Thread: Maplin stores
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Old 27th Jun 2020, 1:45 pm   #702
Pamphonica
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Virginia Water, Surrey, UK.
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Default Re: Maplin stores

I miss "old" Maplins, when they were happy to sell you parts, and stocked everything you might need!

I used Electrovalue a lot for all sorts of parts, virtually every week, when I moved to the current house. They had a shop only a mile or so away in Englefield Green. I was very sorry when they closed and I had to use mail-order.

But then Maplins opened a store close by. Hooray, I thought, and visited soon after they opened. Oh dear, a toystore awash with nasty RC cars, electronic gadgets, home disco lights and parts for PC builders, and staff who were on commission to sell toys, not help with advice.

The response to "have you got 4, 10K resistors", was almost always, "we have one left and can get some more in". OK, components sales were clearly not profitable, but then why bother at all. The component counter was relegated to the furthest reaches of the shop. However, they were a godsend for odd connectors on a Saturday afternoon, to avoid mail-order!

We have a proper little hardware store still only a mile away ("Morleys"). They are helpful, resourceful and friendly. They have been open with careful precautions throughout the epidemic. They sell individual bolts and nuts. I try to buy as much as I can of bits of hardware, softener salt, bug-sprays etc from there, as they deserve to survive, and very often their prices are not that far adrift from the big boys, for whom I would have a 10-20 mile round trip . That's my sort of shop!

-Jeremy
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