FW: The final reply RE: The demise of Maplin

["Keith Doxey" <keith.doxey@xxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

This is the final response from Maplin.

I find the comment about
"items that have been discontinued have had sales in some cases of
single
figures, and certainly less than three figures."
particularly strange.

That would seem to indicate total sales of less than 100. Its only a few
weeks since I ordered 60 TSOP 1838's from Zygo because Maplin had
discontinued it. That volume of sales was generated by 5 people on this
list
of 200 people. There are in excess of 50 million people in the UK. I cant
believe that the only electronics enthusiasts in the country to by that
product are all resident on this list. What a coincidence !!!

I cant help feeling that it is the "High Street Presence" that
has caused
this change in the way Maplin do business. Massively increased costs with
the majority of hobbyists living too far away from any of the shops to
easily pop in for bit. Why spend £5 on petrol and car parks to find its out
of stock anyway. I know they will mail it "free of charge" but
you've
already spent more than the postage would have been anyway.

Oh well, Goodbye Maplin, Hello other suppliers.

If we ever come across a component that many of us need for our HA projects
but is only available in bulk I am quite prepared to place an order and
divvy up the bits.

Keith



-----Original Message-----
From: Dave.Whittle [mailto:Dave.Whittle@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 20 October 2000 21:38
To: keith.doxey@xxxxxxx
Subject: Re: S026/20/10 Fw: The demise of Maplin


Thank you for your email.


I have no problem with you emailing customer services as that is why the
department exists.

I agree that any website has a long way to go to emulate the convenience of
'paper browsing', ours is no exception.
Again there is some merit in your comments about Maplin changing its stock
lines.  Please understand that the items that have been discontinued have
had sales in some cases of single figures, and certainly less than three
figures.  This is much a reflection of the changing consumer as anything
else.  The hobbyist today buys software and hardware for the computer
rather
than  a germanium diode for his crystal radio.

Failure to recognise this would take us out of business.  Of course it is
true that RS and Farnell have excellent ranges of products, but in the main
no retail presence.  It could be argued that Maplin is the only company
committed to electronics on the high street, I know of no other.  If
someone
wants to get into robotics for example, or walks in to buy a computer part
then in the Maplin store they will continue to see electronics on show.
Specialist magazines do not fill the void as the casual reader does not buy
them.

Unfortunately no one company, especially a medium sized company such as
ourselves can afford to ignore the economic necessacities. We are at
present
giving free gifts and creating  national competition in schools to promote
electronics in the younger section of our community, and I believe that we
do try to service this market.


On the subject of catalogues, we found that we sent many catalogues free of
charge but received very little in return sales.  I do accept your point
about shop sales not being recorded against your account.  We are trying to
do something about that but again the things that consumers (myself
included) such as fully integrated EPOS systems  take for granted do cost
hundreds and thousands of pounds to buy and maintain.

I wish you well in your search for the products that you need.

Regards

Dave Whittle



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