Posted on 03/04/2014 7:07:14 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
RadioShack said Tuesday it would close about 1,100 of its stores in the United States, as weak holiday results prompted significant losses.
RadioShack has been struggling to revive its fortunes in recent years, in the face of a changed consumer electronics environment. In February 2013, it hired a new chief executive, Joseph C. Magnacca, from Walgreen, to help turn things around. But so far a turnaround has been elusive and its financial results have been deteriorating.
(Excerpt) Read more at mobile.nytimes.com ...
I actually worked at Radioshack during my college days (mid 1990’s) and quite frankly I’m surprised they lasted this long. When I started, Radioshack catered to gadget and electronics enthusiasts, many of their customers were electronics tinkerers who built/repaired their own computers and other gadgets or were into amateur radio. They were intensely loyal customers. However, around 1997 Radioshack decided they no longer wanted or needed these customers, they felt they took up to much of the sales associates time and spent too little (or to put it as one District manager did at a sales meeting “We are no longer going to spend an hour helping somebody locate a $.89 transistor.†The company did away with their in depth training to new employees on electronics and small parts. They then began eliminating these items from the stores entirely. Then they instructed the sales associates to focus on customers who wanted high dollar items such as cell phones and computers. By the time I left in 1999, it had gotten so anybody that came in for a small part was essentially pointed toward a set of mail order catalogs and told that we couldn’t help them and to find what they needed themselves.
They were great for Antenna stuff.
Hmmm, a brick and mortar store selling products to people who ‘get’ the Internet and use it... What could possibly go wrong?
Somebody found a use for that movie?
Sorry, I didn’t make it clear that my comment was about mail order purchases, not retail stores. Where I lived, mail order was the only way to get anything electronic, other than the standard consumer fare in regular stores.
Sometime in the late 50s, Lousyette went heavily into selling cheap Japanese stuff, and this was before Japan discovered how to make a quality product.
Allied Radio (now Allied Electronics) is still thriving. Lousyette is gone.
For most of my purchases today, I use Mouser.
Oh no! Where will I go to buy a $35 cable for my TV - which I will use for 3 days until the one I bought from Amazon for 3 dollars shows up - and then I return the one to Radio Shack?
My niece was a “manager” at RS a while back.
She was working many hours for minimal pay.
She quickly realized this was a business on its way out.
She transferred to a growth industry - government job LOL.
Sad. When I was in high school and college they had all the component parts for amateur radio projects. Later they carried neat electronics and some of the first computers. Their prices were fair and it was my first stop for anything electronic. Most malls had a store and if not a trip to downtown would find one.
Not so much lately, their prices are one the problems. The price of their electronic components are way to high. I had to find other sources. Besides, the salesperson had NO clue what I wanted. I had to look through file cabinets of electronic parts to find the item I wanted, a PL-259 connector. Don’t even ask about co-axial cable. Sometimes I buy the components because I have to have it now and I have it in hand.
I still have lots of RS parts, radios & speakers, and my first computer, an old TX-1000 cpu system (now stored). I’m so old I can remember ordering from Radio Shack in the Boston area (I think) before it became franchised.
What they say about the life cycle of a business is true. Radio Shack has seen its best days.
I also live very near a Fry's, which has become my main stop for audio/video/computer supplies.
And you don't have to give your zip code or phone number or any of that crap.
Where will I get parts for my Tandy 1000?
No problem giving that info out to Radio Shock... I'll give it out here and now: 12345 (same as my briefcase), and 555-1212
“Does anyone remember Lafayette Electronics?”
Yes, and also Olsen Electronics. In Houston, the hams hung out at Madison Electronics.
I started buying at Radio Shack in the mid 1960’s when they sold mostly electrical components. I remember seeing in RS cardboard boxes filled with heaps of vacuum tube modules salvaged from mainframe computers.
There has been an educational and cultural change that affects electronics and other technical hobbies. Most kids don’t build or repair anything with their hands anymore. This country is dying from apathy.
As a general comment, Radio Shack’s quality may have gone down but in general, I think that is so for many electronic products. Back in the day, I got a multiband radio, in retrospect probably a steal, I listened to Family Radio before Harold Camping got into all of his rapture forecasting and it was a good station, I listened to the BBC before they became more politically correct, I can still hear “This is London” in my head. A lot of entertainment, Radio Moscow though I never took much interest in them. VOA and I suppose Radio Free Europe. Though never a “DXer”, I did get a few penpals through shortwave. I guess I’ll try my Grundig again I got there a few years ago and never seemed to work too well.
Absolute horror show from what he tells me. The employees are under extreme pressure to push cellphone contracts - to the exclusion of everything else in the store. I guess that's where they make most of their profit. They had almost daily conference calls with a "regional manager" who would yell and scream and berate any employee that did not sell the necessary amount of cellphones in a given amount of time.
You also got beat up for any customer that brought in a return - for any reason. Employees would almost be in tears trying to talk a customer out of returning something, actually begging, because they knew they were going to get reamed on the next conference call.
That's the classic sign of a dying company with little or no cash flow.
The final straw for my son was that many customers would walk into the store, hang around for an hour, get a free demo of all the hot phones, then walk out of the store and buy it somewhere else (probably online).
Now our kids can learn how to use electronics but not how they work or how to design them.
First, the men who bought hobby electronics parts and supplies from Radio Shack were laid off. Then, the women who bought whole appliances.
You take me back. I used to listen to 'Radio Cuba' because of a jazz program they had. But their newscasters were often hilarious in their effort to blame USA imperialism for every thing that went wrong. Talk about conspiracy nuts...
Roger that. Unfortunately they were literally the LAST bastion of help and parts for us "old timers" with more brains then money. Their xxx-xxxx parts were always good for that last transistor needed in an amplifier, or a FET for that little micro receiver I was building. I will miss them, but now, like so many other businesses these days, the internet really DOMINATES in that area once filled by the old mom and pop "Rat Shacks".
Sigh....Goodbye old chum, I knew thee well.....
-PJ
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.