08-07-2015, 08:53 AM
As with others here, I visit Maplins only rarely these days. I do - on the odd occasion - pop in to the Peterborough store but invariably I leave somewhat depressed, because there's hardly an item amongst the bizarre plethora of goods within that I would even consider giving house room to, let alone buy. As for PCB processing materials, their pricing is ludicrous. Why anyone would buy from them is a mystery to me except of course for 'crisis' purchases (even then you'd be lucky to find what you want: several times I looked for sensitized photoboard but in vain. Sometimes not even plain copper board, other times no etchant or developer).
I'll grant that few customers will be looking for 10k 1/2W resistors but no PCB materials? Diodes? Capacitors? Transistors? How can they justify not having at least a few examples of each product in stock, in what is in fact a very large shop stuffed with all sorts of electronic toys and weird and wonderful trinkets with computer uses that to my mind surely cannot have a greater appear than basic kit? Just who do they consider their core customers to be? Computer assemblers? Do they actually know?
Maybe I'm out of date. Maybe people don't build their own gear these days. I'll admit to being guilty as charged, probably still living in the 1970s in my outlook, even so not many of the aforesaid trinkets appear to be carried out of the shop. Not even many customers wandering around the racks within, either, on any of the occasions I've taken the trouble to watch. How long can a business like that, with enormous retail shop overheads, last? Not much longer, I'd wager.
Tony
I'll grant that few customers will be looking for 10k 1/2W resistors but no PCB materials? Diodes? Capacitors? Transistors? How can they justify not having at least a few examples of each product in stock, in what is in fact a very large shop stuffed with all sorts of electronic toys and weird and wonderful trinkets with computer uses that to my mind surely cannot have a greater appear than basic kit? Just who do they consider their core customers to be? Computer assemblers? Do they actually know?
Maybe I'm out of date. Maybe people don't build their own gear these days. I'll admit to being guilty as charged, probably still living in the 1970s in my outlook, even so not many of the aforesaid trinkets appear to be carried out of the shop. Not even many customers wandering around the racks within, either, on any of the occasions I've taken the trouble to watch. How long can a business like that, with enormous retail shop overheads, last? Not much longer, I'd wager.
Tony
