We started the company to develop a product for the Oil Industry, a HydroStatic Pressure Testing System, which is still in wide use today.During the development of this system, we accrued a whole pile of electronic goodies that we decided to sell on ebay to recoup some of the money we had spent. The items sold so fast we realised that there was a real need in the UK to buy electronics at good prices. We maxed out our credit cards and bought up lots of parts we thought there would be a need for in the UK and Proto-PIC.co.uk was born.We buy electronics for the UK Maker Community in bulk from reputable suppliers only, generally from the USA. Buying in bulk allows us to be able to take care of all the Import tasks and paying Duty so the products can be available to customers in the UK on a super quick turnaround.Our favorite supplier has to be Sparkfun Electronics in the US. They have been with us right from the beginning. Some of their components were in the original revision of our Pressure Testing System and they were the first guys we bought our first big (huge) order from to stock the place up. We sell every item that Sparkfun sell, unless its illegal to sell in the UK (some radio products are banned as they interfere with our wavelengths over here). Even if we are sold out of the item, we can get parts from them within 48 hours - if we place the order on Monday afternoon - it will generally be here Wednesday morning - that's pretty awesome!.We knew that we had the ability and love of the products to be able to create some of our own. Our first in-house developed product was the Proto-PIC Arduino Starter Kit. We have sold over 10,000 of these to date. We now have a full range of products that are our own concept and design.