[sdiy] Maplin folds

[Nicholas Keller]

RadioShack was the same here.  Way overpriced...I would only buy there when
I needed a part that same day as the only other small-quantity retail shop
in the area (Chester's) closed their doors a few years ago.

There used to be a dozen RadioShacks within a  ten mile radius from my
house, but last I checked, the closest was 80 miles away.  That's likely
closed now as well.


On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 6:15 PM Richie Burnett <rburnett at richieburnett.co.uk>
wrote:

> Another one here shocked to see Maplin go.  Last time I was in the local
> store they had loads of Arduino and Raspberry Pi stuff in there, along with
> table-top robots, quad-copters, and all the usual disco lights, speakers,
> amps, etc.  I was amazed to see that they still had a tiny little
> "Components" counter at the back of the store, but my jaw nearly hit the
> floor when I saw the prices for basic resistors, capacitors, LEDs, etc!!!
> I
> think they wanted to charge me something like 5 quid for a plastic IDC tool
> (for fixing some telephone extension wiring,) that was clearly a 2 pence
> moulded plastic piece of Chinese crap.
>
> -Richie,
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jay Vaughan
> Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2018 8:07 PM
> To: SDIY List
> Subject: Re: [sdiy] Maplin folds
>
> > In fairness to them, they tried to cater for a changing market, people no
> > longer build things these days, they are content with buying something.
> > Buying things has also gotten a lot cheaper so again, no real surprises,
> > but a shame none the less.
> > Paula
>
> It always bugs me that these part-shacks go out of business, but yet the
> Maker scene is expanding in leaps and bounds.  It seems to me that its just
> a matter of not having the right/savvy generation in charge of new product
> and market development in these dinosaurs.
>
> Like, if Radioshack had just tuned into the 3D printer/hackaday/rPi thing a
> little sooner, it'd have had a pivot point to segue into the Maker scene,
> which - from my perspective - seems to be positively thriving: The kids are
> making stuff!  Perhaps the writing was on the wall already, what with all
> their over-leveraging on cheap crap from China and corporate finance
> dodginess, but .. maybe there's gonna be a brick-and-mortar retailer rise
> from all of this that caters to the demands of the maker scene.
>
> Radio Shack used to be *the* doors-open hackerspace in many communities.  I
> know I learned a shit-ton of things in my youth by camping out in the local
> RS, booting up the demo TRS-80's, and coding away (same with Computerworld,
> anyone remember them?)  If they'd had a more community-/DIY/maker oriented
> open door policy, and actually .. I dunno .. hosted a few events on a
> regular basis, perhaps they'd have become a more viable force for the
> scene?
> One can dream ..
>
>
> ;
> --
> Jay Vaughan
> ibisum at gmail.com
>
>
>
>
>
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