7 ms·

Quite a few comments about how Radio Shack lost their way and squandered their opportunity, but really their business model was dead. Nothing they could have do

by personZ 12y ago

Quite a few comments about how Radio Shack lost their way and squandered their opportunity, but really their business model was dead. Nothing they could have done would have changed what happened. It was a store with a very large number of SKUs that they could only sustain through very high profit margins. Sure that works great when it's Sunday and you need that resistor now, but the vast majority of times people would just order online.

chipotle_coyote 12y ago
Quite a few comments about how Radio Shack lost their way and squandered their opportunity, but really their business model was dead. True, but I'm not sure those are mutually exclusive. I'd bet that the primary reason RadioShack never became a major online parts and electronics retailer is because of fear that it'd start cannibalizing their retail stores. Which it would have -- but either you cannibalize your own business or someone else does it for you. And I could certainly imagine an alternate history where they kept their own "captive brands" like Realistic and Optimus and competed reasonably well with the likes of Jabra, Jambox, Vizio and friends; I'm sure they had what they felt were sound business reasons for dumping that strategy, but it removed virtually all possibilities that buyers would go to RS for something only they sold, and I can't help but think that had significant value. (I suspect it's only the Sears captive brands that have let it hang on as long as it has, given how woefully it's been managed its last decade.)
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > (I suspect it's only the Sears captive brands that have let it hang on as long as it has, given how woefully it's been managed its last decade.) The Sears you are thinking about before the last decade was already dieing -- the current "Sears" is the result of KMart buying Sears in 2004 (during a brief profitably period shortly after KMart's own bankruptcy, and the combined entity -- which was called Sears Holdings Corporation -- went south pretty quickly.) I don't think Sears captive brands are keeping it alive for the last decade, I think the temporary reset it got at the acquisition by KMart has been keeping it alive.
  - chipotle_coyote 12y ago
    It's the holding company that bought KMart and then bought Sears which I'm thinking of as the mismanager (so to speak), actually. Sears had its share of issues pre-merger but they weren't in as bad shape before KMart bought them as they ended up afterward. It's my admittedly anecdotal impression that when someone ends up in a Sears these days it's probably to buy a Sears-specific brand. That could certainly be wrong. (A cynic might say that when someone ends up in a Sears these days it's probably because they took a wrong turn.)
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
kjs3 12y ago
RS was out of the "grab a part on the weekend for a project" business a decade or so before "order online" was an option.
- CamperBob2 12y ago
  I still use them all the time for just that. You no longer get a choice of 10 different bipolars and 3 different VMOS FETs, but the parts drawer is still pretty useful when all you need is a relay or an Arduino board.
  - georgemcbay 12y ago
    Same here, though it depends on the Radio Shack. There are a few of them near me and one is still a pretty decent "need it right now" electronic components place (with very limited selection) but the other two just sell cellphones and HDMI cables and basically nothing else.
    - kjs3 12y ago
      Yeah...this is my experience. I hear people say their local RS has components, but all the ones near me are exclusively cell phones, crappy knock-off RC toys and batteries. Fortunately, my local Frys has a very good components selection.
- personZ 12y ago
  They transitioned through many variations of the "lots of inventory of small things" markets: Batteries, media, cables, connectors, converters, etc. Ebay and Amazon, both launched in 1995, spelled doom for a store that relied on selling you the overpriced battery, CD-R, or $90 HDMI cable.
  - goostavos 12y ago
    >$90 HDMI cable Ah, I don't miss being required to hock those at customers. We used to have to watch training videos (in Macromedia Flash!) about how Monster's special braiding technology transferred the bits with more fidelity. But they really weren't the worst offender. "Overpriced" doesn't begin to describe the markup on their batteries. When I worked there -- and i'm sure it's even more now -- it was several hundred percent. It was absurd to the point that I went to my boss for clarification thinking that maybe the POS drops decimal places or something.

by personZ 12y ago

chipotle_coyote 12y ago

Quite a few comments about how Radio Shack lost their way and squandered their opportunity, but really their business model was dead. True, but I'm not sure those are mutually exclusive. I'd bet that the primary reason RadioShack never became a major online parts and electronics retailer is because of fear that it'd start cannibalizing their retail stores. Which it would have -- but either you cannibalize your own business or someone else does it for you. And I could certainly imagine an alternate history where they kept their own "captive brands" like Realistic and Optimus and competed reasonably well with the likes of Jabra, Jambox, Vizio and friends; I'm sure they had what they felt were sound business reasons for dumping that strategy, but it removed virtually all possibilities that buyers would go to RS for something only they sold, and I can't help but think that had significant value. (I suspect it's only the Sears captive brands that have let it hang on as long as it has, given how woefully it's been managed its last decade.)

dragonwriter 12y ago
> (I suspect it's only the Sears captive brands that have let it hang on as long as it has, given how woefully it's been managed its last decade.) The Sears you are thinking about before the last decade was already dieing -- the current "Sears" is the result of KMart buying Sears in 2004 (during a brief profitably period shortly after KMart's own bankruptcy, and the combined entity -- which was called Sears Holdings Corporation -- went south pretty quickly.) I don't think Sears captive brands are keeping it alive for the last decade, I think the temporary reset it got at the acquisition by KMart has been keeping it alive.
- chipotle_coyote 12y ago
  It's the holding company that bought KMart and then bought Sears which I'm thinking of as the mismanager (so to speak), actually. Sears had its share of issues pre-merger but they weren't in as bad shape before KMart bought them as they ended up afterward. It's my admittedly anecdotal impression that when someone ends up in a Sears these days it's probably to buy a Sears-specific brand. That could certainly be wrong. (A cynic might say that when someone ends up in a Sears these days it's probably because they took a wrong turn.)
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

kjs3 12y ago

RS was out of the "grab a part on the weekend for a project" business a decade or so before "order online" was an option.

CamperBob2 12y ago
I still use them all the time for just that. You no longer get a choice of 10 different bipolars and 3 different VMOS FETs, but the parts drawer is still pretty useful when all you need is a relay or an Arduino board.
- georgemcbay 12y ago
  Same here, though it depends on the Radio Shack. There are a few of them near me and one is still a pretty decent "need it right now" electronic components place (with very limited selection) but the other two just sell cellphones and HDMI cables and basically nothing else.
  - kjs3 12y ago
    Yeah...this is my experience. I hear people say their local RS has components, but all the ones near me are exclusively cell phones, crappy knock-off RC toys and batteries. Fortunately, my local Frys has a very good components selection.
personZ 12y ago
They transitioned through many variations of the "lots of inventory of small things" markets: Batteries, media, cables, connectors, converters, etc. Ebay and Amazon, both launched in 1995, spelled doom for a store that relied on selling you the overpriced battery, CD-R, or $90 HDMI cable.
- goostavos 12y ago
  >$90 HDMI cable Ah, I don't miss being required to hock those at customers. We used to have to watch training videos (in Macromedia Flash!) about how Monster's special braiding technology transferred the bits with more fidelity. But they really weren't the worst offender. "Overpriced" doesn't begin to describe the markup on their batteries. When I worked there -- and i'm sure it's even more now -- it was several hundred percent. It was absurd to the point that I went to my boss for clarification thinking that maybe the POS drops decimal places or something.