It would be ace to be able to walk into a RPi shop and be able to purchase LEDs, resistors, OLED screens, ESP8266 modules, breadboards etc.

Maplin was a great shop and open on the weekends was often a lifesaver.

Maplin mostly stocked poor quality products and massively overcharged.

I think charging x10 what a product would cost on eBay is reasonable. But often you’d be charged x100 to x1000 times more for cheap components (resistors etc.). I mostly ended up buying larger packs of parts which might come in handy, because I didn’t want to be overcharged to that degree.

I wouldn’t mind so much if they stocked good quality soldering irons (e.g. Hakko) or good quality hand tools. But they didn’t.

It’s a shame there are no good electronics high street shops left, but I’m not particularly sad to see Maplin go personally.

When Radio Shack in the US still had components for sale, they were absurdly more expensive than Digikey or Mouser. I think I remember a 5 pack of 220ohm resistors being $2.99. Digikey will sell you 100 for under two dollars.

I suppose it would have to do if you're in a pinch, but there's a reason walk-in electronics stores have mostly vanished.

It was still a lifesaver when I wanted resistors, LEDs or other components ASAP.

$3 is still cheaper than digikey shipping.

If they don't sell all that, what do they sell? Just RPi? In which case it probably is just an advert, not a store as such.

It was sad to see Maplin go. Does anyone know of any other DIY electronics stores / chains in the UK? (I miss JayCar in AU, or what DSE/Dick Smiths used to be before it went under)

Rapid Electronics or Farnell are the ones I use. Online only as far as I know, but that's fine by me, the Maplin staff rarely knew anything of use IME, and delivery is fast enough.

There is also RS Components - the RS / Farnell rivalry (or duopoly) is the big one for low volume electronic components in the UK. RS do have trade counters in a couple of dozen industrial estates around the country but I think they are only open office hours.

Interesting, RS indeed has some physics stores, one close enough to me! Thanks!

You know, when I said rapid I actually meant RS!

Yes I’ve used RS and Farnell in the past. Hoping for someplace that I could easily reach same day to buy parts, rather than wait for delivery etc. Last one I needed was some small screws to attach a mSATA, but pointless to wait a day and was preventing me from working on the project. Could imagine the same thing with SATA adapters, power cables, etc.