuse to honour my consumer rights claiming that the item has been "dispatched" (not terribly likely and headed to one of their own stores so not out of their possession as claimed).Apparently their answer is that I can reject it when it arrives and they'll process the refund at that pointOf course that is if they are still trading in a week's timeThankfully it was just a tenner.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2018, 10:06:59 am
content: I used Maplin a couple of weeks ago, for the first time in ages. I *really* needed a pair of D-type connectors for a customer visit first thing the following morning.£12 for a pair of 25 way connectors with plastic back shellsThat's the problem, I guess. No way will I ever buy parts at that price given the choice, but equally, no real choice if I need something *now*, and for that reason I'll be sad to see them go.

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2018, 10:34:49 am
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on February 21, 2018, 10:06:59 amSadly distress purchases do not make a viable business model in this case.I've even stopped browsing when I visit the retail park where they are located - if they have a specific item that I want, in stock, at not too ludicrous a price then fair enough but their stock levels have lied to me in the past and staff admit the system has more holes than a tramp's vest.If they go tits up I might visit for any clear out sale (- but only because there isn't a vultures circling the corpse icon).I actually hope that they do find a buyer but it seems thatit will only be putting off the inevitable.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2018, 12:47:07 pm
content: Quote from: grumpydoc on February 21, 2018, 10:34:49 amI doubt that any buyer will be looking at them as a going concern. Better to wait until they are in administration and then acquire them without 90% of the staff, asset strip the stock and sell the leases on all that high street real estate to betting shops and take-aways.I'm deadly serious about the latter - the local Stapes premises was sold and converted into a Subway and a Domino's, despite being in a retail park that's way too small to accommodate that much food for sale. I suspect the reason for creating them was to feed the burgeoning take-away delivery trade - councils are getting a bit narky about the amount of traffic they generate in their more traditional high street settings.When I was a lad, if you'd asked me what I'd get curmudgeonly about when I got older I'd have probably said "The same thing as the older generation now - the kind of music the young listen to, their haircuts and their fecklessness". Instead, it turns out to be moaning about the proliferation of betting shops and the fact that nobody seems to know how to cook a meal at home any more.

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2018, 01:31:49 pm
content: Quote from: Cerebus on February 21, 2018, 12:47:07 pmSad though it is, I agree - about it not being a going concern in its present state.Not sure about the betting shop/take-away transition, at least not locally. It will probably share the same fate as the Comet close by which is empty and still has the "Comet" sign up, what?, 5 years after they all closed.

author: stj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2018, 02:17:52 pm
content: it will depend on the local council,where i am, bussiness rates are so out of control that they are higher than the property rent - so lots of buildings sit empty.this creates a harmless scam too.property owners let people rent the property for next to nothing, knowing the people renting will run a £/$ type store or an "unlock your phone" type store for 6-12months and then vanish without paying the taxes or electricity bill - but the property owner is not liable so escapes paying bussiness rates on empty property!!this is the reality of artificially inflated property prices in a collapsing economy.

author: bexwhitt
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: February 23, 2018, 01:10:57 am
content: Now there are enough ebay UK suppliers of electronic parts (and cheaper if you wait from China) at a reasonable price, Maplins 4 1/4 resistors for £1 is passed its sell-by date.In my case CPC is a couple of miles away and even with their slightly bumped prices it's still going strong.

author: theleakydiode
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 23, 2018, 10:42:50 am
content: I have to admit Maplin are convenient for one off parts if you live close to a branch like me, no need to wait for delivery or pay extra handling fees for smaller orders.I also like holding products in my hands before buying.Maybe they could stop selling the useless stocking filler crap and just keep a small component stock for people like me.

author: stj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2018, 09:58:38 am
content: wont happen, they like being "Tandy"who else is going to sell you a drone or shitty wireless house alarm with your components!!

author: StuUK
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2018, 10:50:53 am
content: Sad, just gone into administration today

author: StuUK
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2018, 10:52:36 am
content: Quote from: StuUK on February 28, 2018, 10:50:53 amhttp://www.cityam.com/281407/maplin-has-collapsed-putting-2500-jobs-risk

author: Tandy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2018, 12:05:40 pm
content: Perhaps we should buy them

author: cowasaki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2018, 12:32:10 pm
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on February 21, 2018, 10:06:59 amIt's funny isn't it. I bet between us in our "bought but not used" piles we probably have more stock than Maplin :-) I've got a large box with dozens of D type plugs and sockets with the pins, shells etc. I really don't like Maplin much. I'll occasionally pop in for something I need just there and then but rarely. I'd rather wait a day or two and I have CPC on my patch!

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2018, 05:36:18 pm
content: Probably!My parts 'bin' tends to be surplus components that I've ordered for prototypes. If I'm building 'n' samples of something, I normally order (n+1) kits' worth of parts, rounded up if I'm somewhere near a price break.This, of course, means I have boxes containing 1 or 2 of almost every part I've ever used, which would be handy for spares if I could figure out a sane way of organising and storing them, which doesn't end up costing more in time and effort than the parts are worth.I wonder if my local Maplin branch will end up selling off their component storage racks?

author: nfmax
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2018, 05:46:26 pm
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on February 28, 2018, 05:36:18 pmThe number of times I have gone into a shop and thought "I don't want to buy any of this crap, but how much are the shelves it is sitting on?"

author: FrankE
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 02:33:36 am
content: They held a lot of low quality stock that was overpriced. I'm not sure their locations in town elsewhere but their place here was too far out of town. Those without transport like schoolkid hobbyists I can't see bothering to get a bus out of town to get there, but Tandy failed in the city centre. For those with transport there was better quality and, perhaps keener prices. Nothing seemed to change over the years. It was same old, same old. I got the impression that the people who worked there were quite depressed about it and seemed embarrassed and apologetic for the place.I don't think the firm had a sense of whom their market was.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 08:31:09 am
content: Quote from: FrankE on March 03, 2018, 02:33:36 amDid anyone?

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 08:20:24 pm
content: It's not been commercially viable to sell very low cost, niche items, such as electronic components, on the high-street, for a very long time, at least since the 80s. There's no way anyone can make money by having 100s of inventories of something small, like resistors, of over 100 different values, costing less than a penny each, in 100s of locations and make a profit. Think about how many different resistor values are needed, even for the most basic inventory, say E12 values from 1R to 10R and 1M to 10M and E24 values from 10 to 1M, totalling 144 values and the overhead of maintaining a stock in over a hundred stores: it will easily add to to much more than the cost of each part, even if they're sold in multiplies of 100, which Maplin didn't do. Now consider the proportion of the population who are either electronics hobbyists or professionals. There isn't that much of a demand, compared to consumer electronics, which nearly everyone needs. It just isn't economical.The only way to make money is to have a few central distribution centres and a mail order, whether it be via the Internet or the old system of catalogues. Maplin might have been more successful, if they had kept their stores for consumer electronics, with a few hobbyist items such as some test equipment and Arduinos and kept the component side of business online/mail order only, except for perhaps one or two stores in big cities, with lots of engineering companies. The store fronts could have also acted as platform for the mail order bossiness too.Unfortunately for Maplin, it's not even economically viable to sell consumer electronics in retail stores any more, due to competition with the Internet. Supermarkets can do it, because they also sell food and traditional electronics stores do it because they sell white goods and act as pick-up points for Amazon click & collect. It's far too late for Maplin to get into any of the aforementioned. At best, they should close their unprofitable stores, focus more on the ones which do make money and work towards building a quality online businesses.

author: hopski
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 08:41:09 pm
content: They started going downhill as soon as they started opening stores. They were the place to go for hobbyists when they were mail order only.

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 09:11:37 pm
content: Quote from: hopski on March 03, 2018, 08:41:09 pmThat would’ve been in the 80s, certainly over 30 years ago, I remember going down to the one on Oxford Road in Manchester in those days when I was a student.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2018, 10:13:52 pm
content: Quote from: Howardlong on March 03, 2018, 09:11:37 pmIt depends on what you mean by downhill. In my experience, they certainly did expand their range of components, when I first discovered them in the mid 90s. When I first got into electronics properly, in the early 90s, I used to go to Tandy, which was just three miles from where I lived. It was very expensive: two red LEDs cost £1 in packs of two, which would be more than double that ,in today's money. Their range was very limited. I couldn't buy half the components I needed to make many of the projects in the Forrest Mims books.When I first went to Maplin I was amazed at how much cheaper it was and the huge range of components they sold. I rememberer looking at their, then new 1995 catalogue, which was massive and noted how it doubled in size by 1997. I didn't go to Maplin very often, because it was over 10miles away and couldn't drive, so relied on my dad to take me occasionally. I remember not going for a year or two and when I finally got round to it, must've been around the year 2000, I discovered their catalogue had shrunk to below its size back in 1995 and the all important data and pin-outs had gone.In the late 2000s, Maplin opened a store 3 miles away and I've hardly visited it, even though I was living within walking distance, at one point. The last time I went was to buy some spray on conformal coating, for a non electronics application (to varnish a wooden measuring stick for horse riding stirrups), a teenager working at the checkout, asked me for proof of age ID (you need to be 18+ in the UK to buy solvents) even though I was in my early 30s at the time. She was miserable and didn't smile when I attempted to make light of the situation.

author: hopski
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 08:51:35 am
content: Maplin used to do their own electronics magazine as well, which had some interesting articles/projects. I'm gonna have to go in the loft now and see if I can find them.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2018, 02:52:12 pm
content: Damn, I'd completely forgotten the Maplin magazine. There's an online archive of themhere

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2018, 06:46:40 pm
content: Found this reference on El RegMostly blaming over-greedy venture capitalists.http://www.coppolacomment.com/2018/03/the-sad-story-of-maplin-electronics.html

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2018, 07:36:32 pm
content: Quote from: grumpydoc on March 08, 2018, 06:46:40 pmYes, it was profitable... just burdened with "extortionate" charges (16.5%) on financing?!"The January 2005 accounts show that an operating profit of £1.84m was wiped out by £11.74m of interest charges, resulting in a statutory loss of £9.6m. ""By 2012, the net debt had grown to nearly half a billion pounds, of which £68.9m was accrued interest, and the shareholders' deficit was £320m. Montagu Capital's extortionate charges had turned a healthy growing company into a zombie. "

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2018, 09:43:32 pm
content: Jesus Christ. I know someone who makes that profit with six staff. If you accept VC funding without understanding the trade offs then you’re mismanaging the company.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2018, 09:53:29 pm
content: They don't call 'em Vulture Capitalists for nothing. When they're gone all that is left are the bones, picked clean.

author: stj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2018, 11:34:55 am
content: i noticed with something i wanted to buy that they put the price up 25% the day before the announcement!!does anybody know the real name for a 6.5mm power-din plug??

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2018, 12:41:04 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on March 08, 2018, 09:43:32 pmBOHICA - without lube@All,It would probably be useful to UK members if you post if your local store is doing deep clearance discounts on useful stuff like tools, test equipment, components etc. Don't forget the store location.I've seen reports that the Exeter store is doing a 50% off stock clearance - probably not deep enough to be irresistable.'

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2018, 01:31:52 pm
content: Always compare to CPC pricing as well. Free delivery over £5 ex VAT as well with CPC. It's probably cheaper to get it delivered to your door with CPC than buy anything in the Maplin sale even if it's 75% off.

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2018, 02:11:27 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on March 09, 2018, 01:31:52 pmAs a business, of course, that has been one of Maplin's biggest problems.

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2018, 02:29:15 pm
content: Looks like the winding down sale has started - the website has 10% off everything, 50% off components, varying discounts on other lines.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2018, 04:17:32 pm
content: So still more expensive than CPC

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2018, 04:52:59 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on March 09, 2018, 04:17:32 pmMaybe, maybe not - Maplin R Pi 3 £29.59 if in stock at your local store vs CPC which wants £35.03 currentlyThe catch is there aren't any unless I want to drive 90 miles to Llanelli, which would rather negate the saving, but if youlivein Llanelli it's a good deal should you a) want an R Pi and b) be prepared to get down to the Maplin store before someone else grabs the one which is left.In any case I think TopLoser has a few left at considerably less.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2018, 05:14:16 pm
content: It's not worth 5 quid to walk down the road these days.

author: stj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2018, 05:43:23 pm
content: you check online, the webshite says "3 in stock",you drive to the shop,they cant find them anywhere.that's a very old and ongoing problem with maplin.i used to phone them and ask them to check the actual shelf/bin first.

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2018, 06:06:25 pm
content: Quote from: stj on March 09, 2018, 05:43:23 pm+1In fact I think the stock levels are just totally fabricated.It will be sad to see them go and all the more so if the underlying reason is that they got bled dry by greedy venture capitalists. Real people, many of them not at all well off are going to loose their jobs because someone worked out how to feather their own nest using "imaginative" finance schemes.

author: nfmax
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2018, 06:08:15 pm
content: My nearest Maplins is just up the road in Salisbury - maybe not just now