I had a minute to check it out over lunch - most of the floorspace is dedicated to demonstrating what the raspberry pi can do at a high level. They had stations for coding, gaming, sensors, etc. but only ~1/4th of the space was devoted to inventory. While they have a decent selection of Pis, sensor kits, and accessories, it's definitely not a replacement for Maplin. Additionally, Already__Taken seems to have been correct about the level of knowledge among the staff - not everyone working there was technical. This is definitely aimed at the general public.
Did they sell the Pi at the $35 price (+VAT I guess) ? Because it seems that the brick-and-mortar stores I've been to strugle with this very-thin margin pricing.
If you had a physical place where you could source sticker-price raspberry pis it would already be quit good.
This is why I feel the high street is failing. It is assumed that a single store’s value is in the products it directly sells. And if it’s making a loss... shut it down!
A store itself should be an “experience”. You go in, play with products, be inspired and get an appetite for them.
Sure you may leave the store empty handed — just like 99% of people that walk into an Apple store. But if the store convinces you that you want... no _need_ their product, you can then buy later from their online store.
People and businesses really need to think of all sales and PR channels of a business as a whole, not a subset of each part. Only then will we see initiatives like this Pi store start to revive the high street.
The prices were very low -- if I remember correctly the zero was £4.50 and the zero W was £5.00. I went in looking for a motor so I didn't catch the price of the Pi B+ etc. Sorry!
I was there just before lunch. I spoke with the guy who put together the PiCade they had out for demo. He was very helpful. The one thing that surprised me was that so many of the kits they had on sale require soldering. I would have thought that if you’re going for a more general audience, that’d be something to avoid. But I really don’t have anything negative to say about the place. Nice space, good inventory, pleasant staff.
Yeah. Brand-wise, I would rather see the Raspberry Pi shop like a kind of bazaar where you find everything in all sorts of places rather than a very tidy and clean place where everything is in order. The "everything should look like what Apple does" is really tiring and generic these days.
I believe they're trying to market to the general public. If Apple stores are good at turning heads from how they are designed, then it makes sense to apply that design to their own store. It's about getting people inside.
Perhaps this is in reaction to Maplin’s troubles? That would previously have been the only place I would have thought of to buy a Raspberry Pi on the high street.
Maplin mostly stocked poor quality products and massively overcharged.
I think charging x10 what a product would cost on eBay is reasonable. But often you’d be charged x100 to x1000 times more for cheap components (resistors etc.). I mostly ended up buying larger packs of parts which might come in handy, because I didn’t want to be overcharged to that degree.
I wouldn’t mind so much if they stocked good quality soldering irons (e.g. Hakko) or good quality hand tools. But they didn’t.
It’s a shame there are no good electronics high street shops left, but I’m not particularly sad to see Maplin go personally.
When Radio Shack in the US still had components for sale, they were absurdly more expensive than Digikey or Mouser. I think I remember a 5 pack of 220ohm resistors being $2.99. Digikey will sell you 100 for under two dollars.
I suppose it would have to do if you're in a pinch, but there's a reason walk-in electronics stores have mostly vanished.
It was sad to see Maplin go. Does anyone know of any other DIY electronics stores / chains in the UK? (I miss JayCar in AU, or what DSE/Dick Smiths used to be before it went under)
Rapid Electronics or Farnell are the ones I use. Online only as far as I know, but that's fine by me, the Maplin staff rarely knew anything of use IME, and delivery is fast enough.
I Hope it's more of games workshop type affair. You're just not going to have useful staff that know about this equipment long term operating a shop floor. You can barely get anyone that knows much about a phone beyond the box from phone specialists.
Agreed. I was thinking more of a hacker space that little Timmy's mum would be happy to visit.
I cant see it surviving as just a shop. Shops can't even survive selling full size PCs, there isn't that much more repeat custom to expect from something that costs 2 orders of magnitude less.
Games Workshop is a fantastic template for a hacker-hobbyist store. I have never played miniatures games, but I was always impressed by how packed the store near my old apartment was.
Given that it's a university town with strong tech links, the general retail public in Cambridge is going to be quite different to the general retail public in most of the rest of the UK.
I'm not convinced the idea makes sense financially, unless they're selling all of the extras and kit parts needed to make the Pi do something useful.
If they are, then fine. If not this might look a little like a vanity move - not because it's a bad idea, but because retail in the UK can be insanely expensive to run, and it's outrageously hard to make it profitable.
In my understanding, the new reality here is that brick-and-mortar stores are increasingly becoming showrooms to support online sales, with brands closing smaller shops and focusing on big "experiential" flagship stores.
The description somebody else gave here of the Pi shop as "more of an event space than a store" would tie in well with this strategy.
They’re already marketed as hobby kits to the general public. In fact wasn’t that the entire idea from the start? Who do you think was buying them before?
Makes sense - their offices are (were?) based in Cambridge just up the road from the city centre and about a 15min walk from the new shop. Little trivia: in my previous job I worked in the offices that would be taken over by Raspberry Pi a couple of years later :)
Yeah I work in the office next to them, same floor same building. And previously worked for Arm. And I have a friend working at Qualcomm just down the road from me, too. Quite a small little world here :)
It's not surprising, actually considering its price point and the fact that previous full-blown British computers date from a time when computers were not a commodity.
If you've ever worked on a vintage British car's electrical system, you wouldn't be surprised that the only thing the global marketplace decided the British should handle, electrically, would be hobby-oriented. </smacktalk>
I would pay real money for an Rpi with Lucas components. Extra if it could somehow be convinced to leak oil and not boot when the outside temp is below 10C.
In both standard written and colloquial British English it's almost always "shop", but the term "store" is normal in the jargon used by people in the retail business. It's quite common to hear the word "store" used in a public announcement in a shop, for example.
There are many things like that. For example, normal people say "tin", in my experience, but the signs in a shop seem to use "can" more often than "tin", bizarrely. You'd probably find many similar example if you walked round some UK shops looking at all the labels.
There's also a whole work/office jargon used in modern Britain: words and grammar that people use at work but wouldn't normally use at home or in the pub.
In general I don't like jargon. To me it seems both pretentious and small-minded. On the other hand, an obscure technical term, used correctly, is like a beam of sunlight or a breath of fresh air. To me, at least. Though they sometimes borrow from each other, jargon and technical vocabulary are very different things.
Traditionally (in the UK), it was reserved for large, varied shops like department stores. However, the American usage to mean any shop has certainly been spreading in business-speak for a fair while.
From the OED (the entry has not been updated recently):
> Chiefly N. Amer. and elsewhere outside the U.K. In early use, a shop on a large scale, and dealing in a great variety of articles (see quot. 18082). Now, equivalent to the British use of shop n. 3.
> The use of the word in this sense has not become common in the U.K. except in Comb., as chain store n. at chain n. Compounds 3, department store n. at department n. 5 (see under the first elements), store detective n. at Compounds 1d(a), in which it still refers to a large shop.
The retail chain British Home Stores was founded in 1928, so at least since then.
I wasn't aware until now that this is considered an Americanism
BHS was founded by by a group of U.S. entrepreneurs, however, it is generally accepted usage to refer to various retail spaces as shops or stores synonymously. Some even use it as their brand identity e.g. The Body Shop, The Gift Shop, The Tie Store and now defunct Army & Navy Stores et al.
Nevertheless, there are certain distinctions to be made, i.e. when someone says 'I am nipping out to the shops - do you want anything?' usually means a visit to small local independent shops/convenience stores, colloquially referred to as corner shops (bodega/deli) situated on the High Street and not mean Harrods, albeit it might also qualify as a local shop for some of the residents in Knightsbridge.
Much more common this century than last. In the 80s it would have been mainly just shops. Apple, had they had them back then, would have found their flagship store called the Apple shop by one and all. :)
Anecdata, most Australians would probably be ambivalent to either term. Shop or Store? They're synonymous. Just to let you know, and to keep you updated on international terminology :-)
Another Brit here. We are mostly familiar with the term 'Apple Store.' I imagine that's why the bbc are calling it a Pi store. English has always been a mish mash of words from different languages and cutures.
Readit News
If you had a physical place where you could source sticker-price raspberry pis it would already be quit good.
A store itself should be an “experience”. You go in, play with products, be inspired and get an appetite for them.
Sure you may leave the store empty handed — just like 99% of people that walk into an Apple store. But if the store convinces you that you want... no _need_ their product, you can then buy later from their online store.
People and businesses really need to think of all sales and PR channels of a business as a whole, not a subset of each part. Only then will we see initiatives like this Pi store start to revive the high street.
Not really convinced the design and branding of the store matches up well with the realities of their actual product.
Maplin was a great shop and open on the weekends was often a lifesaver.
I think charging x10 what a product would cost on eBay is reasonable. But often you’d be charged x100 to x1000 times more for cheap components (resistors etc.). I mostly ended up buying larger packs of parts which might come in handy, because I didn’t want to be overcharged to that degree.
I wouldn’t mind so much if they stocked good quality soldering irons (e.g. Hakko) or good quality hand tools. But they didn’t.
It’s a shame there are no good electronics high street shops left, but I’m not particularly sad to see Maplin go personally.
I suppose it would have to do if you're in a pinch, but there's a reason walk-in electronics stores have mostly vanished.
I cant see it surviving as just a shop. Shops can't even survive selling full size PCs, there isn't that much more repeat custom to expect from something that costs 2 orders of magnitude less.
I'm not convinced the idea makes sense financially, unless they're selling all of the extras and kit parts needed to make the Pi do something useful.
If they are, then fine. If not this might look a little like a vanity move - not because it's a bad idea, but because retail in the UK can be insanely expensive to run, and it's outrageously hard to make it profitable.
The description somebody else gave here of the Pi shop as "more of an event space than a store" would tie in well with this strategy.
There are many things like that. For example, normal people say "tin", in my experience, but the signs in a shop seem to use "can" more often than "tin", bizarrely. You'd probably find many similar example if you walked round some UK shops looking at all the labels.
There's also a whole work/office jargon used in modern Britain: words and grammar that people use at work but wouldn't normally use at home or in the pub.
In general I don't like jargon. To me it seems both pretentious and small-minded. On the other hand, an obscure technical term, used correctly, is like a beam of sunlight or a breath of fresh air. To me, at least. Though they sometimes borrow from each other, jargon and technical vocabulary are very different things.
From the OED (the entry has not been updated recently):
> Chiefly N. Amer. and elsewhere outside the U.K. In early use, a shop on a large scale, and dealing in a great variety of articles (see quot. 18082). Now, equivalent to the British use of shop n. 3.
> The use of the word in this sense has not become common in the U.K. except in Comb., as chain store n. at chain n. Compounds 3, department store n. at department n. 5 (see under the first elements), store detective n. at Compounds 1d(a), in which it still refers to a large shop.
I might refer to the "Apple store", but would always refer to the local barber shop or coffee shop.
I wasn't aware until now that this is considered an Americanism.
I wasn't aware until now that this is considered an Americanism
BHS was founded by by a group of U.S. entrepreneurs, however, it is generally accepted usage to refer to various retail spaces as shops or stores synonymously. Some even use it as their brand identity e.g. The Body Shop, The Gift Shop, The Tie Store and now defunct Army & Navy Stores et al.
Nevertheless, there are certain distinctions to be made, i.e. when someone says 'I am nipping out to the shops - do you want anything?' usually means a visit to small local independent shops/convenience stores, colloquially referred to as corner shops (bodega/deli) situated on the High Street and not mean Harrods, albeit it might also qualify as a local shop for some of the residents in Knightsbridge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_%26_Navy_Stores_(United_K...
Deleted Comment