Maplin

Maplin gets the job done, I’ll give them that.
I needed wires for speakers I had to set up and I wasn’t sure where to go. I figured this was a good place to check and, baboom, I was right. Coming in, there was a man in the doorway who asked if I needed help. Yep, speaker wire. Upstairs he said and ask for his colleague.
For a relatively small store, they have a TON of people working here. I walked by a bunch of employees helping others and then went upstairs to find more employees waiting for people who have questions on this floor. The guy helped me figure out what cable I needed. I then went downstairs to the desk where they called for more employees to go into the basement and cut the exact length I needed. Nice.
There was a little bit of a confusion where I thought they’d strip the wires for me and they don’t but they did give me some neat tips on how to strip it myself easily (with a lighter, who knew!)
The prices are higher than you’d find online, but you also get it right now, so there’s something to it. I walked out with exactly what I needed, so I say that’s a win.

Been there a couple of times and found the staff very helpful. They suggested a different product to the one I was thought was correct and it was a little bit cheaper. I have no problems shopping there and probably will do again.

If you order on-​line and collect in store the price you’re charged will be the store price, even though the price in your basket will be the online price. They get away with this because they don’t include the price on your reservation email or on the final page you click on to reserve, so the first you know of this con is when you pay in the shop. I was not the only person in the store that commented on this when I was there, but the customer service adviser was more interested in practicing his training speech than listening to what i was saying.
This to me shows it’s a common way that maplin misleads it’s customers and on purpose (either the store staff could feed this back to head office but choose not to, or they do feed it back and head office chooses not to act, so misleading either way).
Avoid this store unless you want to be conned, especially if you need to travel to get there. No one likes a long journey, only for the shop to change the price once you get there.

I am still literally fuming as a result of my lunchtime Maplin experience. There is practically steam coming off me — could just be because it’s a hot day or it COULD be because of this silly shop. Maybe a combination.
I am generally against buying electronic products in shops, being fully aware that they are normally cheaper online. However, maplin has a nice font for the title of its shop — and I saw Cedric’s good review and thought WHY NOT. I would like to go in and have somebody help me as I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.
So anyway, I walked into the shop and was immediately asked if I was OK — at this point I was, I just wanted to get my bearings and see if I could find the power cables by myself (oh yeah, I was looking for a laptop power cable), before I revealed my total incompetence. [as an aside here, I had to ask my 16-​year-​old brother to jump start my car battery for me yesterday as I was too scared of electrocuting myself — I needed a boost to my technical ego]. Anyway I couldn’t find them, predictably, so asked one of the many members of staff wandering around aimlessly and yet very quickly, sort of like those things that chase PacMan, if they could help me.
So basically, I was after a power cable and yet had come in with no information about my computer (other than the manufacturer name and the fact that it needed a new power cable) so I said I would ring my brother and ask him to have a look at the computer. Did this, already been in here about 10 minutes by the time we have gleaned as much information as possible from the remaining, non-​broken parts of my computer, and went back to find the man. At this point, he was basically like «yeah well you need all the information» and I was like, look, the one I had looks exactly like this and has the same voltage. Anyway, he was having none of it and was trying to make me buy something the size of a guitar amplifier that cost 60 quid. We argued about this for a while, with me saying things like «look, I don’t want to spend 60 quid when I could spend 20» and him saying «yeah well NONE of them are 20» when I was CLEARLY JUST TRYING TO MAKE A POINT… some PEOPLE! And one of them WAS TWENTY!
He then, with a seeming scorn toward my desire to save 30 quid, instructed me to come back after I’d googled my model of laptop. I was like, «could we not do that here?» but apparently this was not possible, despite all the PacMan staff with nothing to do and the widespread nature of Internet access.
I therefore left, in a strop, went back to work, Googled my laptop and ordered a laptop cable for £12.99 on Amazon, saving £45 of my hard-​earned money and another conversation with Mr. Maplin. Worked out pretty well I reckon.

I have been in this store to buy a hard disk. I didn’t know products, prices but the service is very helpful. They can advise me, they know their products and their jobs. Beside, they doesn’t search to sell you the most expensive product but only what you really need.
Finally, I have bought a hard disk, 500 GB, USB 2… for 69£ and I’m not disappointing about it.
If I need other electronics stuffs sure, I will go here.