Maplin Electronics demands cash with menaces The private equity profiteers behind Maplin Electronics have turned the screws on suppliers to hand over bigger rebates to help pay for physical and digital store improvements or risk having their kit sidelined. The geek fiddlers emporium was sold to Rutland Partners for £85m almost two years ago when the investor promised “ …
... when I was a budding hobbyist electronics enthusiast in the late 1970s when it was run from MD Doug Simmons' kitchen table... I had my 4 digit customer number and was proud of it - sadly the shops have become like Tandy at the end of days and the prices have gone the same way (there was a time when they'd be the first place I'd look for $emergency_widget - now they're amongst the last - even when I'm ready to pay a premium to get it now)
Last time I checked, my 4-digit customer number still worked, although that surprised the assistant.
Maplin shops were fun to browse. I'd usually emerge £20 or so poorer than I'd intended. But now the staff are instructed constantly to pester customers (typically with inane enquiries like "Are you alright there?"). So every visit is unpleasant and to be avoided. If tomorrow will do, I order from hassle-free Farnell.
If tomorrow will do, I order from hassle-free Farnell.
Bought three weeks ago by a Swiss mini-conglomerate for a 50% premium to the market price. So expect Farnell operations to be messed with, UK management to be reduced, and prices to go up to pay for the over-priced acquisition.
The staff are instructed constantly to pester customers
And indeed are all hovering near the door as you enter to "greet" you with some vacuous pleasantry but immediately tail you if you move to the further reaches of the store to make sure you don't nick anything. On the rare occasion I can't wait for stuff to be delivered from a better retailer and have to visit their shop, I always make a point of heading immediately for the usually-unmanned basement because it means one of their unfortunate drones has to follow me down the stairs - at which point I immediately race back to the ground floor to grab whatever I intended to buy,
"If tomorrow will do, I order from hassle-free Farnell."
As with RS, you pay a 50%-100% premium for that "hassle free one stop shop" over getting it directly from their supplier - and as I've discovered a bunch of times the range that Farnell carry of XYZ manufacturer is 2-5% of the upstream supplier's catalogue.
If you need anything vaguely mechanical, check Moss Express first.
The vouchers...don't forget the coloured vouchers...orange ones, green ones and...wow I bought enough to get a white and blue one!
Bless Doug Simmons...we had an electronics club stand at our school summer fair (about 1978/9) and I wrote to him for some marketing freebies and he sent a large box of catalogues and starship posters.
/Also 4 digits.
Fuck Maplin. In fact fuck all companies that demand money from suppliers for upgrades and improvements. Is it only me that thinks this is completely insane? And the argument that it will grow both businesses is complete bullshit. If a supplier turned round to maplin and said, "We want to invest in R&D so give us more money as it will give you better products and make you more money", how would they react?
Maplin has for many years been only a step away from shopping in PC World in any case. But I still popped in occasionally as it was useful in an emergency.
This has just made up my mind to stop shopping there completely.
This has just made up my mind to stop shopping there completely.
To judge by their tumbleweed infested aisles, with the only other humans being bored employees, you could be The Last Maplin Customer. Our local branch is in the building that previously hosted the doomed Blockbuster, another dinosaur from the last century, which seems appropriate and prophetic.
So, we're agreed they're going to crash and burn. But which well known business will be next to shrivel up after outfit eking out its final days with a business model that time forgot, passed by via technology and t'internet?
My money's on WHSmith. Or Halfords.
But they'll change your headlight bulbs for £2, or £6, or whatever they charge.
I got my moneys worth, I couldn't be arsed to do the one on the company Mazda because it's RIGHT behind the battery and a mare to do without cutting yourself to ribbons (and the company was paying).
I got over half an hours labour out of the poor kid!
WRT changing bulbs.
Removing those panels is a doddle if you have the right tool at hand - and as long as you _mark_ the position of the boltheads on flanges it's generally easier to remove the headlight, change the bulb and put it back than risk bleeding to death trying to do it in-situ (if you change a headlamb bulb you're supposed to realign the lights anyway - not that anyone ever does)
WHSmith for sure. Once it used to be the place for books and magazines, god knows what it does these days. Most stores seem to be 50% post office, 25% please buy a kobo and some books hidden in a corner
I think I heard that the only thing keeping them afloat were the airport stores
@Ledswinger "My money's on WHSmith. Or Halfords."
My money is on WHS lasting a good bit longer but that will make the crash all the harder when it comes. They are adept at increasing profits despite reducing revenues - a blatant sign they're sweating the assets. My suspicion is they will sweat the high street for all its worth until the last customer vanishes with their overpriced check out chocolate and vouchers for Weightwatchers and BHS then shunt it into admin leaving them with the captive market high margin "Travel" branches (Stations/Airports/Hospitals).
Halfrauds is an unpleasant shopping experience whereas WHS make a virtue out of pissing off the customers they have left.
And if you want the gory details of how awful Smuts are these days this will amuse and horrify you in equal measures while you marvel at how the hell they stay in business check out WHS Carpet on Twitter.
They seem reasonably good at diversifying. WHSmith I wouldn't miss. Maplin to the wall first though please.
Used to love them. Then spend years resenting what they'd charge me for a widget I needed immediately. With their stock now being entirely generic chinese gubbins at ridiculous prices, and Amazon getting the same stuff to my door next day on free (sortof) Prime.. No idea why they're still there.
Not that I've got an issue with the old High Street. Dixons/Currys/PCW had previously held a similar position in my heart, and then reformed. Picked up quite a few things I wanted from them online, for best online price, and had free delivery to their handy store next-day.
It's not that I feel I have a god-given right to smite stores from my high-street - but I do walk past them with judgement in my heart.
Halfrauds, not sure, some of their 'Pro' tools are actually quite good while not being too bad on price. Don't agree with their policy now of having the bikes and other shite downstairs while the heavy car stuff has to go upstairs (If I want to buy a battery I DON'T want to have to carry it down a big long staircase before I pay for it!!)
Maybe when they do go someone can buy their tools section off them?
> (If I want to buy a battery I DON'T want to have to carry it down a big long staircase before I pay for it!!)
Get the staff to do that (they hate it but they'll do it) - but wtf are you buying batteries from Halfrauds and paying 100% extra for it anyway? Even europarts are cheaper and that's not saying much.
This seems to be asking suppliers to cut prices on LAST year's goods in return for continued business. An after-the-fact refund for no reason except for what smells to me like demanding a bribe. I think Tesco recently said they would stop doing the same thing to their suppliers, and Premier Foods perhaps hasn't - anyone know? But apparently it still sounds like a good idea.
The police should send in that American smut labrador.
I see others have like me, a decreasing interest in Maplin. They used to have interesting kit and parts but now it appears that more and more they have last generation products at next generation prices, with doubtful quality. Often they out price PC World, the wrong way making them a distress and distressing choice for only if you are really stuck on a late Saturday afternoon.
In any retail park environment they are often outclassed and undercut by the pound shops, Home Bargains etc. for the same products at lower prices.
Maplin, to hobbyists, appear to be a spent force now, their component offering is not even a shadow of its former self (I know, a 2p resistor is not a profit item) and their website, just, yeah, let's not talk about the website.
I came to the conclusion a couple of years ago that nothing is that desperate I can't wait an extra day if it means I don't have to visit Maplin.
The staff, they've no clue, I was told in no uncertain terms that ICs don't need to be stored or jandled with any special antistatic precautions, this was after I'd refused to buy a 4000 series CMOS chip that had been taken from a plain plastic drawer, carried in the assistant's hand and then pushed across the counter top for me to 'check' it was the right one.
Good luck bullying your suppliers into supporting whatever crackpot scheme your management consultants have told you is necessary.
Tricky.... Maplins serves the overlap between people who are into hobbyist electronics and PCs, and people who don't order stuff over the internet. It's not a big overlap.
Also, their alternate business model has been eaten into by the gay hook-up app Grindr, if this story from the Daily Mash is to be believed:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/maplin-is-where-men-meet-for-sex-2014013183134
“But tell the wife you’ve got to nip to Maplins for a phono audio to HDMI converter and she never asks any probing questions.”
Eleanor Shaw of Bristol, whose husband is a Maplin regular, said: “I knew he couldn’t need that many external hard drives. Deep down, I knew it.
“It even has pulsing disco lights in the window.”
What's the Maplin value proposition?
I briefly went to their site, picked a HDD - http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/wd-red-4tb-nas-optimised-35-inch-sata-iii-hard-drive-a27nf
About £8.25 more than Amazon list it.
Says available for click/collect. Great, Pop in my postcode, then get 32 pages of 'Out of Stock, 3 days'.
Or back to Amazon, click, here tomorrow.
Lets try some other 'hot' items: Anything by Bose? Returns stuff like 'Maplin Vacuum Base Vice'
How about a Vacuum? http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/dyson-dc58-animal-handheld-vacuum-a12nb (£229.99, says available but no out of stock everwhere), vs. just go straight to https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dyson-DC58-Animal-Handheld-Cleaner/dp/B00FYX0JKO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466679137&sr=8-1&keywords=DC58 (£188.43)
Phones? Nope.
I get it. They've got overheads for stores where all the things they list are Out Of Stock. But without some form of differentiation, why on earth would anyone even waste time looking at their site?
Screwfix have gone the same.
A bit, but not quite as bad. Toolstation appear to be where the trade shop now. I suppose Screwfix were doomed the moment that Bodge & Quodge bought them. And doubly doomed when that French woman they got in to run Kingfisher plc decided that they must be run as a single business.
It can only be a while months before they decide to relocate the Screwfix counters into B&Q stores to "make things more efficient and lower costs". Then Kingfisher have to react to the fact that the move cannibalises the B&Q mega-margins. So they put up Screwfix prices. Then the sales fall off, so they dissolve the Screwfix operations, and wrap the operation into B&Q's terrible on line operation.
I suppose Kingfisher have done well to run Screwfix tolerably well for 16 years (largely by leaving it alone), but it is always the same for acquisitions - sooner or later the corporate numpties will kill the acquired business.
In my locale, they are less than 400yds apart. Once upon a time, Screwfix were cheaper than B&Q but not it seems the other way around.
The only advantage of going to Screwfix is that the car park is easier to get in and out of.
Then there is the thrust by B&Q to get the trade customers. So we see that the 'trade' (Cough-cough) price is less than use mere average punters have to pay.
Just show them pretty well any business card and you get the trade price.
Why can't they have one price for everyone?
It can only be a while months before they decide to relocate the Screwfix counters into B&Q stores to "make things more efficient and lower costs"
It went the other way here... they closed a B&Q and opened a tiny Screwfix nearby. Its like a DIY version of Argos and is virtually impossible to get served in. In a vain attempt, I tried using click & collect, but it turned out that provided zero benefit in store as I still had to join the massive queue.
@Ledswinger
"Screwfix were doomed the moment that Bodge & Quodge bought them"
I find B&Q are the most hateful of shopping experiences - a chain that has become very lazy as the competitive pressures have waned leaving only Homebase that's been wounded by years of Argos-isation. I never have a good visit to B&Q and only go there when I have no alternative. The staff there really don't care.
I remember a time when B&Q employed lots of old guys who had spent their working life doing DIY and were happy to advise you how to do your own DIY jobs, in the hope they could sell you stuff to get it done. Now it's full of the min wage slaves that populate other retail palaces who haven't got the first clue about DIY. On my last visit to B&Q I saw one guy answer a customer question without even looking up from what he was doing. Then there is asking your address when you return an item (an unnecessary invasion of privacy) which Homebase have never done despite various returns over the years. I just hope the new incumbent at Homebase (Bunnings) gives B&Q a sorely needed hard kick up the arse with some serious competition.
I find B&Q (larger branches anyway) have more lines and often lower prices than Homebase, which is leans more to the homewares type of thing (do they still have Laura Ashley in store?) than to DIY tools and bits. I prefer B&Q anyway,
Shame about Maplin. My old customer number was 6 digits and I am sure I still remember it. Still not bad if you want some actual discrete electronic components. Pretty useless for computer bits and pieces though, unless in emergency, and in stock. as others have said.
Wesfarmers should help turn things around within the next year or so. Once Homebase disapears and some investment happens competition will return. Gotta say though, my local B&Q still has old happy DIY people wandering the isles to help customers so maybe your local is more the problem than the brand as a whole.
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