What the heck was this shop called
 

Cannot think of this chain of shops. Mainly electrical, sold electrical toys ,had a huge range of bulbs, batteries, think it also had telescopes computer bits and pieces . Taff in Cardiff it was on City Rd and moved to Newport Rd :confused

Re: What the heck was this shop called
 

Maplins or Tandys (UK version of Radio Shack) perhaps?

Re: What the heck was this shop called
 

As mentioned above sounds like Maplins. Tandy was a bit more specialised and sold loads of electrical components and electronic project kits etc. Closed all the stores must be around 25 years ago. Maplins sold allsorts, in the later years they specialised in cheap and nasty drones. Used to go there a lot but their customer service was diabolical especially when daring to try to return a faulty item so eventually gave up on them well before they folded.

Re: What the heck was this shop called
 

I used to work in the Tandy that was next to the Prince of Wales near the Principality Stadium, all the stores were eventually taken over by Carphone Warehouse. I don’t recall Cardiff having any other stores back then although City Road sounds like the kind of road that may have had one, but given the size of the other units on Newport Road it would more likely have been Maplin as most of their shops were pretty big

Re: What the heck was this shop called
 

I used to work in Maplins and we did all sorts of computer parts, cables, CCTV, electronic parts such as resistors, capacitors, etc, as well as DJ equipment, and gadgets.


Their prices were way too high... eg. £12 for a Scart cable which you could get on Amazon for £4.99. No wonder they went into administration and now only online.

Re: What the heck was this shop called
 

Most definitely Maplin. I used to source all sorts from them. When the oversized store on Newport Road was about to close, I picked up loads of bargains including USB memory sticks, rechargeable batteries and printer ink.

They were set up to basically outdo Radio Shack, Tandy and Radio Spares.

I now use https://www.rapidonline.com

Re: What the heck was this shop called
 

Depends when you last went there, could be Rumbelows for all I know. lol.

Re: What the heck was this shop called
 

Thank you, yes diffo Maplin couldn't get Mac out of my head but knew that was wrong :cool:

Re: What the heck was this shop called
 

IIRC Maplin started out as a mail order only operation based in Essex. (Named after the Maplin sands) Only later did they open high street stores.

Re: What the heck was this shop called
 

Maplin were mostly mailorder only when I used to get a catalog and order from them.
I think they had a store where they were actually based, and there was no online then (early 1980's).

I didnt use them a lot though, I got most of my electrical & electronic stuff from RS Components (late 70's, early 80's).