Tandy (radio shack), Maplin

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Anyone else miss these high street stores that used to sell things like soldering irons, multimeters and resistors? Now your only option is online.

Yes and no. It was good to have the option of using these kinds of stores, and they fulfilled a purpose, but I don't think they did themselves any favours with the quality of their goods and service.

Tandy's stuff seemed a bit shoddy from my admittedly limited experience of them, and Maplins were definitely on the pricey side. I once returned an item to one of their shops and the assistant was most unhelpful.

I much preferred Comet, though it wasn't exactly the same sort of business. They also however changed over the years from a good value, no-nonsense type of outfit to more of a profit-obsessed high-margin operation (like Currys) with little interest in customer service.