I've accepted that there are no longer any decent walk-in electronic component suppliers left.
The only walk-in choices here in my area are Radio Shack, Fry's Electronics, and one independent store that requires a $20 minimum purchase. The Radio Shack bins keep getting thinner and thinner while Fry's is so incompetently managed that the racks look bare with a large percentage of their components out-of-stock ..who wants to buy that over priced NTE junk anyway? Who wants to pay $15.00 for a proto board that they can get online for $2.00?
Only if I am desperate will I set foot in any of these these stores and only for stuff like connectors or headers.
The good news is that the online distributors like Mouser, Digikey, Newark, Farnell, Allied, et al, realize that hobbyists and experimenters make up a significant part of the market and make it easy to purchase in low volume. And the selection is far greater than any walk-in store ever had. Now you can even order low volume from Future And Arrow at really good prices and they have stuff that the others may not .
The only walk-in choices here in my area are Radio Shack, Fry's Electronics, and one independent store that requires a $20 minimum purchase. The Radio Shack bins keep getting thinner and thinner while Fry's is so incompetently managed that the racks look bare with a large percentage of their components out-of-stock ..who wants to buy that over priced NTE junk anyway? Who wants to pay $15.00 for a proto board that they can get online for $2.00?
Only if I am desperate will I set foot in any of these these stores and only for stuff like connectors or headers.
The good news is that the online distributors like Mouser, Digikey, Newark, Farnell, Allied, et al, realize that hobbyists and experimenters make up a significant part of the market and make it easy to purchase in low volume. And the selection is far greater than any walk-in store ever had. Now you can even order low volume from Future And Arrow at really good prices and they have stuff that the others may not .