AS&S survived for decades selling actual science and surplus, now it seems their focus has shifted to alibaba junk consumer goods and flea market reject merchandise.
A decade ago if you searched for toggle switches on their website you would have gotten dozens and dozens of results.
Now there are six, and only two of them are actual toggle switches.
Did all of the science and surplus run out?
I'm guessing the surplus ran out. I would go to the Chicago area stores a lot and could easily recognize which companies were dumping spare/reject assemblies and other shrapnel related to their work. Those companies all moved to Mexico or Asia, so there's nothing left to dump.
That sort of happened with Army surplus stores too for largely different reasons. Don’t even know of one around where I live any longer.
There's more competition and no real need for companies to do online or reserve sales of their surplus. They might have been able to place orders or holds previously.
The "surplus" at AS&S was more about manufacturing surplus. Spare parts and bulbs, loose switches and chips, wires, unpopulated PCBs with mystery origins, etc.
I'm not familiar with the science surplus side, but on the militaria side the answer is basically yes. There absolutely is still a ton of surplus but it's nowhere near as cheap and limitless as it used to be.
Aside from everyone else's replies, there's also the fact that the niche is smaller now.
Instead of companies dumping their excess stock on whoever offers to buy it, instead they're dumping it all on Amazon and ebay. A little more work but they get more money for it, meaning that there is less new overstock to go around.
I hope they make it, we need more stores with personality like American Science. I plan on making a trip out that way now that I know where it's located.
The demand ran out. Gen Z and Gen Alpha don’t know how this stuff works.
What a ridiculous comment. Of course lots of Gen Zers know how electronics work. The oldest Gen alphaers turned 15 this year.