Maplin administration

[Jol Wilkinson]

Who remembers Tandy. Maplins in effect took over the market they had , but wheras Tandy used small stores, Maplins used big stores. The warnings have been there for many years, since Woolworths originally clised all their bigger stores and tried to continue with their smaller ones. The age of the big, mainly out of town, store are over. P&O Properties sold over most of their shopping malls many years ago.

The problem with online shops and electronic bits, is that it is fine when you know what you want to buy, but when it comes to how to say, modify a loco to run on lower power, or even radio control, there isn't someone to go to to ask. Local model shops are also an important source of information. Even online forums can not deliver that service fully. Far too much mis-information found online.

Toy'r'Us closing is no surprise, again far too big, and out of town.

The old high stret will return, especially as small shops often have easy to use online access as well. Low costs are the key, and I have mentioned it before that co-ops are growing and are proven to be more sustainable than single owner shops. We are lucky in the north west having the o-op orhganisation just down the road, making it easier to set up one local(non railway) co-op .

 

Are you sure about your last sentence. Around Ipswich the growth of out of town and edge of town stores has increased in the last few years, while the town centre slowly declines. Maplin Ipswich branch is in Carr Street, where other than Argos, stores are local, established small businesses or, and in the majority, charity shops. The Co-op (the original one) gave up in Carr Street and it's former department store is now largely a very large charity shop. There was a plan to turn it into a Primary School, but owing to difficulty in access for the children (who would have to be transported by car, a Suffolk tradition) it was refused planning permission for change of use. 

 

Next, M&S Food, HobbyCraft, Wickes are just a few of those that have moved out to the eastern edge, while John Lewis, Waitrose and a plethora of cheap furniture suppliers have set up camp to the south. Of course none of this has been helped by the local town planners or the Council's apparent desire to make driving/parking in Ipswich as difficult as possible.

[Steamport Southport]

Funnily enough I had interviews for Assistant Manager roles in both over the last year or so and in a way I was glad I didn't get either job.

 

In Liverpool we have both high street and warehouse stores. The warehouse stores are usually empty whilst the HS stores are quite busy.

 

The ToysRUs warehouse store for example was soulless with hardly any staff and those that were there didn't seem interested. More like a warehouse that you have to pick it yourself rather than a shop. Contrast that with the LEGO store where you are greeted at the door and directed to what you want by a friendly youngster, and they have tables where the kids can play with LEGO. I know where I will be spending money in future.

 

I just hope that both companies can be saved and have a total revamp. The brands themselves are good, just that they seem to have lost their direction.

 

 

 

Jason

[truffy]

Maplins used big stores

 

 

Hmmm, that's not how I remember it. The Maplins that I used on Watford High Street, many years ago, was pretty small.

Even online forums can not deliver that service fully. Far too much mis-information found online.

 

[Steamport Southport]

He's quite correct. Most of the small stores are long gone.

 

They have both large and small stores. There's a smallish one in Clayton Square Liverpool and two huge warehouses on Edge Lane and Aintree. That's without considering the ones in other local places such as Chester, St Helens and Warrington.

 

Here's the store finder. https://www.maplin.co.uk/store-finder

 

 

 

Jason

Edited March 2, 2018 by Steamport Southport

[truffy]

That’s unfortunate. The small one I frequented had very helpful and knowledgable staff.

[bike2steam]

It's no surprise when you consider it costs £16 for a litre bottle of IPA from Maplins, online you can get it for £7. 

Edited March 2, 2018 by bike2steam

[Chris M]

Sad time. I’ve just gone and got myself ten years supply of track, point blade and wheel cleaner.

 

 

It works for me.

[John M Upton]

Breaking news on the BBC, Administrators have failed to find a buyer so the Head office staff have all just been made redundant and all the stores are to close.

[truffy]

Having been made redundant twice before, I know that they must be pretty deflated, and worried, right now. It's a crapper.

[Horsetan]

Breaking news on the BBC, Administrators have failed to find a buyer so the Head office staff have all just been made redundant and all the stores are to close.

 

All the price reductions are now in effect, so if there's anything you wanted, now's the time.

[Bucoops]

Only thing I've found is a blow torch for soldering. I have absolutely no doubt that the day after they close I'll think of loads of stuff...

[StevieD71]

Well, the closing down sales have started and the estimate is 8 to 10 weeks until total closure, although the general opinion among my colleagues is that our store will be closed by Easter.

Looks like it's time to dust down the CV again. The venture capitalists have destroyed the company.

[truffy]

Not meant as consolation, more commiseration, but the last time I was made redundant it was the week before Christmas.

[melmerby]

(Copied over from my posts in Bargain Hunter's thread)

 

Maplin's closing down sale well under way (mentioned previously)

 

All components e.g. resistors, semiconductors etc 30% off

All cable & wire 30% off

Raspberry Pi and Android stuff and kits 30% off

A lot of 20% off items around the store but quality kit such as computing and security items are only 10% off

 

IMHO they lost their way years ago, concentrating on gimmicky toys and suchlike and straying from their roots

Except when on offer everything was at RRP, which for some items was just silly.

 

They used to give discount coupons to encourage regular customers - that stopped. There used to be a catalogue - that went.

There used to be an instore computer so that you could check stock & look for alternatives - that went.

All the stock positions on the shelves used to have stock to buy, in the last couple of years the amount of "out of stock" labels has been increasing steadily, I suspect cash flow problems for some time.

I used to buy a fair amount of components from them but recently it's just been the odd socket or cut piece of cable, the rest I get from Rapid or RS

Closure does not come as much of a surprise to me, it's been like watching a slow car crash.

 

Offering just 10% off for many items in the "closing down sale" isn't going to move much stock to release capital. 

I suspect there will be deeper discounting in the weeks to come else the administrators are going to have an awful lot of stock to auction off.

Maybe there will be some better bargains to come as the weeks go by?

 

Keith

Edited March 16, 2018 by melmerby

[stewartingram]

Components too have always been expensive at Maplins. The convenience of a High St outlet however made it handy, though now I've retired I don't have the London stores at hand, the nearest is 20 miles or more. So it will be back to online ordering again (RS etc.).

 

Stewart

[melmerby]

Components too have always been expensive at Maplins. The convenience of a High St outlet however made it handy, though now I've retired I don't have the London stores at hand, the nearest is 20 miles or more. So it will be back to online ordering again (RS etc.).

 

Stewart

A daft thing was that I went into the Birmingham store to get 4 x 3A diodes to make up a mains bridge rectifier. They only had two because apparantly that was their stock level!

They had to order the other two and it took a week. (24hours from Rapid)

Another item that was out of stock in the warehouse (therefore not available online) had good stocks around the country in different stores but was unobtainable for me because I was told they didn't transfer stock from one store to another - bonkers

How not to run a business.

 

Keith

[StevieD71]

A daft thing was that I went into the Birmingham store to get 4 x 3A diodes to make up a mains bridge rectifier. They only had two because apparantly that was their stock level!

They had to order the other two and it took a week. (24hours from Rapid)

Another item that was out of stock in the warehouse (therefore not available online) had good stocks around the country in different stores but was unobtainable for me because I was told they didn't transfer stock from one store to another - bonkers

How not to run a business.

 

Keith

In our store the standard stock level for many of the components which would not be regular selling items is 2. Free home delivery is usually 3-5 working days (usually quicker on the mainland)

Store to store transfers were available prioer to administration, but because that is quite expensive for the individual store there was a lower limit of £20 set on it. We have on occasion ordered lower value items for customers.

I have read a lot of nonsense on social media over the last week or two (some of which has been quite nasty and hurtful), and I know there were things that needed changing in the way the company worked, but I do believe there is still a place on the High street for a Maplin type store (where else are you going to get that odd resistor you need to finish a project at 8 o'clock at night!).

[phil-b259]

 The venture capitalists have destroyed the company.

 

Quite so.

 

Personally I regard 'venture capitalists as scum (and aggressive city traders for whom a high share price is the be all and end all) that need to be regulated out of resistance. Time and time again venture capitalists come in and buy up struggling companies under the pretence of 'saving' them, only to load them up with unsustainable levels of debt.

 

Yes the rise of internet shopping etc may well have caused organisations like Maplin to shrink in size, but without the vast amounts of debit hanging round its net then I'm sure it could have continued trading in some form.

[John M Upton]

I was reading that the U.S. side of Toys R Us was similarly bought by venture capitalists, loaded up with billions of debt (where does it come from?!?) and now they are plunging down the toilet as well.

[Coryton]

Local model shops are also an important source of information. Even online forums can not deliver that service fully. Far too much mis-information found online.

 

 

I think that depends.

 

If you have a local shop where you know and trust the staff, and they are experts in what you need to know, then that's great.

 

But if you haven't had a chance to build up a relationship with staff in a shop and ask a question you have no idea how much the person you're talking to actually knows as opposed to seems to know. And of course often there is no right answer, and people have different preferences.

 

If I ask a question on a forum I will generally get a range of answers from people with different views and experience, and often I can judge who to trust from what else they've posted. And if someone posts something blatently wrong, people will point it out.

[JSpencer]

Quite so.

 

Personally I regard 'venture capitalists as scum (and aggressive city traders for whom a high share price is the be all and end all) that need to be regulated out of resistance. Time and time again venture capitalists come in and buy up struggling companies under the pretence of 'saving' them, only to load them up with unsustainable levels of debt.

 

Yes the rise of internet shopping etc may well have caused organisations like Maplin to shrink in size, but without the vast amounts of debit hanging round its net then I'm sure it could have continued trading in some form.

 

It is nothing new really. I've been reading about the East Kent Railway and the Kent coal fields. It's amazing history of how they grew so many coal mines by raising additional funds to put in extra shafts year after year, with progress reports showing how the coal companies were growing thanks to all these new infrastructures - yet hardly a lump of coal was being raised for sale! 

Share prices increased with the good news of the booming infrastructure with the big bosses getting nice bonuses etc. Them boom it all collapsed.

The coal mines were brought (normally by the same few individuals!) and the share process would repeat...

 

Eventually one mine did find coal and stayed open until the 80s, but share prices just remained stable there after.

 

For some, Venture capitalists = we can save it, they sell shares, a lot of stuff showing how things are rapidly expanding (thanks to bank loans), share prices rocket then it reaches a point where it can never make money and bust it goes.

[Horsetan]

(Copied over from my posts in Bargain Hunter's thread)

 

Maplin's closing down sale well under way (mentioned previously)

 

All components e.g. resistors, semiconductors etc 30% off

All cable & wire 30% off

Raspberry Pi and Android stuff and kits 30% off

A lot of 20% off items around the store but quality kit such as computing and security items are only 10% off....

 

....Offering just 10% off for many items in the "closing down sale" isn't going to move much stock to release capital. 

I suspect there will be deeper discounting in the weeks to come else the administrators are going to have an awful lot of stock to auction off.

Maybe there will be some better bargains to come as the weeks go by?

 

Hope springs eternal; I've seen a couple of tools that might come in handy someday.

[dave parker]

I agree, that is a sad loss but I have wondered for some time how they could be viable. Frequently I was the only customer in the shop and outnumbered by staff 4 or 5:1, I would imagine they would have low average sales revenue per customer too.

 

hi I applied for 2  part time posts at maplins one before Christmas which I got no feedback and then the same post again in jan which my application was still being dealt with when they went bust . the application said no electronics experience needed we will train you. my previous job was with BT for 42 years working in electronics but that seemed to make no difference,perhaps they did me a favour and saved me from being made redundant after 2 weeks  Dave

[melmerby]

In our store the standard stock level for many of the components which would not be regular selling items is 2. Free home delivery is usually 3-5 working days (usually quicker on the mainland)

Store to store transfers were available prioer to administration, but because that is quite expensive for the individual store there was a lower limit of £20 set on it. We have on occasion ordered lower value items for customers.

I have read a lot of nonsense on social media over the last week or two (some of which has been quite nasty and hurtful), and I know there were things that needed changing in the way the company worked, but I do believe there is still a place on the High street for a Maplin type store (where else are you going to get that odd resistor you need to finish a project at 8 o'clock at night!).

A minimum of 2 might be OK for such things as unusual or large capacitors but in the case of rectifier diodes surely a minimum of 4 is sensible so that a bridge can be made.

I've never found any means to get stock transferred whatever the value so maybe that has been to do with the store manager's policy rather than Maplin's official policy.

 

Fortunately having been in electronics for most of my life I have a reasonable stock of basics (resistors, capacitors, diodes etc.) probably more than the Birmingham store in those values I keep!

I still find occasionally I need something, such as a USB socket or suchlike and Maplin has been the first port of call, so closing will be a loss.

 

Keith

[Robin2]

 

The venture capitalists have destroyed the company.

Without some supporting evidence I reckon this is too simplistic and gets in the way of a search for the real reason.  IMHO Maplin has been following the wrong path for a long time - much longer than your average VC would have patience with.

 

This business of having a standard stock level of 2 is something I have fallen foul of also. For small components like resistors and diodes it is plain stupid. The standard minimum stock level should be something like 50 or 100, or else don't sell them at all. After all 100 resistors costs about £1.

 

...R