3 ms·

Not to totally disagree with you, but there's something to be said for walking into a store and holding stuff in your hands before buying it. It's true that yo

Not to totally disagree with you, but there's something to be said for walking into a store and holding stuff in your hands before buying it. It's true that you can get any possible component you want from the internet, but on the other hand it's much more fun (funner? Is there even agreement about whether that's a word?) to walk in and fiddle around with components and imagine how you might use them in your own designs. Radioshack has all kinds of buzzers, motors, switches, etc, and some of them are even pretty ridiculous and over the top, which is awesome. You can make your own little Dr Evil Doomsday device for like $10, which is way more entertaining than a movie. I hope Radioshack manages to persist.

samwiseg 12y ago
I agree. Weirdly, I find myself coming up with more ideas of what to build when I see the limited options Radioshack has than when I'm ordering parts off the internet. Limits breed creativity, I guess.
JacobAldridge 12y ago
Isn't part of the general 'Retail business model' issue at present the number of people who walk in, hold it in their hands ... and then jump online with their smartphone and buy it for 10% less? There will always be a 'need it immediately' market, as there will always be a 'I'm buying it here from a moral perspective', but I wouldn't want to build a business (let alone one the size of RadioShack) just on those target consumers.
- leoc 12y ago
  The thing is that the Radio Shack model is viable, or at least it seems to be viable in the UK, as Maplin http://www.maplin.co.uk/ http://www.maplin.co.uk/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maplin_Electronics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maplin_Electronics seems to be doing well for itself at present. And the UK market conditions don't look all that different to those in the US, or at least not all that much easier: Britain has online electronics wholesaler/retailers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnell_element14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnell_element14 , and Amazon, and specialist online IT retailers http://www.dabs.com/ http://www.dabs.com/ , and fairly-big-box electrical/computer retailers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_World_(retailer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_World_(retailer) , and a big chain of mainstream catalogue shops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argos_(retailer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argos_(retailer) and a famously aggresssive supermarket landscape. So I assume that Radio Shack is either less-well-managed, or maybe just overly burdened with debt.
  - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
    Maplin have been around since the 1970s when they were the go-to mail order store for British electronic hobbyists. But they're also having issues. Competition on bread and butter basics like cables from eBay and Amazon is killing them on price. Likewise PC World, who are struggling for similar reasons. Argos and the like sell toasters, watches, cheap jewellery and gardening tools, so they're not in the same market. Farnell (and RadioSpares, Mouser, and Digikey) are primarily industry suppliers who sell components to the tiny hobbyist market as a sideline, but make most of their money elsewhere. The real competitors now are companies like Adafruit (US) and Cool Components (UK) who caught the Maker wave and are riding it very successfully - possibly because they sell clever, useful things, and they treat customers like adult engineers, not gullible children. Radio Shack was already a legacy company by the 1970s, staffed by the kind of marketing geniuses who come up with ploddingly dreadful brand names like 'Realistic' and 'Flavoradios.' The UK equivalent would have been Amstrad back in the 70s and 80s - purveyors of cheaply made over-marketed consumer electronics to buyers who were clueless about better options. Clearly, RadioShack doesn't have much of a niche any more. Buyers can get better products more cheaply elsewhere, and the hands-on electronics business has moved in a direction their management doesn't have the talent to emulate.
    - rjsw 12y ago
      Argos is interesting though in how they have combined use of their original retail stores with the internet.
      - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
        Everyone in retail is doing that - usually successfully, more or less. John Lewis, Debenhams, Sainsburys, Tesco, and ASDA all have pretty much the same click-and-collect or buy-and-deliver model. A few - Maplin and maybe Argos - have a super-fast same-day delivery option, which is an interesting development. I'm guessing we'll see more of that in the future. The big question now is - what is mall/high street retail for? It used to be the only way to buy, but when online is cheaper the rationale for spending metric crap tons of money on store rentals in prime locations is getting less and less obvious. It's not just electronics. All retail is suffering. There may be a niche for speedy delivery, installation and set-up of consumer electronics and white goods, because no one does an all-in-one like that, and usually you have to wait too long, especially for big items. But I wouldn't want to try it without crunching a full business plan.
boyaka 12y ago
I was taught that funner is not a word, but after reading a debate about it I came to the conclusion that fun has transformed into an adjective in the modern English language, and it is therefore acceptable. It's just difficult to hear it because of years of rejecting it, but I can get used to it (I don't think there's anything inherently wrong sounding about it). Just don't use "more" or "most" with "-er" or "-est" (they already imply it), that still really irks me.
ghaff 12y ago
>Not to totally disagree with you, but there's something to be said for walking into a store and holding stuff in your hands before buying it. In general, sure. And, maybe, for a lot of complicated audio interconnections, a physical RS was helpful for tying your cables and connections together. I'm less convinced that's especially important today. Nor are the TV antenna displays. I sorta agree with respect to all the various buzzer/motor/etc. stuff but those are all ultimately loss leaders--and always have been. The problem is that RS doesn't have any real cash cow business now to support all that stuff.
VLM 12y ago
"there's something to be said for walking into a store and holding stuff in your hands before buying it." Yes, I always, every time, end up feeling "This is a PITA having to drive across town and haul the screaming kids and coordinate schedules and park far away and burn more than an hour of my life for the privilege of paying three times as much as amazon prime for the same cable and argue with a teenage sales droid about why I don't want a $25 extended warantee in case it breaks (well, thats more a best buy thing, another place I never go to anymore). Oh and I pay $99/yr or whatever it is for prime which I'm "wasting" if I'm not using prime... I'm never going to this store again and next time I need a HDMI cable I'm pulling out my phone 24x7 frictionless and paying $3 at Amazon, not $10+ at RS after investing an hour". The next time I need a cable or gadget I think about going back to a retail store, cringe a little inside, and whip out the phone and order it online instead. If you're into "real" electronics I live within 1 day shipping range of Thief River Falls MN (aka digikey) so I pay for cheap shipping and get it the next morning anyway, and there is a huge tigerdirect midwest shipping depot 1 UPS day away (actually less, I've paid for 3 day shipping and gotten stuff in 12 hours before, that was weird). Deal Extreme can air ship me non-UL listed fake FCC cert gray market stuff faster than I can get real stuff from California for less than the shipping from CA, which always freaks me out. Retail just doesn't have a purpose anymore other than perishable fresh food. Its just obsolete. Like worrying about the disappearance of buggy whip manufacturers, or horse stable facilities in major city downtowns. (whoops edited to add there is one use for retail electronics and its traveling. The only time in several years that I walked into a retail electronics store was when my bluetooth earbud got drenched in a sudden downpour and wouldn't come back to life while I was traveling far away from home, and I kinda sorta needed it for a business conference call, so I paid 2x amazon price at best buy for a replacement and was fairly happy to do so. So airports, train stations, bus stations, tourist traps.)
- hfsktr 12y ago
  "Retail just doesn't have a purpose anymore other than perishable fresh food. Its just obsolete." Not everyone has internet and not everyone has a credit card or debit card to buy online. There are ways around those like a public library for internet and a prepaid card. It's not common to match all that but it will happen. Some people might even like holding something before buying it (pictures can't tell you everything).

samwiseg 12y ago

I agree. Weirdly, I find myself coming up with more ideas of what to build when I see the limited options Radioshack has than when I'm ordering parts off the internet. Limits breed creativity, I guess.

JacobAldridge 12y ago

Isn't part of the general 'Retail business model' issue at present the number of people who walk in, hold it in their hands ... and then jump online with their smartphone and buy it for 10% less? There will always be a 'need it immediately' market, as there will always be a 'I'm buying it here from a moral perspective', but I wouldn't want to build a business (let alone one the size of RadioShack) just on those target consumers.

leoc 12y ago
The thing is that the Radio Shack model is viable, or at least it seems to be viable in the UK, as Maplin http://www.maplin.co.uk/ http://www.maplin.co.uk/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maplin_Electronics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maplin_Electronics seems to be doing well for itself at present. And the UK market conditions don't look all that different to those in the US, or at least not all that much easier: Britain has online electronics wholesaler/retailers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnell_element14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnell_element14 , and Amazon, and specialist online IT retailers http://www.dabs.com/ http://www.dabs.com/ , and fairly-big-box electrical/computer retailers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_World_(retailer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_World_(retailer) , and a big chain of mainstream catalogue shops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argos_(retailer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argos_(retailer) and a famously aggresssive supermarket landscape. So I assume that Radio Shack is either less-well-managed, or maybe just overly burdened with debt.
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  Maplin have been around since the 1970s when they were the go-to mail order store for British electronic hobbyists. But they're also having issues. Competition on bread and butter basics like cables from eBay and Amazon is killing them on price. Likewise PC World, who are struggling for similar reasons. Argos and the like sell toasters, watches, cheap jewellery and gardening tools, so they're not in the same market. Farnell (and RadioSpares, Mouser, and Digikey) are primarily industry suppliers who sell components to the tiny hobbyist market as a sideline, but make most of their money elsewhere. The real competitors now are companies like Adafruit (US) and Cool Components (UK) who caught the Maker wave and are riding it very successfully - possibly because they sell clever, useful things, and they treat customers like adult engineers, not gullible children. Radio Shack was already a legacy company by the 1970s, staffed by the kind of marketing geniuses who come up with ploddingly dreadful brand names like 'Realistic' and 'Flavoradios.' The UK equivalent would have been Amstrad back in the 70s and 80s - purveyors of cheaply made over-marketed consumer electronics to buyers who were clueless about better options. Clearly, RadioShack doesn't have much of a niche any more. Buyers can get better products more cheaply elsewhere, and the hands-on electronics business has moved in a direction their management doesn't have the talent to emulate.
  - rjsw 12y ago
    Argos is interesting though in how they have combined use of their original retail stores with the internet.
    - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
      Everyone in retail is doing that - usually successfully, more or less. John Lewis, Debenhams, Sainsburys, Tesco, and ASDA all have pretty much the same click-and-collect or buy-and-deliver model. A few - Maplin and maybe Argos - have a super-fast same-day delivery option, which is an interesting development. I'm guessing we'll see more of that in the future. The big question now is - what is mall/high street retail for? It used to be the only way to buy, but when online is cheaper the rationale for spending metric crap tons of money on store rentals in prime locations is getting less and less obvious. It's not just electronics. All retail is suffering. There may be a niche for speedy delivery, installation and set-up of consumer electronics and white goods, because no one does an all-in-one like that, and usually you have to wait too long, especially for big items. But I wouldn't want to try it without crunching a full business plan.

boyaka 12y ago

I was taught that funner is not a word, but after reading a debate about it I came to the conclusion that fun has transformed into an adjective in the modern English language, and it is therefore acceptable. It's just difficult to hear it because of years of rejecting it, but I can get used to it (I don't think there's anything inherently wrong sounding about it). Just don't use "more" or "most" with "-er" or "-est" (they already imply it), that still really irks me.

ghaff 12y ago

>Not to totally disagree with you, but there's something to be said for walking into a store and holding stuff in your hands before buying it. In general, sure. And, maybe, for a lot of complicated audio interconnections, a physical RS was helpful for tying your cables and connections together. I'm less convinced that's especially important today. Nor are the TV antenna displays. I sorta agree with respect to all the various buzzer/motor/etc. stuff but those are all ultimately loss leaders--and always have been. The problem is that RS doesn't have any real cash cow business now to support all that stuff.

VLM 12y ago

"there's something to be said for walking into a store and holding stuff in your hands before buying it." Yes, I always, every time, end up feeling "This is a PITA having to drive across town and haul the screaming kids and coordinate schedules and park far away and burn more than an hour of my life for the privilege of paying three times as much as amazon prime for the same cable and argue with a teenage sales droid about why I don't want a $25 extended warantee in case it breaks (well, thats more a best buy thing, another place I never go to anymore). Oh and I pay $99/yr or whatever it is for prime which I'm "wasting" if I'm not using prime... I'm never going to this store again and next time I need a HDMI cable I'm pulling out my phone 24x7 frictionless and paying $3 at Amazon, not $10+ at RS after investing an hour". The next time I need a cable or gadget I think about going back to a retail store, cringe a little inside, and whip out the phone and order it online instead. If you're into "real" electronics I live within 1 day shipping range of Thief River Falls MN (aka digikey) so I pay for cheap shipping and get it the next morning anyway, and there is a huge tigerdirect midwest shipping depot 1 UPS day away (actually less, I've paid for 3 day shipping and gotten stuff in 12 hours before, that was weird). Deal Extreme can air ship me non-UL listed fake FCC cert gray market stuff faster than I can get real stuff from California for less than the shipping from CA, which always freaks me out. Retail just doesn't have a purpose anymore other than perishable fresh food. Its just obsolete. Like worrying about the disappearance of buggy whip manufacturers, or horse stable facilities in major city downtowns. (whoops edited to add there is one use for retail electronics and its traveling. The only time in several years that I walked into a retail electronics store was when my bluetooth earbud got drenched in a sudden downpour and wouldn't come back to life while I was traveling far away from home, and I kinda sorta needed it for a business conference call, so I paid 2x amazon price at best buy for a replacement and was fairly happy to do so. So airports, train stations, bus stations, tourist traps.)

hfsktr 12y ago
"Retail just doesn't have a purpose anymore other than perishable fresh food. Its just obsolete." Not everyone has internet and not everyone has a credit card or debit card to buy online. There are ways around those like a public library for internet and a prepaid card. It's not common to match all that but it will happen. Some people might even like holding something before buying it (pictures can't tell you everything).