Wouldn't surprise me if they do close. As has been mentioned in the comments in previous articles, they must be the most overstaffed outfit in the land. It's excruciating walking through the door knowing that you're going to be followed at every turn by one of the bored staff in case you should want to steal some cheap, but grossly overpriced tat.
As a loyal Maplin customer in the early/mid 80's, I remember berating Tandy back then for their overpriced, over-packaged, low stock levels and poor range of electronic components, and always thought they sold mainly tat.
It's ironic that Maplin, an independent mail order company with only a couple of shops went down precisely the same route as Tandy, and seem destined to suffer the same fate at the hands of the competition in the form of mail-order only outlets.
They're good for batteries, as long as you buy them at the 'offer' price and not the interim inflated prices, but then Poundland just around the corner also sell decent alkalines for around the same price, and as for the rest of the tat, get it from eBay at less than half the price.
As for kids of today needing Maplin to get into electronics, I don't think so. That just sounds like an excuse for today's "I want riches without any effort" youth. As a enthusiast then student of electronics in the 80's, I can tell you that there has never been a better time than now for a kid to get in to electronics. Components are stunningly cheap, test gear is cheap, and the amount of information available at your fingertips (literally) is vast. No more ordering data sheets for 25p at time and waiting for a week for them to turn up in the post. You can buy a complete microprocessor system for a couple of quid and teach yourself proper assembly language on the family laptop. Hell, there are even analogue circuit emulators out there more than powerful enough for hobby use for free.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
