Maplins, today

midlifecrisis

Just happened to be passing the stevenage branch and it was open, closing down sale up to 50% off. Not wanting to feel like a vulture i popped in anyway. Didnt see anything marked for more than 30% off which made things I was vaguely interested still more expensive than available elsewhere.
The staff to their credit were helpfully assisting customers and doing their best. Felt sorry for them hope they find other work.

Legionreturns

I went into my local one the other day and their prices had gone up! 

midlifecrisis

yes, i'm sure they used to do 3 ali cases for £34.99.   they were now marked up to £49.99 less 30% which brings them down to.......... £34.99  bargain-tastic

Guitar_Slinger

I got the bus past one last night in Harrow and saw the closing down signs, which I hadn't noticed before.

Fretwired

midlifecrisis said:

Just happened to be passing the stevenage branch and it was open, closing down sale up to 50% off. Not wanting to feel like a vulture i popped in anyway. Didnt see anything marked for more than 30% off which made things I was vaguely interested still more expensive than available elsewhere.
The staff to their credit were helpfully assisting customers and doing their best. Felt sorry for them hope they find other work.

I passed that branch earlier this morning .. small world. Used to buy stuff there but tbh it became expensive.

Roland

Legionreturns said:

I went into my local one the other day and heir prices had gone up! 

Closing down sales attract customers. I worked with one retail chain which closed a branch. Once the Closing Down Sale signs went up branch turnover went up, peaking at five fold. They had to bring stock in from other branches to meet demand, and even considered buying more from suppliers.

thermionic

I was at my local branch a week ago and picked up a Hakko soldering station for only £2 more than Dancap Electronics. Getting stuff delivered when I'm at work is a pain and I prefer to buy local. If it was that price before I would have bought it a long time ago. Nothing else grabbed my fancy but it was pretty busy there.

RobDavies

Same happened in HMV, Southampton last weekend.

Huge yellow posters all over the place, saying "everything must go", and "Up to 75% off", so I left the wife in Starbucks and headed over with a bunch of twenty pound notes. 

It was only when I got to the music section, (both CD and vinyl) that I realised that absolutely none of it was reduced at all.  The only things I could find that were marked down were DVD boxed sets of TV series no one has ever heard of. 

An absolute take on, and I guess that's why they're going down the pan...

meltedbuzzbox

I was in the Sheffield maplins on Wednesday. Sooooooo expensive even after closing down discounts. They failed to move with the times and got caught out.
I feel for the staff though, I am surprised they remained so upbeat despite the pending end

RobDavies

In fact, our whole shopping experience was shit.... got treated like shop lifters by mono syllabic, teenage shop staff in USC and the bloke in John Lewis actually talked me out of buying a Sony Bravia tele.

Me, "what advantage is having an Android operating system over a standard smart tele?"
Bloke, "Its Android, innit.  Like in your phone".
Me, "I have an iPhone, and the picture on the tele isn't blowing me away to be honest, why is it so bad?"
Bloke, "BBC innit". 

  

Legionreturns

I think it's karma personally.

I was in the Huddersfield one a while back, and the staff were brazenly, and loudly, celebrating "Michael Bolton" day over the store sound system. 

I was in agony.

Philly_Q

Remember when Maplin was just a mail order catalogue?  If only they could have seen into the future, they might never have opened all those stores and they could have just morphed into an online business.

Bluebeard

Walked into a branch last week and 4 staff members were standing by the door asking if I needed help which I didn't as I have been in a shop before. It was odd.

ICBM

Philly_Q said:

Remember when Maplin was just a mail order catalogue?  If only they could have seen into the future, they might never have opened all those stores and they could have just morphed into an online business.

I would have thought there’s still a sensible case for going to online-only, or possibly with a few physical shops in places they could do OK.

RobDavies said:

Same happened in HMV, Southampton last weekend.

Huge yellow posters all over the place, saying "everything must go", and "Up to 75% off", so I left the wife in Starbucks and headed over with a bunch of twenty pound notes. 

It was only when I got to the music section, (both CD and vinyl) that I realised that absolutely none of it was reduced at all.  The only things I could find that were marked down were DVD boxed sets of TV series no one has ever heard of. 

An absolute take on, and I guess that's why they're going down the pan...

HMV aren’t going down the pan. They’ve restructured and changed their business model, got rid of the excessive number of shops (down from three to one in Glasgow for example) - the ones they’re closing now are at the end of the process, which started several years ago.

That doesn’t really excuse bogus claims for big reductions when you might find one album in the shop discounted that much - probably Gary Glitter’s Greatest Hits or something...

darthed1981

RobDavies said:

In fact, our whole shopping experience was shit.... got treated like shop lifters by mono syllabic, teenage shop staff in USC and the bloke in John Lewis actually talked me out of buying a Sony Bravia tele.

Me, "what advantage is having an Android operating system over a standard smart tele?"
Bloke, "Its Android, innit.  Like in your phone".
Me, "I have an iPhone, and the picture on the tele isn't blowing me away to be honest, why is it so bad?"
Bloke, "BBC innit". 

  

I doubt John Lewis would approve of that salesman's approach, to be honest.

Flink_Poyd

ICBM said:
I would have thought there’s still a sensible case for going to online-only,

Only of they completely redesign the site, have an accurate stock level indicator and charge a fair price. 
 It's having a crap website and unrealistic prices that's seen them collapse imo

fandango

Bluebeard said:

Walked into a branch last week and 4 staff members were standing by the door asking if I needed help which I didn't as I have been in a shop before. It was odd.

You should have asked them if they do foot massages. Either breaks the ice or they shove off PDQ.

JezWynd

midlifecrisis said:

Just happened to be passing the stevenage branch and it was open, closing down sale up to 50% off. Not wanting to feel like a vulture i popped in anyway. Didnt see anything marked for more than 30% off which made things I was vaguely interested still more expensive than available elsewhere.

There in a nutshell is why they failed. I visited yesterday for a simple phono lead - £12.99. I'm all for supporting High St shops but when I can buy the same item online (minus the pointless over packaging {another reason for their failure imo}) for £2.25 delivered from UK, then it's a no brainer.

Philly_Q

ICBM said:

RobDavies said:

Same happened in HMV, Southampton last weekend.

Huge yellow posters all over the place, saying "everything must go", and "Up to 75% off", so I left the wife in Starbucks and headed over with a bunch of twenty pound notes. 

It was only when I got to the music section, (both CD and vinyl) that I realised that absolutely none of it was reduced at all.  The only things I could find that were marked down were DVD boxed sets of TV series no one has ever heard of. 

An absolute take on, and I guess that's why they're going down the pan...

HMV aren’t going down the pan. They’ve restructured and changed their business model, got rid of the excessive number of shops (down from three to one in Glasgow for example) - the ones they’re closing now are at the end of the process, which started several years ago.

That doesn’t really excuse bogus claims for big reductions when you might find one album in the shop discounted that much - probably Gary Glitter’s Greatest Hits or something...

@ICBM Speaking of HMV, do you still have Fopp in Glasgow?  I went to the Fopp store in London last autumn, for the first time in years, and I was pleasantly surprised to find they had loads of Blu-rays at prices cheaper than Amazon.

They don't seem to cover all things for all people, but they have lots of cult, horror and world cinema stuff which is perfect for me.  I didn't really look at their CDs.

ICBM

Philly_Q said:

@ICBM Speaking of HMV, do you still have Fopp in Glasgow?  I went to the Fopp store in London last autumn, for the first time in years, and I was pleasantly surprised to find they had loads of Blu-rays at prices cheaper than Amazon.

They don't seem to cover all things for all people, but they have lots of cult, horror and world cinema stuff which is perfect for me.  I didn't really look at their CDs.

Yes, and they're remarkably similar to HMV, both for stock and prices. Almost to the point I wondered if I'd gone through some sort of spacetime-warp into the old smaller HMV which isn't there any more, last time I was in!

HMV has drastically changed their pricing policy - from being even more expensive than Virgin used to be, they're now only slightly more expensive than online for a lot of things, and have regular sales on different lines. In the last few years I've spent hundreds in there - I go in about once a month, and very rarely buy anything at full price, but I never leave without anything either. It's always mobbed, I'm almost never the first in the checkout queue despite the large number of tills. They are doing well now - they very nearly went under, but the combination of being the last one standing of the big chains and then the change in approach seems to have worked.

If Maplins could reinvent themselves in the same sort of way they'd pull through I think.

EricTheWeary

When I did business studies in 6th form college ( very early 80s) we did some stuff on sales. I remember being told never ask 'can I help you' as it almost always elicits a negative response. 
Amazed that anyone who has worked in a shop for more than ten  minutes would ask it. 

Bluebeard said:

Walked into a branch last week and 4 staff members were standing by the door asking if I needed help which I didn't as I have been in a shop before. It was odd.