Sorry all wrong!
In the USA there is Radio Shack, they had a UK division trading under the name Tandy.
Tandy closed up many years ago and I believe morphed into Carphone Warehouse.
Maplin has (as far as I can remember) always been Maplin.
In the UK there was a company called Radio Spares, and they were suppliers of components mostly to the radio and TV repair trade.
In the early 1970s they changed their name to RS Components and are now a major supplier of electronic components (amongst other things).
In industry they are usually just refered to as RS.
So, UK RS and USA RS are two very different entities.
By the way, I get stuff from RS.
I used Farnell, but for me they went downhill a few years ago when they merged with some other company.
JimB