General > General Technical Chat
Conrad Electronic to close all stores in Germany
Neper:
There was a time, when every German town had a selection of electronics shops. Cologne had a good dozen of them. Great places where we would go to meet friends, exchange the latest gossip and spend our money.
Then, in the mid 80s, Conrad Electronic, until then a mail-order business, opened big and impressive stores right in the centre of all major cities. They hired radio amateurs for their radio department, modellers for their modelling department etc. Within a few years, all other electronics shops were gone. Conrad picked out their best staff and hired them.
10 years later, they began to ask for customers' ZIP codes at the check-out. Soon after that, the impressive city-centre stores moved to some industrial estate way out of town. Gone were the highly qualified staff, replaced by the same kind that would be flipping burgers elsewhere. Eventually, the store in Cologne was one of the first to close altogether. That was about a decade ago. I haven't bought a thing from them ever since.
Now, Conrad have announced that they'll close all brick-and-mortar shops before the end of this year and concentrate on B2B.
Good riddance!
HighVoltage:
This was the writing on the wall for a long long time.
I could repeat almost all your points for Hamburg. As a student in the 1980s I probably visited a Conrad store once a week at least. In the last few years I have not ordered anything from Conrad and also have not visited their stores anymore.
The quality of products went down every year.
The employees were less and less knowledgeable.
The one store in Hamburg had a very good and smart guy working there. After he retired 10 years ago, it was like the store changed and for me it felt like only idiots were working there.
I will not miss them!
This might be similar to the closing of Fry's in the USA.
ace1903:
Around 1988-1989 my father visited West Germany, probably Munich Messe for business. As a present for me he bought one printed catalogue and several electronics kits.
At that time I was 7 or 8 years old child in Yugoslavia. I spent days listing that catalogue and enjoying in stuff never seen in my country.
Even now I remember some pages with things that I wanted to have. I think that I become engineer just because of Conrad.
Still have that catalogue and several others from 1990ies. Later around 2009 I visited myself Conrad in Nuremberg. It was far from city center but still nice place.
To have models in hand to evaluate them and possibility to order something from master business catalogue without shipping was nice for us from poor countries.
Probably generations of engineers and builders were inspired by Conrad. One can order everything from web shop but it will be never inspiring as walking in the shop on weekend and talking with people that share same hobby.
themadhippy:
--- Quote ---This might be similar to the closing of Fry's in the USA.
--- End quote ---
Or maplins in the uk.
Bicurico:
Let's face it: China destroyed them all.
You get a much broader ranger of products and much cheaper ordering from China directly.
Also, why build a kit five times as expensive than the ready to go equivalent from China?
What I wonder is: why only now? Especially since ordering from China is not that cheap or convenient anymore, at least in the EU.
Another reason is cheap boards like the Arduino or Raspberry Pi. Hacking is now done in software and less in electronics.
The remaining electronic freaks use Farnell and similar.
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