I'd say that's more to do with electronics as a hobby not being as popular as it once was. So it makes little sense to carry large stocks in a high street shop of slow moving goods.
But given the move to surface mount in manufacture, the death of at least some 'conventional' sized stuff is inevitable.
Yeah, they seem to have a fair bit of PC stuff and digital cameras. Oh, and worst of all...gadgets! Its pretty hard to find a catalogue and order form stand in most of the stores now.
The trouble is that the 'PC stuff' isn't likely to be 'get your hands on it and understand how the thing works' that you used to get in the days of magazine type-ins* and hardware projects for BBCs & Arcs by Mike Cook. ;-(
*is there more than one magazine still producing these?
Maplin have been like that fo ryears now, it's their business model rather than component availability, ever since the founder sold out.
If you want components, there are plenty of other suppliers, a lot of whom are cheaper too.
I gave up on Maplin when I was told things like I could order a potentiometer but not the nut and washer to fix it to a panel as their system couldn't cope with that.
MBQ
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