Fry's sucks. (was: goin to CA soon, to be a CC tychoon

From: Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
Date: Tue Jun 10 19:13:00 2003

> Sounds a bit like Maplin.

Oh, don't get me started on Maplin. I call them 'Craplin' for a very good
reason :-)

> Me: "Have you got any 74LS573s in stock?"

You must be joking :-). Several of the Maplin shops in the london area
have 10k resistors (you know, the common 0.6W ones that everybody uses)
as special-order-only items (meaning it takes at least a week to get them!).

They currently sell Fluke multimeters (and have them in the shops), but
don't sell the spare fuses for them (for all they're listed in the
catalogue). When I say 'don't sell', I don't mean special-order-only.
They are discontinued!

Another of their stupid tricks is stocking half a connector, They'll keep
the plug in stock but not the socket or vice versa. %deity knows why...

10 years ago, they were better. Even then I don't think I ever got everything
I wanted without having to order it, but I generally got most items. And
special orders took a couple of days. Now, I rarely leave the shop with
_anything_ I want.

Antohhr change in policy relates to the small order surchage. For as long
as I can remember, small orders (less than \pounds 5.00 I think) done by
mail or phone have had a surchage (\pounds 5.00 or thereabouts added to
them). At one time, if you ordered the components in the shop, they would
send them to your home address without a surcharge (or postage charges)
since it was their fault they didn't have them in stock. Not any more. In
fact they tried to convince me that the surcharge even applied to special
orders delivered to the shop. My comments at that point are not
repeatable on a public list!

And it seems to be the case that for many items the number kept in stock
at the shops is lower than the first 'price break' for discounts (if
that's for 10 items, say, they'll keep 9 in the shop). If you then buy
those 9 and put one on special order you _don't_ get the discount price.
And they can't seem to put 10 on order if they have some in stock.

The only reason I go to Maplin is because there's nowhere else. Doing an
order to RS or Farnell is a pain for a few components.

-tony
Received on Tue Jun 10 2003 - 19:13:00 BST