16:03

Over in Manchester, my colleague Frances Perraudin has been speaking to Maplin customers about its fall into administration this morning (reminder, she visited Toys R Us earlier)

She writes:

Coming out of a small Maplin store on Manchester’s Oxford Road, student Jack Poulton was clear that the business has been a victim of the rise of e-commerce. “Most of the products that they sell, a lot of people – especially younger generations – will now look online for,” he said.

“The only reason I came in today is its proximity to the university and because I needed something immediately, otherwise I would have gone online myself.”

Poulton had visited the shop, which has been on the same site for more than 30 years, to see if they stocked a specific magnifying lens. “They didn’t have it,” he said. “But the manager knew instantly where to look. I would have no complaints about the service. It’s just that it’s very easy to find what they sell in Maplin on Amazon these days.”



Fellow student Mike Ellis said it was a shame that the expertise held by staff at electrical shops like Maplin was being lost.

He said:

“Sometimes you just want to be given advice, which these guys are very well trained for. Without that you are suddenly on your own.”

Inside the tidy and well-ordered store this lunch time, the staff – who usually outnumbered customers three-to-one – said they could not speak to the press, but confirmed that they had heard the news about the business that morning.



Aslam Malik, who works for Manchester city council, popped in on his way past, after hearing that the company was going into administration, to see if they had a cheap DVD player for his nephew. He did not find what he was looking for.

He aded: