News

Maplin Is Coming Back! (Well Online Anyway)

2018 has been a rough year for the UK high streets. We’ve seen many major brands disappear this year. Aside from Toys R Us, the other major loss (particular to tech consumers) was Maplin. Strangely enough, both stores suffered from the same problems. Overexpansion, high rental costs, and lost business to online retailers.

The last we heard from Maplins (officially) was in April when the administrator, Rutland Partners, was reportedly looking to sell the IP of the company. Well, it seems that we may finally have a buyer. Yes, at least in a website form, Maplin is coming back.

No Physical Locations

If you were hoping that this might mean the return of the retail stores, sadly that doesn’t look likely. A website for the company is, however, currently active and plans to launch as an online retailer ‘very soon’.

Is This A Good Idea?

We have seen this before. For example, when Woolworths went under, a company bought the brand trading name and currently operates an online shop there. Exactly who has purchased the rights is unclear. At present, the website is currently owned by Demys Limited who are an online intellectual property company. Exactly who they are acting on behalf of though is a mystery.

Hopefully, the website launch will be a success and, if nothing else, offer us another portal to search for our tech gadgets online! Better still, it seems that early-bird customers can get 10% off.

You can check out the new Maplin website in the link here.

What do you think? Glad to see them back? – Let us know in the comments!