17 ms·

RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

205 points by dewitt 12y ago

zackmorris 12y ago
I'm late to the game on this but Radio Shack has one thing the rest of us don't, and that's access to capital. I think they should sell the company to their employees and form a collective with borrowing power in order to fund some of the more compelling technologies that are sorely needed today like rooftop wifi meshnets or burner wimax cell phones that can be used to tether laptops for free. There are so many crowdfunded projects that would benefit from a technology co-op taking the place of institutional investors. Then go back to their roots as a local store that keeps certain niche products in stock. For example, when I need parts from microchip.com, I should be able to have them sent to my local Radio Shack and pick them up the next day (if they aren't already there). So basically their business model would be to be a local subsidiary of amazon.com that specializes in up and coming technology. The information about who’s buying what and what they are building could be more valuable than sales. I guess to summarize they would be a farmer’s market for technology, where people could buy shelf space and showcase their creations, which as far as I can tell doesn’t exist in most cities. We came close where I live during the Great Recession when big box stores were closing like crazy and the space was converted to bazaars. Unfortunately there were a lot more nicknacks than crafts because nobody had any money to buy anything. It would have been so awesome to be able to buy things like solar panels or hydroponics garden kits but usually we’d spend our money on a chair or whatever.
janesvilleseo 12y ago
Late to the party, but it may be interesting if Best Buy buys them and turns them all into their Best Buy Mobile stores. RS already sells a ton of cell phones. Their locations are set up well for this, and the staff already trained to sell them.
aaronem 12y ago
The clearance sales will be fun.
DigitalSea 12y ago
I live in Australia, so when I was a kid it wasn't called Radioshack here, but rather Tandy Electronics (same company though, different name). You could by electronic components; resistors, LED's, hobbyist kits, breadboards and all kinds of electric items. Then they started moving out of the space into more consumer focused electronics, eventually you couldn't even buy a a packet of LED's like you once could. Eventually forgoing non-consumer focused electronic components altogether. Such a shame that a company as iconic as Radioshack is filing for bankruptcy. Would things have been different if they stayed in the electronic component/hobbyist side of things? Who knows. They obviously got out of the components game for a reason. Here in Australia we have Jaycar Electronics which is exactly how I remember Tandy being when I was a kid. Electronic components, educational breadboard/electronic kits, weird gadgets, DIY kits and more. They seem to be doing fairly well and best of all: no televisions or computers in sight.
shams93 12y ago
time to grab an arduino for like $10 just before the local one closes its doors lmfao
easytiger 12y ago
Are paywalls ok on HN? http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-radioshack-prepares-to-file-for-bankruptcy-wsj-2015-1?r=US http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-radioshack-prepares-to-file-...
- poopsintub 12y ago
  Paywalls are nsfl. Thanks for the link.
  - poopsintub 12y ago
    The paywall link made it to the top of the front page, but somehow I'm down-voted...go figure.
- hga 12y ago
  At least for this item, the paywall that gives you the first paragraph and first bit of the 2nd is OK, the simple fact that's the situation has gone from the well known dire state to "reliably rumored" to do a bankruptcy and roughly when is all we really need.
- egeozcan 12y ago
  A tip: Try searching the title on Google. They seem to give you some free articles per day when you come through a Google search.
  - ssewell 12y ago
    I've also had success searching for the exact URL in Google. It usually appears as the first link and you can bypass the paywall.
tankenmate 12y ago
Lack of vision; blinkers on and plow forward. Of all the customer bases out there you would think that most Radio Shack customers would be far more favourable to ordering via the Internet and preferring delivery. I'm a bit surprised they didn't move more towards a RS / Farnell business with the occasional small shop front combined with a warehouse model (a la Argos).
gregd 12y ago
I graduated from high school in the 80s. My first computer was a TRS-80 WITH a cassette tape to save my programs to. How RS went from being ubiquitous to a laughing stock is beyond me, but I remember seeing the downfall during the 90s when they started offering really cheap toys (like remote controlled cars). They almost became embarrassing.
- subdane 12y ago
  While I share your sentiment, in actuality they were likely already a laughing stock in 1985 when this Jobs interview ran, "Radio Shack is totally out of the picture. They have missed the boat. Radio Shack tried to squeeze the computer into their model of retailing, which in my opinion often meant selling second-rate products or low-end products in a surplus-store environment." http://longform.org/stories/playboy-interview-steve-jobs http://longform.org/stories/playboy-interview-steve-jobs
  - ghaff 12y ago
    I find there's a lot of romantic nostalgia. I accept that there are doubtless examples where Radio Shack stores were hubs for ham radio or electronics activity or whatever. And, certainly, the average skills of Radio Shack employees are a lot lower than they were at one time. But Radio Shack always sold huge quantities of crap (e.g. laughable stereo gear) to people who mostly didn't know any better along with generally overpriced cables etc. at a time when random components weren't necessarily all that easy to find elsewhere. I remember Radio Shack being useful when I needed an adapter or a cable. But I can't say that I ever particularly loved the place.
- troymc 12y ago
  My first computer was also a TRS-80 from Radio Shack. We'd go to Radio Shack to get new game cartridges, new cassette tape games, magazines with actual code in them (!), and even an upgrade from 8K to 16K RAM. Those days are long gone. I understand why they got into selling other stuff, but now one can get all that other stuff elsewhere, often at lower cost…
- tod222 12y ago
moron4hire 12y ago
Last time I was at a Radio Shack, I was just starting to learn electronics. I bought parts to build a battery-powered guitar amplifier: LM386 IC, a small loud speaker, a handful of capacitors and resistors, a roll of wire, a project enclosure, a couple of potentiometers, knobs for them, and a switch. Just the sort of stuff one would expect to find at a Radio Shack (though, increasingly, cannot find). The store manager checked me out and made some crack about, "what are you making? Some kind of bomb?" This was around the time that the city of Boston decided to go completely nutso and assume everything that had a wire sticking out of it was a bomb, find the people who made it, and then destroy their lives for "making a bomb hoax", regardless of what the item actually was. I had a flash of an image in my head of some soccer mom walking by the store in the mall, hearing the "bomb" quip, and calling the cops to send in the SWAT team. I didn't expect the manager to know that speakers and amplifier chips don't go in a bomb. I mean, he was a manager at a Radio Shack, we're not talking about the cream of the crop here. But I did expect him to have a little tact and not make the sort of stupid jokes that our trigger-happy, security-theater-conscious society has demonstrated a gleeful willingness to destroy lives over.
ck2 12y ago
I still miss Heathkit Radio Shack not so much in the age of the internet.
smackfu 12y ago
What happens to the franchise stores when the parent company goes bankrupt?
- bluedino 12y ago
  Not sure in their case. But the Sbarro's around here all turned into generic pizza places, as far as I can tell everything tastes about the same.
  - boydjd 12y ago
    Huh? Sbarro's still exists...
    - smackfu 12y ago
      Yeah, I think they just closed a couple hundred locations during one of their bankruptcies.
    - plingamp 12y ago
      Yea man! It's my favorite pizza place in NYC :)
      - twangist 12y ago
        If THAT's your favorite pizza in NYC, of all places, ... well, you need to sample the local wares more. Or you have no idea what "pizza" means.
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  Depends upon thheir agreement, and who winds up with the RS assets. Franchisees might have to replace the signage.
debacle 12y ago
Can we not link to stories behind the WSJ paywall?
- matthewmcg 12y ago
  Agreed, but for this one you get free access if you are referred from Google: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCEQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fradioshack-prepares-bankruptcy-filing-1421279360&ei=nua3VM_kCZb_sATjoILoBA&usg=AFQjCNFopuCPFpIHxRkKjDhAPTnV5PqK1g&bvm=bv.83640239,d.cWc https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
  - linker3000 12y ago
    Doesn't get me in. (UK)
GCA10 12y ago
I'm amazed they lasted this long. There's a Radio Shack two doors down from my office. I go in about 5x/year to buy batteries, USB cables or such stuff. Each time there's a new manager. Or a new clerk. Some are polite; some don't bother -- but nobody has a clue. The stores seem totally dependent on weird promotions (buy 16 batteries; get 8 free) or copycat cell-phone deals in an era where there's always a specialized AT&T or Verizon store within a two minute walk. Meanwhile, they've deskilled the places to the point that customers can get much better advice from the reviews on Amazon than from a Radio Shack clerk.
- damon_c 12y ago
  A new RadioShack store JUST opened around the corner from me a few weeks ago. I assume it was a short term holiday season thing.
  - GCA10 12y ago
    Typical big-company clumsiness. The store-opening expert didn't get the memo about a possible bankruptcy filing. Or if it did arrive, our go-getter decided that the best way to avoid getting fired was to be right in the middle of a project that couldn't be canceled.
    - pyre 12y ago
      I'm assuming that upper management wants things to be "business as usual" until the filing, otherwise the news would leak.
  - ojbyrne 12y ago
    Bankruptcy doesn't necessarily mean close everything down. Perhaps that location is perceived as having a chance at profitability.
dewitt 12y ago
Apologies about the link to a restricted site. I didn't notice it since I landed on the article via a search. Out of curiosity, since several comments here complained about the paywall ("paywalls are nsfl"), and an equal number or more on HN run adblockers and/or openly dislike ads in general (the whole "you are the product" meme), how do you think news sites should monetize? Seems like newspapers still add value in our lives (I know the WSJ does for me), but if they don't find a way to make money, either through paid subscriptions or advertisements, they'll be out of business just as fast as RadioShack.
- zokier 12y ago
  I think paywalls are reasonable good way (from consumer point of view) to bring in money, although I realize that it probably would mean scaling down for many major publications. The LWN model might be the ideal balance point; recent items are subscriber-only, older stuff is free. That should work even better for WSJ style publication where I'd assume most people are more interested in breaking news rather than week old stuff. I can understand where the anti-paywall sentiment stems from. We have been conditioned for over an decade to get free news from web. Meanwhile piratism has become mainstream and anti-copyright movement has grown, both which have changed peoples ways of thinking about value of information etc. Some might also think paywalls to be exploitative bait-and-switch tactic, which admittedly might be true in some cases. Of course there is stark difference between supporting paywalls as a concept, and supporting posting links to paywalled content to places like HN (or reddit or /. etc), because you are kinda doing some "viral" marketing for the publication and dividing the community to those who subscribe and those who do not. That will inherently limit the communitys ability to discuss the content.
  - bentcorner 12y ago
    Complete aside, but I just did a google search for "site:news.ycombinator.com lwn.net" and filtered to "this past week" to make a comment similar to yours, and Google found your comment, which is 24 minutes old right now. I'm pretty jaded with internet search, but frankly I'm astounded (Although I might have just gotten lucky with the spider).
- 12y ago
wycklendt14 12y ago
I worked at RadioShack for 2 years in college in 2003 and I can say with out a doubt that the upper management lead the downfall of that company. They abandoned their core customers of electronics hobbyists and turned there employees into salesmen. I got paid $5.50 an hour but was told that was OK because I made commissions from cell phone sales which maybe upped my pay to $6.00 on a good day. No wonder there constantly rated as one of the worst companies to work for... If they would have paid employees better they may have been able to get people that could actually help customers and they might still be around today. Good bye RadioShack, I won't miss you.
- soylentcola 12y ago
  Don't forget how you had to sell a certain amount every day for a week in order to even qualify for commission/bonus/spiff/whatever they were calling it that week. Then they wouldn't schedule you for enough hours/shifts to possibly meet that number. And don't you just miss the Sunday sales meetings where you had to drive someplace and listen to some suit go on about HOTASSS or whatever the stupid acronym was?
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  Tandy companies' management has always been insane.
- marincounty 12y ago
  It's almost like upper management went out of their way to irritate employees and customers? I had a manager literally follow me out the store trying to get me to buy a cell phone. I never understood the Tie requirement--it's a electronics store? I applied in high school, but lasted one day with a angry local manager.(I don't blame the local manager--he had two, or three jobs at the time). I knew the problem was that upper management was stuck in the 50's; much like Sears?
- wambotron 12y ago
  Funny, I applied to work there around the same time. I was working at a deli at the time, making $7/hr, thinking "man there has to be something better." I thought of how I liked going to Radio Shack when I was younger, and how it might be a good experience to work there. The day I went to apply, they asked if I'd be OK making commissions. I asked what the base was, and they replied something similar to $5/hr. I asked what commissions came from, the manager said "everything!" On my way out, one of the employees stopped me and told me they collectively barely made any commissions and to stay where I was. I went in there quite a few times after that and never saw the same people working. I guess they had a lot of turnover.
whistlerbrk 12y ago
Why couldn't they just stay a hobbyist store instead of schlepping cell phones? This stuff is cyclical and we're on the up-cycle now as they are going bankrupt. Instead of having their employees push plans they could have had them grow and share their knowledge of electronics. Sad, this place was near and dear to me for a bit.
- wdewind 12y ago
  Because what you're talking about is a much, much smaller business.
  - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
    Adafruit, Sparkfun, et al, might like a word with you. Even though they are smaller businesses, they are thriving, there is nothing to say that they would be if RS had taken the same road.
    - themoonbus 12y ago
      It doesn't matter that they are successful though, they operate on a much, much smaller scale than Radioshack. The maker market isn't nearly large enough to sustain a company of that size... that is to say, if Radioshack shrank to the size of one of Adafruit, it be a colossal failure as a corporation. The only chance they had to stay relevant was to challenge the Best Buy's of the world, but they failed to do that.
      - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
        Right I posted a conjecture that RS might be able to grow the maker market. >The maker market isn't nearly large enough to sustain a company of that size. Well, neither are any of the other markets RS targeted, obviously. I wasn't proposing that RS go all-in on Raspberry pis. >The only chance they had to stay relevant was to challenge the Best Buy's of the world, but they failed to do that. Best Buy is not exactly killing it, but RS could have probably done something interesting there, I agree.
bythe4mile 12y ago
With the maker movement picking up, I almost feel that RadioShack could have done so much more in the hobbyist electronics market. They could have had Arduino kits and additions, 3D printers, drone parts etc, instead of just the go to store for cables. I can almost see the RadioShack of the bygone days that hosted electronic clubs which could have had a comeback.
- spiritplumber 12y ago
  They tried to do this, at least over here (North SF bay). The local RS has (had?) Arduino and Propeller kits. At crazy prices, sure, but there have been a couple of "Dammit, it's Sunday and I need to finish this thing by Monday morning" saves for me.
- tuxracer 12y ago
  Coincidentally I just yesterday bought an Arduino Yun, starter kit, and sensors. They were located near the 3D printer that was on sale. Maybe part of their problem is marketing.
- thawkins 12y ago
  I bought my first Arduino mega2560 at RS for $59.95. Now i order them direct from dx.com at $15 for a clone that is exactly the same.
gregd 12y ago
RadioShack could make a comeback if the Heathkit resurgence ever comes to fruition: http://www.heathkit.com/ http://www.heathkit.com/ They should partner with them!
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  Not going to happen. https://www.adafruit.com/blog/2014/12/22/update-heathkit-has-updated-their-facebook-page-heathkit-heathkit/ https://www.adafruit.com/blog/2014/12/22/update-heathkit-has...
zwieback 12y ago
It's about time - the RadioShack I grew up with died years ago.
copsarebastards 12y ago
A lot of people think RadioShack should have made the transition to internet sales, but I think that they actually started failing earlier, when they expanded into a non-technical market. In the 80s and 90s I could go into a Radio Shack and buy resistors, fuses, soldering equipment, breadboards, various controllers and sensors, hard drives, processors: everything I needed to assemble an electronics project, fix a computer, make something. But in the mid-late 90s they started switching over to a more general consumer model. Bins of parts were replaced by shiny cell-phone display cases. Knowledgeable fat bearded nerds were replaced by skinny college students working a retail job until they got their degree. The last time I went into a RadioShack I just wanted a potentiometer and they literally didn't have any electronics parts. The tragedy here is that this transition completed at about the same time the maker movement started to emerge a little after the turn of the millennium.
- mc32 12y ago
  The only thing I can think of that could have helped them prolong their agony is to join with the iFixits or iCrackeds of the world --back in the early 2000s maybe had they been the 'geeksquad' then again, maybe not. But they didn't even try...
- mhb 12y ago
  A lot of people think RadioShack should have made the transition to internet sales Huh? Like http://www.radioshack.com/ http://www.radioshack.com/
  - omni 12y ago
    Pretty sure parent was implying they should close down their massive brick-and-mortar retail presence.
    - copsarebastards 12y ago
      Yes.
- bunderbunder 12y ago
specialp 12y ago
Radio Shack cannot make money selling hobbyist things to support their expensive retail locations. We all love that kind of stuff but admit it, that business has gone online to places like Adafruit. Even hardcore electronic component retailers that were in low rent industrial parks, or in my case a guy that operated out of his basement when he could not afford the rent in his industrial park have closed. For years cell phones and people not smart enough to order cables from Monoprice and the like had powered their business. People like me would go to Radio Shack to buy emergency things like a common transistor, or solder, and also to gobble up their ancient hobbyist stuff on clearance. There is no model for small electronics stores anymore selling any type of good. Hell even the big box places like Best Buy are under immense pressure from online retailers.
- hellgas00 12y ago
  I live in Toronto, Canada where there are a bunch of independent stores that sell hobbyist electronics and seem to make a good profit doing so, so the market isn't dead. I like to buy stuff online but there have been plenty of times where I've been stuck needing a sensor, resistor, or things of that sort, and don't want to wait for 2 weeks for it to ship from China. It's a false premise to say that electronic component sales moved online when these isn't much in the way of a flagship brick and mortar location to purchase these goods. RS made a choice to move away from a potentially growing market, a market that they owned and could have expanded, and inevitably pushed their customers online. Just my 2c, but I'm amazed that they thought they would move in on BestBuy (and FutureShop in Canada) territory and be able to compete.
  - syntheticnature 12y ago
    I don't disagree, but there is a scale issue Radio Shack has. As a quick example: Population of Toronto, Canada: 2.5 million. From http://wheretobuy.klab.ca/ http://wheretobuy.klab.ca/ I see seven stores mentioned for electronic components. Population (not including the large college population which perhaps adds another 33%) of the county where I live: 155,400. Number of Radio Shack stores at present: 3. (There used to be two more.) Even assuming the list for Toronto is only half of the relevant stores, Radio Shack would have to close down a lot of stores to resize similarly for the hobbyist market.
funkdobiest 12y ago
Last time I was in RadioShack was in the 90's in Washington DC, and I went there for a connector, and there were literally 20 people in line all buying minutes for cell phones, with only one person in the store. I thought this was some sort of hidden camera reality/joke tv show. I just put the item down and left.
- mistermumble 12y ago
  I remember going to RS stores to buy a 99 cent part and the clerk having to write, in long hand, on a triplicate form, my name and address and the item, before entering the amount on a cash register. I refused to give my info, and he said he could not sell me the part without it, so I said: "OK, my name is John Doe at 123 Main Street". He looked at me quizically and then wrote it down on the form without a word. For a long time I avoided Radio Shack stores because I did not want to go through this charade. Only when desperate ("I need this connector right now"). The desperate-user scenario is not one for business success, especially when selling 99 cent parts.
  - funkdobiest 12y ago
    I totally forgot about that! I used to give them 1600 Pennsylvania as my address. I was bike messenger at the time so I knew all the good addresses in DC and would give them all the big federal buildings.
  - danielweber 12y ago
    Radio Shack was infamous for collecting customer information. "No, we can't sell you without this information." RS will be beloved by business-school types for how many different big mistakes it made.
- syntheticnature 12y ago
  This sounds almost identical to my last time in RadioShack, except instead of 20 people, there were two couples, each doing some contract change so onerous that I waited half an hour to buy the component in my hand -- and only got out then because one of the two clerks decided to put the cell phone contract bits on hold and let me buy my item.
jack-r-abbit 12y ago
The day before Christmas I found myself at a Radio Shack looking for jumper wires to go with an Arduino/breadboard kit I bought my daughter for Christmas. (A mix up with my wife's Amazon order left us suddenly without jumpers. Desperate times, desperate measures.) What a sad place. I ended up with some crappy jumpers that cost 2x more than the good ones we wanted from Amazon. The component section of RS is a joke. They used to be my go to in college (early 90s) when I needed components for a project. Now they are just trash. I left there Christmas Eve thankful I had some jumpers but they have now joined Walmart on my list of places I will only go if I am truly desperate and have exhausted all other options.
- wozniacki 12y ago
  May I ask why is it that Walmart (for you) belongs in the same bin as Radioshack, in terms of the variety of offerings and availability? Do you prefer Target or some other store for a greater selection or does your household mostly shop at Amazon? I've heard Walmart was making a shift to smaller, approachable and more centrally located stores and was curious to see if this was the reason why.
  - jack-r-abbit 12y ago
    To put it bluntly... our Walmart is gross and is populated by gross people. There is a lot of truth to the "People of Walmart" meme in our Walmart.
  - glesica 12y ago
    Walmart makes me feel depressed. Piles of awful, consumeristic shit everywhere. This, plus the fact that it is owned and run by truly terrible (in my opinion) people mean I go there only as an absolute last resort. I try to buy most things at non-chain or smaller chain stores (especially those that are known to treat their employees better) when I can.
    - Tloewald 12y ago
      I prefer not to shop at a place where the employees don't look like they can make ends meet. I'm not sure that is helping or hurting people on the whole, but it makes me feel better. I wish places which underpaid their staff allowed you to pay a surcharge that would be distributed to the staff (plenty of supermarkets, petsmart, etc. will try to hit you up for small charitable donations -- I'd much rather add a few dollars to my bill to pay the employees better).
quadstick 12y ago
As a Geezer Geek, this breaks my heart. When I was eight years old, my mom dragged me along to the Tandy Leather Company so my sister could buy some leather for some stupid project. In the corner of that huge store was a section with all kinds of electronic parts. I was fascinated. My mom bought me a crystal radio kit, some books and a CK722 germanium transistor, and later, an Ocean Hopper shortwave receiver (all of which I still have). For another generation, it will be the TRS-80 that was their first love, electronically speaking. Before they lost their way, Radio Shack started a lot of engineers down their career path and it is very sad to see this outcome.
sharkweek 12y ago
One of my favorite writers covered his tenure at RadioShack back in the early/mid augts http://www.sbnation.com/2014/11/26/7281129/radioshack-eulogy-stories http://www.sbnation.com/2014/11/26/7281129/radioshack-eulogy... It's one of the funniest/most heartbreaking articles I have ever read, but also explains a lot about RadioShack's slow spiraling collapse.
- danielweber 12y ago
  This is a wonderful story. A management clusterfudge all the way. I'm confused by him saying that you don't get commissions until hitting a threshold that he "barely" hit once, and then a paragraph later he talks about someone returning phones that got him a $40 commission (so he now loses that commission).
  - HCIdivision17 12y ago
    It is actually likely as bad as you'd imagine. Think about how you could rationalize paying minimum wage, but then docking the pay. Give up? Read the comment by `pud in another thread a couple months back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8665082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8665082 The shorter seems to be that they were always on commision, with a default of minimum wage. Should a return occur, the commision would be removed, even if that dropped them below minimum wage. EDIT: Note further in the thread that a Canadian worker always got minimum wage. So it's possible the sleaze varied by region.
    - pjc50 12y ago
      In countries with working legal systems, minimum wage means what it says, so removing the commission to drop pay below minimum wage levels would be illegal, and likely to be enforced.
  - knd775 12y ago
    I think that they got a sales commission for everything sold after a threshold, but they always got a commission for mobile phones in particular (likely through the carrier).
gtjay 12y ago
Having moved to Australia in recent years, I was very happy to see that JayCar, their equivalent to Radio Shack, seemed to be doing quite well. This is judging by what I've seen of the stores in what is considered a fairly backwards part of Australia (Queensland). The difference seems to be two-fold. First, Jaycar didn't go through an insane expansion (there are only 12 or so locations per state). Second, they've grown "out" from their core market of electronics hobbyist instead of betraying it. Just a few examples: custom car stereos, solar panel accessories, camping/RV electronics, boating electronics, and DJ-stuff like laser projectors. This is all in addition to the arduino and 3D printing stuff that you'd expect. There's a huge amount of cross-over between these markets, which works out great for Jaycar. There is one additional factor keeping Jaycar healthy that probably shouldn't be underplayed. Due to mining and a less crypto-facist view of unions, Australia has not (yet) completely gutted it's blue-collar market and culture. Jaycar advertises almost exclusively to this "tradie" (as the Australians call it) demographic. Jaycar is marketed as a "manly" thing, not a "nerd" or "tech" thing. In fact, it's even drummed up minor controversy from feminist as being exclusionary with ads focusing on "leaving her to go to your man-cave" and whatnot. This part of Jaycar's success probably can't be replicated stateside. The market of people who have the skills to fix a small electric outboard motor and can still afford one died with the rest of blue-collar culture and jobs.
- balls187 12y ago
  How much different are retail vs internet prices in AUS? I just imagine because of AUS (relative) isolation, that internet transactions aren't much cheaper than retail. Pure speculation.
  - sitharus 12y ago
    The difference is significant, but if you need two resistors it's $0.50 each, or a bag of 100 from the internet for $5 + shipping + waiting, then having 98 left over. Unless it's a particularly common part you'll never use the 98, so you've spent $4 more.
- endgame 12y ago
  Another thing that probably helped is that Dick Smith Electronics moved out of that space and became Yet Another Consumer Electronics Store.
tommccabe 12y ago
How soon until Amazon buys the entire chain in order to get a distribution presence across the country?
- shiftpgdn 12y ago
  As far as I know Radioshack doesn't own any of their stores so they're just leasing the retail space. Amazon would be better off opening new retail fronts.
joeyh 12y ago
Good riddance. May whatever small void it leaves be filled by a diversity of mom-and-pop electronics stores. There's one such store in my area that seems to do well enough catering to the professional/hobby markets, with a couple locations, and has been around for decades. (Oddly it also has free popcorn.)
- orthecreedence 12y ago
  Agreed, in Santa Cruz there's Santa Cruz Electronics, which has tons of microprocessors/microcontrollers, tons of bare components, higher-level electronics, etc. It's what Radio Shack used to be before it turned into a consumer electronics reseller with outrageous markups and one tiny section tucked away in the back that has maybe 4 resistors and a couple of switches. I haven't been in SC electonics for a few years, but last time I was there I was like a kid in a candy store. However, it always sucks to hear people will be losing their jobs. I feel for the Radio Shack employees.
  - Florin_Andrei 12y ago
    I'll have to visit that store next time I'm in SC.
ben174 12y ago
Even CEO Can't Figure Out How RadioShack Still In Business http://www.theonion.com/articles/even-ceo-cant-figure-out-how-radioshack-still-in-b,2190/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/even-ceo-cant-figure-out-ho...
deleted 12y ago
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ssharp 12y ago
I was building an electronics project last year and found it to be very helpful to go to my local RadioShack and just browse the components. Although they didn't have a huge selection and the employees knew nothing about any of it, any selection is greater than the selection anywhere else. For people who don't live in a big city, many don't have access to electronic components offline. You can get stuff on Amazon and SparkFun, with much more selection, but sometimes it's nicer to just browse in person, even if it's tucked away in the back corner.
aceperry 12y ago
It's a shame. RS doesn't really have much anymore in the way of electronics components, but they have some parts which cater to the arduino/maker community which helps when in a pinch. I really missed being able to get just about any electronic component when I moved from the southbay to SF. RS is now the only place where I could get the bare essentials in San Francisco.
drum 12y ago
RadioShack sounds like an incredible opportunity for a blue chip software company wanting to get into hardware with a brick and mortar presence. Thousands of retail locations ready to go, all across the US has to be worth something to somebody.
analog31 12y ago
I wonder if the proliferation of component types, even for hobbyists, would just be overwhelming for a brick and mortar store. As a kid, I shopped at Radio Shack all the time. I designed things around the parts that I knew they had, but it was still a pretty small selection. When I got my first Digi-Key catalog (remember when it was about 1/4 inch thick?) I was just astounded by the variety of parts that I had no idea even existed, such as interesting IC's. Jameco and Mouser each had their own spin on what goodies I might like to have. So I wonder if brick-and-mortar hobbyist electronics parts really still makes sense in this day and age.
pnathan 12y ago
If you live near Seattle, I recommend Vetco on the Eastside. It's what RadioShack should be.
Animats 12y ago
This bankruptcy has been long anticipated. It's time. There was a time when it was hard for hobbyists to buy parts. Even in Silicon Valley. I used to have a commercial account with Hamilton/Avnet just so I could order and pick up at will-call. The alternative was ordering from Allied Radio, with two week delivery and a 5% error rate. Now, anybody can order from Digi-Key, and get delivery tomorrow if you pay for express shipping. There's not even a minimum order. If you're looking for a business model, consider a hobbyist front end to Digi-Key and Mouser. Digi-Key has about 40 options for a 1/10 watt 100 ohm leaded resistor. This overwhelms many hobbyists. (Do I need flame resistance?) Octopart does some of this, but a social component is needed. Something like Github for hardware, with design files, bills of materials, issue tracking, etc.
- sam 12y ago
  Sam from Octopart here. Our Common Parts Library is an effort to distill commonly used components for connected device applications, https://octopart.com/common-parts-library https://octopart.com/common-parts-library . But the list doesn't have common prototyping components like radially leaded resistors (it's almost all SMT parts). I could imagine a "Common Parts Library for Prototyping". I'd love to hear feedback on something like this. Also, check out our lightweight Bill of Materials Manager, https://octopart.com/bom-lookup/manage https://octopart.com/bom-lookup/manage It has built in collaboration features - it can be collaboratively edited much like Google Docs.
- hugs 12y ago
  > consider a hobbyist front end to Digi-Key and Mouser Adafruit and SparkFun are that. SparkFun even explicitly mentions the Digikey part for boring stuff like capacitors. (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8375 https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8375)
claystu 12y ago
The best part about this thread are all the recommendations for websites to replace RadioShack.
DanBlake 12y ago
Nobody seems to have a good answer for what RS should become to avoid shutting down. The most common answer is to go back to its roots and embrace the maker market and stock up on things like 3d printers, breadboards and arduinos. I think this is the wrong idea, since the market is nowhere near large enough to support the vast amounts of stores RS has. I think if I was the CEO, I would focus on being a boutique shop for neat stuff. Kind of like a brookstone for electronics. They would have google glass, nest, wearables, smart home stuff. They would have things you cant buy at best buy like high end headphones and microphones. Not only that, but it would have knowledgeable staff who could tell me why I should go with the Denon headphones and the Fiio amplifier and skip the sonys. Broadly, alot of the type of stuff you see on kickstarter would feel like their inventory. Yes, you would have 3d printers and filament in the store also, but the new RS store would not revolve around that- It would be there because it was 'cool'. I would much rather see way less capacitors and fuses and more fuut hammocks and 4th design titanium iphone cases. But you would also see high end stuff you normally cant buy in best buy because its too expensive to have the inventory floated to all their stores. There is a surprising amount of laptops that are 'too high end' to ever show up in BB and only rarely appear in microsoft stores. That is also the case with audio equipment in spades. Thats a store I would go to. I write a bit more about this here : http://harknesslabs.com/post/108193041064/how-to-save-radio-shack http://harknesslabs.com/post/108193041064/how-to-save-radio-...
- jdietrich 12y ago
  Here in the UK, Maplin Electronics are debt free and profitable with a fundamentally similar business model to the old Radio Shack. Piles of radio control cars and weather stations at the front of store, cables and miscellaneous electronics accessories in the middle, components at the back. Maplin thrive on their lack of focus - you go there when you need a Lighting cable or an RJ45 faceplate, and you leave with what you came for plus something you didn't know you even wanted. It seems to me that the only real difference is the quality of management. Maplin were struggling in the 90s, but were bought out by a private equity firm who turned the business around. There were no radical changes in direction, just a lot of incremental improvements to their core business. I think that Radio Shack have far too many stores, and the management is fixated on finding a silver bullet for the company's woes. The complaints I hear about Radio Shack seem to be mainly issues of basic merchandising and customer service - their stock is erratic and outdated, their staff are indifferent and poorly trained. If your basic pitch is "we know you can buy this stuff online for less, but we offer convenience and service" then you actually need to follow through on the latter.
kaa2102 12y ago
It would be sad to see my go-to electronics DIY-spot go away.
dlss 12y ago
farewell old friend
pkaye 12y ago
It was mentioned by someone here or on Reddit previously that there is a lot of financial bets going on on whether RadioShack survives or not. In many cases in the past those who are betting that they survive have given RadioShack a lifeline in terms of loans and financing in order for them to survive so that the investors win their bets. I'm sure this is still going on still and it is no longer a question of fundamentals for RadioShack and rather a high stakes power game in the financial markets.
api 12y ago
This is very sad. Radio Shack was my toy store as a kid, and bears some of the blame for making me who/what I am today.
jakejake 12y ago
This kinda sucks because, even though Radio Shack has always sold kinda cheap quality components, there were always there when you needed an adapter or plug or cable immediately. It seems like there are a lot of good ideas here about what market radio shack can go after, from the 3D maker crowd, to boutique electronics, etc. I think it would take quite a visionary high up in the RS corporation to make that happen, but it would be cool.
sizzzzlerz 12y ago
Let's stop with all the nostalgia for the Radio Shack of old. They haven't been that way for 20 years. Their management has completely misread the market, they abuse their employees, they offer nothing you can't get elsewhere, usually at better prices, and, frankly, they have become like your crazy uncle: prone to doing something odd, smells bad, and is constantly embarrassing the family. Stick a fork in them, they're done. They won't be missed because there is nothing there to miss.
- jordanpg 12y ago
  Even at 35, I have a weird feeling like I'm walking into a religious cult or being watched when I'm in these stores. I've avoided going into them since I was young and this has persisted to this day. It has to do with the creepy, overzealous way the employees interact with you and the panopticon-like layout of the stores. I only go to Radio Shack as a last resort and won't miss them. On the plus side, having lived in California and seen the magic fun that is Fry's, the minor vacuum left behind by RS might leave door open for something better. If not, I suppose I can wait a whole 48 hours for something from Prime.
joshstrange 12y ago
I know a lot of people here will defend RS for selling phones/plans because "They had to" but it marked the LAST time I set foot in a RS when I went to buy some parts I needed and they tried to sell me a Voyager because "It was better than an iPhone" (Verizon's "iPhone" they released soon after the iPhone released). From that moment on I have just ordered what I wanted online. That coupled with the fact that they stopped staffing with people who knew anything at all and instead staffed them with people who could sell more phones.
whoopdedo 12y ago
Everyone is thinking about the consumer retail service of Radio Shack. But there's a lot of small contractors who basically use them as an outsourced inventory. Phone techs, alarm and AV installers, three out of five times I'm going to see Radio Shack connectors and resistors in their tool kit. I imagine the reason most stores keep those parts is not for amateurs but professionals who don't want to have to wait for UPS and deal with an impatient client. That must be a business opportunity. If a Radio Shack store near you closes, stock up on F connectors, solder, and the most common resistor sizes then call around to contractors letting them know you can supply parts on demand.
brudgers 12y ago
If I were CEO, I'd become the Linux Store to compete with the Apple Stores and the Windows Stores -- there are some of those aren't there? There is a market for main-stream Linux and there's no retail presence. Going further Radio-Shack has a computer brand, "TRS". Get some low-end white-box laptops, slap Ubuntu on them and hire a few one-eyed-man-in-the-land-of-the-blind Linux "gurus" and have at it. It's the modern analogue of HeathKit but with a more fundamentally useful demographic. Their real-estate holdings are a match for computer shops - second and third tier retail space with small footprints. Apple has validated the idea that computer shops are viable...it's not just the Apple branding that makes them work, it's also the fact that if you're looking for a computer, you're not in a place with most of its floor space devoted to televisions. The other big change is that smartphones and tablets have proved that operating systems are not that important to users. A lot of people are fine with an old version of Android rather than something more polished...never mind the Kindle's success...or all the variation between website widgets and app interfaces . People have been exposed to a lot of variation, and have learned adaptation techniques. A computer doesn't need to look like Windows or OSX to keep people from freaking out. RadioShack has the experience in high-touch sales and the infrastructure to pull it off. All that's needed is the will.
- lisper 12y ago
  You should send the RS board a proposal. Maybe they'll hire you.
  - brudgers 12y ago
    Doubtful, undoubtedly. I'm not cut out for schmoozing wealth. Just for expressing the idea that there may be a space for computer stores.
nickysielicki 12y ago
I wanted to get a Beagle Bone Black over the holidays for some project. Didn't want to wait the 2 days for amazon, I wanted it that same day. They wanted $100... So I got mine off of amazon for $54. Nuff said.
harmonicon 12y ago
Urh, anyone think Amazon might buy them? It would be nice for Amazon to have a physical store to demo Fire products.
anigbrowl 12y ago
Nearly three years of losses and sales at their lowest levels in decades had forced the electronics chain to turn to debt investors for financial lifelines to stay in business. Objections from some of those same lenders prevented the company from closing hundreds of stores it felt it needed to shut down to stay afloat. Sounds like they want to asset-strip the business and only lent money in order to have more leverage than they would get by purchasing equity on the open market.
jhulla 12y ago
Radio Shack has a warm place in my childhood: the Radio Shack Battery Club. As a poor nerdlet in the early 80s, all my electronic projects were built with scavenged parts. Even so, I needed batteries. Batteries were not cheap - say compared to buying a gallon of milk for the family. So, I had my parents and siblings sign up with me for the Radio Shack battery club at the two Radio Shacks nearby. These battery cards entitled you to a free battery once a month. My family supported my habit - and between the two stores and our cards - I had a steady supply of batteries. Those batteries powered my devices and my development as an engineer. The first time I saw Fry's and WeirdStuff in the Bay Area in the early 90s, I think my heart skipped multiple beats. Seeing a DigiKey catalog for the first time had a similar effect. I haven't stepped in a RS in more than a decade. I am sorry to see them go.

205 points by dewitt 12y ago

I'm late to the game on this but Radio Shack has one thing the rest of us don't, and that's access to capital. I think they should sell the company to their employees and form a collective with borrowing power in order to fund some of the more compelling technologies that are sorely needed today like rooftop wifi meshnets or burner wimax cell phones that can be used to tether laptops for free. There are so many crowdfunded projects that would benefit from a technology co-op taking the place of institutional investors. Then go back to their roots as a local store that keeps certain niche products in stock. For example, when I need parts from microchip.com, I should be able to have them sent to my local Radio Shack and pick them up the next day (if they aren't already there). So basically their business model would be to be a local subsidiary of amazon.com that specializes in up and coming technology. The information about who’s buying what and what they are building could be more valuable than sales. I guess to summarize they would be a farmer’s market for technology, where people could buy shelf space and showcase their creations, which as far as I can tell doesn’t exist in most cities. We came close where I live during the Great Recession when big box stores were closing like crazy and the space was converted to bazaars. Unfortunately there were a lot more nicknacks than crafts because nobody had any money to buy anything. It would have been so awesome to be able to buy things like solar panels or hydroponics garden kits but usually we’d spend our money on a chair or whatever.

janesvilleseo 12y ago

Late to the party, but it may be interesting if Best Buy buys them and turns them all into their Best Buy Mobile stores. RS already sells a ton of cell phones. Their locations are set up well for this, and the staff already trained to sell them.

aaronem 12y ago

The clearance sales will be fun.

DigitalSea 12y ago

I live in Australia, so when I was a kid it wasn't called Radioshack here, but rather Tandy Electronics (same company though, different name). You could by electronic components; resistors, LED's, hobbyist kits, breadboards and all kinds of electric items. Then they started moving out of the space into more consumer focused electronics, eventually you couldn't even buy a a packet of LED's like you once could. Eventually forgoing non-consumer focused electronic components altogether. Such a shame that a company as iconic as Radioshack is filing for bankruptcy. Would things have been different if they stayed in the electronic component/hobbyist side of things? Who knows. They obviously got out of the components game for a reason. Here in Australia we have Jaycar Electronics which is exactly how I remember Tandy being when I was a kid. Electronic components, educational breadboard/electronic kits, weird gadgets, DIY kits and more. They seem to be doing fairly well and best of all: no televisions or computers in sight.

shams93 12y ago

time to grab an arduino for like $10 just before the local one closes its doors lmfao

easytiger 12y ago

Are paywalls ok on HN? http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-radioshack-prepares-to-file-for-bankruptcy-wsj-2015-1?r=US http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-radioshack-prepares-to-file-...

poopsintub 12y ago
Paywalls are nsfl. Thanks for the link.
- poopsintub 12y ago
  The paywall link made it to the top of the front page, but somehow I'm down-voted...go figure.
hga 12y ago
At least for this item, the paywall that gives you the first paragraph and first bit of the 2nd is OK, the simple fact that's the situation has gone from the well known dire state to "reliably rumored" to do a bankruptcy and roughly when is all we really need.
egeozcan 12y ago
A tip: Try searching the title on Google. They seem to give you some free articles per day when you come through a Google search.
- ssewell 12y ago
  I've also had success searching for the exact URL in Google. It usually appears as the first link and you can bypass the paywall.

tankenmate 12y ago

Lack of vision; blinkers on and plow forward. Of all the customer bases out there you would think that most Radio Shack customers would be far more favourable to ordering via the Internet and preferring delivery. I'm a bit surprised they didn't move more towards a RS / Farnell business with the occasional small shop front combined with a warehouse model (a la Argos).

gregd 12y ago

I graduated from high school in the 80s. My first computer was a TRS-80 WITH a cassette tape to save my programs to. How RS went from being ubiquitous to a laughing stock is beyond me, but I remember seeing the downfall during the 90s when they started offering really cheap toys (like remote controlled cars). They almost became embarrassing.

subdane 12y ago
While I share your sentiment, in actuality they were likely already a laughing stock in 1985 when this Jobs interview ran, "Radio Shack is totally out of the picture. They have missed the boat. Radio Shack tried to squeeze the computer into their model of retailing, which in my opinion often meant selling second-rate products or low-end products in a surplus-store environment." http://longform.org/stories/playboy-interview-steve-jobs http://longform.org/stories/playboy-interview-steve-jobs
- ghaff 12y ago
  I find there's a lot of romantic nostalgia. I accept that there are doubtless examples where Radio Shack stores were hubs for ham radio or electronics activity or whatever. And, certainly, the average skills of Radio Shack employees are a lot lower than they were at one time. But Radio Shack always sold huge quantities of crap (e.g. laughable stereo gear) to people who mostly didn't know any better along with generally overpriced cables etc. at a time when random components weren't necessarily all that easy to find elsewhere. I remember Radio Shack being useful when I needed an adapter or a cable. But I can't say that I ever particularly loved the place.
troymc 12y ago
My first computer was also a TRS-80 from Radio Shack. We'd go to Radio Shack to get new game cartridges, new cassette tape games, magazines with actual code in them (!), and even an upgrade from 8K to 16K RAM. Those days are long gone. I understand why they got into selling other stuff, but now one can get all that other stuff elsewhere, often at lower cost…
tod222 12y ago

moron4hire 12y ago

Last time I was at a Radio Shack, I was just starting to learn electronics. I bought parts to build a battery-powered guitar amplifier: LM386 IC, a small loud speaker, a handful of capacitors and resistors, a roll of wire, a project enclosure, a couple of potentiometers, knobs for them, and a switch. Just the sort of stuff one would expect to find at a Radio Shack (though, increasingly, cannot find). The store manager checked me out and made some crack about, "what are you making? Some kind of bomb?" This was around the time that the city of Boston decided to go completely nutso and assume everything that had a wire sticking out of it was a bomb, find the people who made it, and then destroy their lives for "making a bomb hoax", regardless of what the item actually was. I had a flash of an image in my head of some soccer mom walking by the store in the mall, hearing the "bomb" quip, and calling the cops to send in the SWAT team. I didn't expect the manager to know that speakers and amplifier chips don't go in a bomb. I mean, he was a manager at a Radio Shack, we're not talking about the cream of the crop here. But I did expect him to have a little tact and not make the sort of stupid jokes that our trigger-happy, security-theater-conscious society has demonstrated a gleeful willingness to destroy lives over.

ck2 12y ago

I still miss Heathkit Radio Shack not so much in the age of the internet.

smackfu 12y ago

What happens to the franchise stores when the parent company goes bankrupt?

bluedino 12y ago
Not sure in their case. But the Sbarro's around here all turned into generic pizza places, as far as I can tell everything tastes about the same.
- boydjd 12y ago
  Huh? Sbarro's still exists...
  - smackfu 12y ago
    Yeah, I think they just closed a couple hundred locations during one of their bankruptcies.
  - plingamp 12y ago
    Yea man! It's my favorite pizza place in NYC :)
    - twangist 12y ago
      If THAT's your favorite pizza in NYC, of all places, ... well, you need to sample the local wares more. Or you have no idea what "pizza" means.
fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
Depends upon thheir agreement, and who winds up with the RS assets. Franchisees might have to replace the signage.

debacle 12y ago

Can we not link to stories behind the WSJ paywall?

matthewmcg 12y ago
Agreed, but for this one you get free access if you are referred from Google: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCEQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fradioshack-prepares-bankruptcy-filing-1421279360&ei=nua3VM_kCZb_sATjoILoBA&usg=AFQjCNFopuCPFpIHxRkKjDhAPTnV5PqK1g&bvm=bv.83640239,d.cWc https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
- linker3000 12y ago
  Doesn't get me in. (UK)

GCA10 12y ago

I'm amazed they lasted this long. There's a Radio Shack two doors down from my office. I go in about 5x/year to buy batteries, USB cables or such stuff. Each time there's a new manager. Or a new clerk. Some are polite; some don't bother -- but nobody has a clue. The stores seem totally dependent on weird promotions (buy 16 batteries; get 8 free) or copycat cell-phone deals in an era where there's always a specialized AT&T or Verizon store within a two minute walk. Meanwhile, they've deskilled the places to the point that customers can get much better advice from the reviews on Amazon than from a Radio Shack clerk.

damon_c 12y ago
A new RadioShack store JUST opened around the corner from me a few weeks ago. I assume it was a short term holiday season thing.
- GCA10 12y ago
  Typical big-company clumsiness. The store-opening expert didn't get the memo about a possible bankruptcy filing. Or if it did arrive, our go-getter decided that the best way to avoid getting fired was to be right in the middle of a project that couldn't be canceled.
  - pyre 12y ago
    I'm assuming that upper management wants things to be "business as usual" until the filing, otherwise the news would leak.
- ojbyrne 12y ago
  Bankruptcy doesn't necessarily mean close everything down. Perhaps that location is perceived as having a chance at profitability.

dewitt 12y ago

Apologies about the link to a restricted site. I didn't notice it since I landed on the article via a search. Out of curiosity, since several comments here complained about the paywall ("paywalls are nsfl"), and an equal number or more on HN run adblockers and/or openly dislike ads in general (the whole "you are the product" meme), how do you think news sites should monetize? Seems like newspapers still add value in our lives (I know the WSJ does for me), but if they don't find a way to make money, either through paid subscriptions or advertisements, they'll be out of business just as fast as RadioShack.

zokier 12y ago
I think paywalls are reasonable good way (from consumer point of view) to bring in money, although I realize that it probably would mean scaling down for many major publications. The LWN model might be the ideal balance point; recent items are subscriber-only, older stuff is free. That should work even better for WSJ style publication where I'd assume most people are more interested in breaking news rather than week old stuff. I can understand where the anti-paywall sentiment stems from. We have been conditioned for over an decade to get free news from web. Meanwhile piratism has become mainstream and anti-copyright movement has grown, both which have changed peoples ways of thinking about value of information etc. Some might also think paywalls to be exploitative bait-and-switch tactic, which admittedly might be true in some cases. Of course there is stark difference between supporting paywalls as a concept, and supporting posting links to paywalled content to places like HN (or reddit or /. etc), because you are kinda doing some "viral" marketing for the publication and dividing the community to those who subscribe and those who do not. That will inherently limit the communitys ability to discuss the content.
- bentcorner 12y ago
  Complete aside, but I just did a google search for "site:news.ycombinator.com lwn.net" and filtered to "this past week" to make a comment similar to yours, and Google found your comment, which is 24 minutes old right now. I'm pretty jaded with internet search, but frankly I'm astounded (Although I might have just gotten lucky with the spider).
12y ago

wycklendt14 12y ago

I worked at RadioShack for 2 years in college in 2003 and I can say with out a doubt that the upper management lead the downfall of that company. They abandoned their core customers of electronics hobbyists and turned there employees into salesmen. I got paid $5.50 an hour but was told that was OK because I made commissions from cell phone sales which maybe upped my pay to $6.00 on a good day. No wonder there constantly rated as one of the worst companies to work for... If they would have paid employees better they may have been able to get people that could actually help customers and they might still be around today. Good bye RadioShack, I won't miss you.

soylentcola 12y ago
Don't forget how you had to sell a certain amount every day for a week in order to even qualify for commission/bonus/spiff/whatever they were calling it that week. Then they wouldn't schedule you for enough hours/shifts to possibly meet that number. And don't you just miss the Sunday sales meetings where you had to drive someplace and listen to some suit go on about HOTASSS or whatever the stupid acronym was?
fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
Tandy companies' management has always been insane.
marincounty 12y ago
It's almost like upper management went out of their way to irritate employees and customers? I had a manager literally follow me out the store trying to get me to buy a cell phone. I never understood the Tie requirement--it's a electronics store? I applied in high school, but lasted one day with a angry local manager.(I don't blame the local manager--he had two, or three jobs at the time). I knew the problem was that upper management was stuck in the 50's; much like Sears?
wambotron 12y ago
Funny, I applied to work there around the same time. I was working at a deli at the time, making $7/hr, thinking "man there has to be something better." I thought of how I liked going to Radio Shack when I was younger, and how it might be a good experience to work there. The day I went to apply, they asked if I'd be OK making commissions. I asked what the base was, and they replied something similar to $5/hr. I asked what commissions came from, the manager said "everything!" On my way out, one of the employees stopped me and told me they collectively barely made any commissions and to stay where I was. I went in there quite a few times after that and never saw the same people working. I guess they had a lot of turnover.

whistlerbrk 12y ago

Why couldn't they just stay a hobbyist store instead of schlepping cell phones? This stuff is cyclical and we're on the up-cycle now as they are going bankrupt. Instead of having their employees push plans they could have had them grow and share their knowledge of electronics. Sad, this place was near and dear to me for a bit.

wdewind 12y ago
Because what you're talking about is a much, much smaller business.
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  Adafruit, Sparkfun, et al, might like a word with you. Even though they are smaller businesses, they are thriving, there is nothing to say that they would be if RS had taken the same road.
  - themoonbus 12y ago
    It doesn't matter that they are successful though, they operate on a much, much smaller scale than Radioshack. The maker market isn't nearly large enough to sustain a company of that size... that is to say, if Radioshack shrank to the size of one of Adafruit, it be a colossal failure as a corporation. The only chance they had to stay relevant was to challenge the Best Buy's of the world, but they failed to do that.
    - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
      Right I posted a conjecture that RS might be able to grow the maker market. >The maker market isn't nearly large enough to sustain a company of that size. Well, neither are any of the other markets RS targeted, obviously. I wasn't proposing that RS go all-in on Raspberry pis. >The only chance they had to stay relevant was to challenge the Best Buy's of the world, but they failed to do that. Best Buy is not exactly killing it, but RS could have probably done something interesting there, I agree.

bythe4mile 12y ago

With the maker movement picking up, I almost feel that RadioShack could have done so much more in the hobbyist electronics market. They could have had Arduino kits and additions, 3D printers, drone parts etc, instead of just the go to store for cables. I can almost see the RadioShack of the bygone days that hosted electronic clubs which could have had a comeback.

spiritplumber 12y ago
They tried to do this, at least over here (North SF bay). The local RS has (had?) Arduino and Propeller kits. At crazy prices, sure, but there have been a couple of "Dammit, it's Sunday and I need to finish this thing by Monday morning" saves for me.
tuxracer 12y ago
Coincidentally I just yesterday bought an Arduino Yun, starter kit, and sensors. They were located near the 3D printer that was on sale. Maybe part of their problem is marketing.
thawkins 12y ago
I bought my first Arduino mega2560 at RS for $59.95. Now i order them direct from dx.com at $15 for a clone that is exactly the same.

gregd 12y ago

RadioShack could make a comeback if the Heathkit resurgence ever comes to fruition: http://www.heathkit.com/ http://www.heathkit.com/ They should partner with them!

fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
Not going to happen. https://www.adafruit.com/blog/2014/12/22/update-heathkit-has-updated-their-facebook-page-heathkit-heathkit/ https://www.adafruit.com/blog/2014/12/22/update-heathkit-has...

zwieback 12y ago

It's about time - the RadioShack I grew up with died years ago.

copsarebastards 12y ago

A lot of people think RadioShack should have made the transition to internet sales, but I think that they actually started failing earlier, when they expanded into a non-technical market. In the 80s and 90s I could go into a Radio Shack and buy resistors, fuses, soldering equipment, breadboards, various controllers and sensors, hard drives, processors: everything I needed to assemble an electronics project, fix a computer, make something. But in the mid-late 90s they started switching over to a more general consumer model. Bins of parts were replaced by shiny cell-phone display cases. Knowledgeable fat bearded nerds were replaced by skinny college students working a retail job until they got their degree. The last time I went into a RadioShack I just wanted a potentiometer and they literally didn't have any electronics parts. The tragedy here is that this transition completed at about the same time the maker movement started to emerge a little after the turn of the millennium.

mc32 12y ago
The only thing I can think of that could have helped them prolong their agony is to join with the iFixits or iCrackeds of the world --back in the early 2000s maybe had they been the 'geeksquad' then again, maybe not. But they didn't even try...
mhb 12y ago
A lot of people think RadioShack should have made the transition to internet sales Huh? Like http://www.radioshack.com/ http://www.radioshack.com/
- omni 12y ago
  Pretty sure parent was implying they should close down their massive brick-and-mortar retail presence.
  - copsarebastards 12y ago
    Yes.
bunderbunder 12y ago

specialp 12y ago

Radio Shack cannot make money selling hobbyist things to support their expensive retail locations. We all love that kind of stuff but admit it, that business has gone online to places like Adafruit. Even hardcore electronic component retailers that were in low rent industrial parks, or in my case a guy that operated out of his basement when he could not afford the rent in his industrial park have closed. For years cell phones and people not smart enough to order cables from Monoprice and the like had powered their business. People like me would go to Radio Shack to buy emergency things like a common transistor, or solder, and also to gobble up their ancient hobbyist stuff on clearance. There is no model for small electronics stores anymore selling any type of good. Hell even the big box places like Best Buy are under immense pressure from online retailers.

hellgas00 12y ago
I live in Toronto, Canada where there are a bunch of independent stores that sell hobbyist electronics and seem to make a good profit doing so, so the market isn't dead. I like to buy stuff online but there have been plenty of times where I've been stuck needing a sensor, resistor, or things of that sort, and don't want to wait for 2 weeks for it to ship from China. It's a false premise to say that electronic component sales moved online when these isn't much in the way of a flagship brick and mortar location to purchase these goods. RS made a choice to move away from a potentially growing market, a market that they owned and could have expanded, and inevitably pushed their customers online. Just my 2c, but I'm amazed that they thought they would move in on BestBuy (and FutureShop in Canada) territory and be able to compete.
- syntheticnature 12y ago
  I don't disagree, but there is a scale issue Radio Shack has. As a quick example: Population of Toronto, Canada: 2.5 million. From http://wheretobuy.klab.ca/ http://wheretobuy.klab.ca/ I see seven stores mentioned for electronic components. Population (not including the large college population which perhaps adds another 33%) of the county where I live: 155,400. Number of Radio Shack stores at present: 3. (There used to be two more.) Even assuming the list for Toronto is only half of the relevant stores, Radio Shack would have to close down a lot of stores to resize similarly for the hobbyist market.

funkdobiest 12y ago

Last time I was in RadioShack was in the 90's in Washington DC, and I went there for a connector, and there were literally 20 people in line all buying minutes for cell phones, with only one person in the store. I thought this was some sort of hidden camera reality/joke tv show. I just put the item down and left.

mistermumble 12y ago
I remember going to RS stores to buy a 99 cent part and the clerk having to write, in long hand, on a triplicate form, my name and address and the item, before entering the amount on a cash register. I refused to give my info, and he said he could not sell me the part without it, so I said: "OK, my name is John Doe at 123 Main Street". He looked at me quizically and then wrote it down on the form without a word. For a long time I avoided Radio Shack stores because I did not want to go through this charade. Only when desperate ("I need this connector right now"). The desperate-user scenario is not one for business success, especially when selling 99 cent parts.
- funkdobiest 12y ago
  I totally forgot about that! I used to give them 1600 Pennsylvania as my address. I was bike messenger at the time so I knew all the good addresses in DC and would give them all the big federal buildings.
- danielweber 12y ago
  Radio Shack was infamous for collecting customer information. "No, we can't sell you without this information." RS will be beloved by business-school types for how many different big mistakes it made.
syntheticnature 12y ago
This sounds almost identical to my last time in RadioShack, except instead of 20 people, there were two couples, each doing some contract change so onerous that I waited half an hour to buy the component in my hand -- and only got out then because one of the two clerks decided to put the cell phone contract bits on hold and let me buy my item.

jack-r-abbit 12y ago

The day before Christmas I found myself at a Radio Shack looking for jumper wires to go with an Arduino/breadboard kit I bought my daughter for Christmas. (A mix up with my wife's Amazon order left us suddenly without jumpers. Desperate times, desperate measures.) What a sad place. I ended up with some crappy jumpers that cost 2x more than the good ones we wanted from Amazon. The component section of RS is a joke. They used to be my go to in college (early 90s) when I needed components for a project. Now they are just trash. I left there Christmas Eve thankful I had some jumpers but they have now joined Walmart on my list of places I will only go if I am truly desperate and have exhausted all other options.

wozniacki 12y ago
May I ask why is it that Walmart (for you) belongs in the same bin as Radioshack, in terms of the variety of offerings and availability? Do you prefer Target or some other store for a greater selection or does your household mostly shop at Amazon? I've heard Walmart was making a shift to smaller, approachable and more centrally located stores and was curious to see if this was the reason why.
- jack-r-abbit 12y ago
  To put it bluntly... our Walmart is gross and is populated by gross people. There is a lot of truth to the "People of Walmart" meme in our Walmart.
- glesica 12y ago
  Walmart makes me feel depressed. Piles of awful, consumeristic shit everywhere. This, plus the fact that it is owned and run by truly terrible (in my opinion) people mean I go there only as an absolute last resort. I try to buy most things at non-chain or smaller chain stores (especially those that are known to treat their employees better) when I can.
  - Tloewald 12y ago
    I prefer not to shop at a place where the employees don't look like they can make ends meet. I'm not sure that is helping or hurting people on the whole, but it makes me feel better. I wish places which underpaid their staff allowed you to pay a surcharge that would be distributed to the staff (plenty of supermarkets, petsmart, etc. will try to hit you up for small charitable donations -- I'd much rather add a few dollars to my bill to pay the employees better).

quadstick 12y ago

As a Geezer Geek, this breaks my heart. When I was eight years old, my mom dragged me along to the Tandy Leather Company so my sister could buy some leather for some stupid project. In the corner of that huge store was a section with all kinds of electronic parts. I was fascinated. My mom bought me a crystal radio kit, some books and a CK722 germanium transistor, and later, an Ocean Hopper shortwave receiver (all of which I still have). For another generation, it will be the TRS-80 that was their first love, electronically speaking. Before they lost their way, Radio Shack started a lot of engineers down their career path and it is very sad to see this outcome.

sharkweek 12y ago

One of my favorite writers covered his tenure at RadioShack back in the early/mid augts http://www.sbnation.com/2014/11/26/7281129/radioshack-eulogy-stories http://www.sbnation.com/2014/11/26/7281129/radioshack-eulogy... It's one of the funniest/most heartbreaking articles I have ever read, but also explains a lot about RadioShack's slow spiraling collapse.

danielweber 12y ago
This is a wonderful story. A management clusterfudge all the way. I'm confused by him saying that you don't get commissions until hitting a threshold that he "barely" hit once, and then a paragraph later he talks about someone returning phones that got him a $40 commission (so he now loses that commission).
- HCIdivision17 12y ago
  It is actually likely as bad as you'd imagine. Think about how you could rationalize paying minimum wage, but then docking the pay. Give up? Read the comment by `pud in another thread a couple months back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8665082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8665082 The shorter seems to be that they were always on commision, with a default of minimum wage. Should a return occur, the commision would be removed, even if that dropped them below minimum wage. EDIT: Note further in the thread that a Canadian worker always got minimum wage. So it's possible the sleaze varied by region.
  - pjc50 12y ago
    In countries with working legal systems, minimum wage means what it says, so removing the commission to drop pay below minimum wage levels would be illegal, and likely to be enforced.
- knd775 12y ago
  I think that they got a sales commission for everything sold after a threshold, but they always got a commission for mobile phones in particular (likely through the carrier).

gtjay 12y ago

Having moved to Australia in recent years, I was very happy to see that JayCar, their equivalent to Radio Shack, seemed to be doing quite well. This is judging by what I've seen of the stores in what is considered a fairly backwards part of Australia (Queensland). The difference seems to be two-fold. First, Jaycar didn't go through an insane expansion (there are only 12 or so locations per state). Second, they've grown "out" from their core market of electronics hobbyist instead of betraying it. Just a few examples: custom car stereos, solar panel accessories, camping/RV electronics, boating electronics, and DJ-stuff like laser projectors. This is all in addition to the arduino and 3D printing stuff that you'd expect. There's a huge amount of cross-over between these markets, which works out great for Jaycar. There is one additional factor keeping Jaycar healthy that probably shouldn't be underplayed. Due to mining and a less crypto-facist view of unions, Australia has not (yet) completely gutted it's blue-collar market and culture. Jaycar advertises almost exclusively to this "tradie" (as the Australians call it) demographic. Jaycar is marketed as a "manly" thing, not a "nerd" or "tech" thing. In fact, it's even drummed up minor controversy from feminist as being exclusionary with ads focusing on "leaving her to go to your man-cave" and whatnot. This part of Jaycar's success probably can't be replicated stateside. The market of people who have the skills to fix a small electric outboard motor and can still afford one died with the rest of blue-collar culture and jobs.

balls187 12y ago
How much different are retail vs internet prices in AUS? I just imagine because of AUS (relative) isolation, that internet transactions aren't much cheaper than retail. Pure speculation.
- sitharus 12y ago
  The difference is significant, but if you need two resistors it's $0.50 each, or a bag of 100 from the internet for $5 + shipping + waiting, then having 98 left over. Unless it's a particularly common part you'll never use the 98, so you've spent $4 more.
endgame 12y ago
Another thing that probably helped is that Dick Smith Electronics moved out of that space and became Yet Another Consumer Electronics Store.

tommccabe 12y ago

How soon until Amazon buys the entire chain in order to get a distribution presence across the country?

shiftpgdn 12y ago
As far as I know Radioshack doesn't own any of their stores so they're just leasing the retail space. Amazon would be better off opening new retail fronts.

joeyh 12y ago

Good riddance. May whatever small void it leaves be filled by a diversity of mom-and-pop electronics stores. There's one such store in my area that seems to do well enough catering to the professional/hobby markets, with a couple locations, and has been around for decades. (Oddly it also has free popcorn.)

orthecreedence 12y ago
Agreed, in Santa Cruz there's Santa Cruz Electronics, which has tons of microprocessors/microcontrollers, tons of bare components, higher-level electronics, etc. It's what Radio Shack used to be before it turned into a consumer electronics reseller with outrageous markups and one tiny section tucked away in the back that has maybe 4 resistors and a couple of switches. I haven't been in SC electonics for a few years, but last time I was there I was like a kid in a candy store. However, it always sucks to hear people will be losing their jobs. I feel for the Radio Shack employees.
- Florin_Andrei 12y ago
  I'll have to visit that store next time I'm in SC.

ben174 12y ago

Even CEO Can't Figure Out How RadioShack Still In Business http://www.theonion.com/articles/even-ceo-cant-figure-out-how-radioshack-still-in-b,2190/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/even-ceo-cant-figure-out-ho...

deleted 12y ago

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ssharp 12y ago

I was building an electronics project last year and found it to be very helpful to go to my local RadioShack and just browse the components. Although they didn't have a huge selection and the employees knew nothing about any of it, any selection is greater than the selection anywhere else. For people who don't live in a big city, many don't have access to electronic components offline. You can get stuff on Amazon and SparkFun, with much more selection, but sometimes it's nicer to just browse in person, even if it's tucked away in the back corner.

aceperry 12y ago

It's a shame. RS doesn't really have much anymore in the way of electronics components, but they have some parts which cater to the arduino/maker community which helps when in a pinch. I really missed being able to get just about any electronic component when I moved from the southbay to SF. RS is now the only place where I could get the bare essentials in San Francisco.

drum 12y ago

RadioShack sounds like an incredible opportunity for a blue chip software company wanting to get into hardware with a brick and mortar presence. Thousands of retail locations ready to go, all across the US has to be worth something to somebody.

analog31 12y ago

I wonder if the proliferation of component types, even for hobbyists, would just be overwhelming for a brick and mortar store. As a kid, I shopped at Radio Shack all the time. I designed things around the parts that I knew they had, but it was still a pretty small selection. When I got my first Digi-Key catalog (remember when it was about 1/4 inch thick?) I was just astounded by the variety of parts that I had no idea even existed, such as interesting IC's. Jameco and Mouser each had their own spin on what goodies I might like to have. So I wonder if brick-and-mortar hobbyist electronics parts really still makes sense in this day and age.

pnathan 12y ago

If you live near Seattle, I recommend Vetco on the Eastside. It's what RadioShack should be.

Animats 12y ago

This bankruptcy has been long anticipated. It's time. There was a time when it was hard for hobbyists to buy parts. Even in Silicon Valley. I used to have a commercial account with Hamilton/Avnet just so I could order and pick up at will-call. The alternative was ordering from Allied Radio, with two week delivery and a 5% error rate. Now, anybody can order from Digi-Key, and get delivery tomorrow if you pay for express shipping. There's not even a minimum order. If you're looking for a business model, consider a hobbyist front end to Digi-Key and Mouser. Digi-Key has about 40 options for a 1/10 watt 100 ohm leaded resistor. This overwhelms many hobbyists. (Do I need flame resistance?) Octopart does some of this, but a social component is needed. Something like Github for hardware, with design files, bills of materials, issue tracking, etc.

sam 12y ago
Sam from Octopart here. Our Common Parts Library is an effort to distill commonly used components for connected device applications, https://octopart.com/common-parts-library https://octopart.com/common-parts-library . But the list doesn't have common prototyping components like radially leaded resistors (it's almost all SMT parts). I could imagine a "Common Parts Library for Prototyping". I'd love to hear feedback on something like this. Also, check out our lightweight Bill of Materials Manager, https://octopart.com/bom-lookup/manage https://octopart.com/bom-lookup/manage It has built in collaboration features - it can be collaboratively edited much like Google Docs.
hugs 12y ago
> consider a hobbyist front end to Digi-Key and Mouser Adafruit and SparkFun are that. SparkFun even explicitly mentions the Digikey part for boring stuff like capacitors. (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8375 https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8375)

claystu 12y ago

The best part about this thread are all the recommendations for websites to replace RadioShack.

DanBlake 12y ago

Nobody seems to have a good answer for what RS should become to avoid shutting down. The most common answer is to go back to its roots and embrace the maker market and stock up on things like 3d printers, breadboards and arduinos. I think this is the wrong idea, since the market is nowhere near large enough to support the vast amounts of stores RS has. I think if I was the CEO, I would focus on being a boutique shop for neat stuff. Kind of like a brookstone for electronics. They would have google glass, nest, wearables, smart home stuff. They would have things you cant buy at best buy like high end headphones and microphones. Not only that, but it would have knowledgeable staff who could tell me why I should go with the Denon headphones and the Fiio amplifier and skip the sonys. Broadly, alot of the type of stuff you see on kickstarter would feel like their inventory. Yes, you would have 3d printers and filament in the store also, but the new RS store would not revolve around that- It would be there because it was 'cool'. I would much rather see way less capacitors and fuses and more fuut hammocks and 4th design titanium iphone cases. But you would also see high end stuff you normally cant buy in best buy because its too expensive to have the inventory floated to all their stores. There is a surprising amount of laptops that are 'too high end' to ever show up in BB and only rarely appear in microsoft stores. That is also the case with audio equipment in spades. Thats a store I would go to. I write a bit more about this here : http://harknesslabs.com/post/108193041064/how-to-save-radio-shack http://harknesslabs.com/post/108193041064/how-to-save-radio-...

jdietrich 12y ago
Here in the UK, Maplin Electronics are debt free and profitable with a fundamentally similar business model to the old Radio Shack. Piles of radio control cars and weather stations at the front of store, cables and miscellaneous electronics accessories in the middle, components at the back. Maplin thrive on their lack of focus - you go there when you need a Lighting cable or an RJ45 faceplate, and you leave with what you came for plus something you didn't know you even wanted. It seems to me that the only real difference is the quality of management. Maplin were struggling in the 90s, but were bought out by a private equity firm who turned the business around. There were no radical changes in direction, just a lot of incremental improvements to their core business. I think that Radio Shack have far too many stores, and the management is fixated on finding a silver bullet for the company's woes. The complaints I hear about Radio Shack seem to be mainly issues of basic merchandising and customer service - their stock is erratic and outdated, their staff are indifferent and poorly trained. If your basic pitch is "we know you can buy this stuff online for less, but we offer convenience and service" then you actually need to follow through on the latter.

kaa2102 12y ago

It would be sad to see my go-to electronics DIY-spot go away.

dlss 12y ago

farewell old friend

pkaye 12y ago

It was mentioned by someone here or on Reddit previously that there is a lot of financial bets going on on whether RadioShack survives or not. In many cases in the past those who are betting that they survive have given RadioShack a lifeline in terms of loans and financing in order for them to survive so that the investors win their bets. I'm sure this is still going on still and it is no longer a question of fundamentals for RadioShack and rather a high stakes power game in the financial markets.

api 12y ago

This is very sad. Radio Shack was my toy store as a kid, and bears some of the blame for making me who/what I am today.

jakejake 12y ago

This kinda sucks because, even though Radio Shack has always sold kinda cheap quality components, there were always there when you needed an adapter or plug or cable immediately. It seems like there are a lot of good ideas here about what market radio shack can go after, from the 3D maker crowd, to boutique electronics, etc. I think it would take quite a visionary high up in the RS corporation to make that happen, but it would be cool.

sizzzzlerz 12y ago

Let's stop with all the nostalgia for the Radio Shack of old. They haven't been that way for 20 years. Their management has completely misread the market, they abuse their employees, they offer nothing you can't get elsewhere, usually at better prices, and, frankly, they have become like your crazy uncle: prone to doing something odd, smells bad, and is constantly embarrassing the family. Stick a fork in them, they're done. They won't be missed because there is nothing there to miss.

jordanpg 12y ago
Even at 35, I have a weird feeling like I'm walking into a religious cult or being watched when I'm in these stores. I've avoided going into them since I was young and this has persisted to this day. It has to do with the creepy, overzealous way the employees interact with you and the panopticon-like layout of the stores. I only go to Radio Shack as a last resort and won't miss them. On the plus side, having lived in California and seen the magic fun that is Fry's, the minor vacuum left behind by RS might leave door open for something better. If not, I suppose I can wait a whole 48 hours for something from Prime.

joshstrange 12y ago

I know a lot of people here will defend RS for selling phones/plans because "They had to" but it marked the LAST time I set foot in a RS when I went to buy some parts I needed and they tried to sell me a Voyager because "It was better than an iPhone" (Verizon's "iPhone" they released soon after the iPhone released). From that moment on I have just ordered what I wanted online. That coupled with the fact that they stopped staffing with people who knew anything at all and instead staffed them with people who could sell more phones.

whoopdedo 12y ago

Everyone is thinking about the consumer retail service of Radio Shack. But there's a lot of small contractors who basically use them as an outsourced inventory. Phone techs, alarm and AV installers, three out of five times I'm going to see Radio Shack connectors and resistors in their tool kit. I imagine the reason most stores keep those parts is not for amateurs but professionals who don't want to have to wait for UPS and deal with an impatient client. That must be a business opportunity. If a Radio Shack store near you closes, stock up on F connectors, solder, and the most common resistor sizes then call around to contractors letting them know you can supply parts on demand.

brudgers 12y ago

If I were CEO, I'd become the Linux Store to compete with the Apple Stores and the Windows Stores -- there are some of those aren't there? There is a market for main-stream Linux and there's no retail presence. Going further Radio-Shack has a computer brand, "TRS". Get some low-end white-box laptops, slap Ubuntu on them and hire a few one-eyed-man-in-the-land-of-the-blind Linux "gurus" and have at it. It's the modern analogue of HeathKit but with a more fundamentally useful demographic. Their real-estate holdings are a match for computer shops - second and third tier retail space with small footprints. Apple has validated the idea that computer shops are viable...it's not just the Apple branding that makes them work, it's also the fact that if you're looking for a computer, you're not in a place with most of its floor space devoted to televisions. The other big change is that smartphones and tablets have proved that operating systems are not that important to users. A lot of people are fine with an old version of Android rather than something more polished...never mind the Kindle's success...or all the variation between website widgets and app interfaces . People have been exposed to a lot of variation, and have learned adaptation techniques. A computer doesn't need to look like Windows or OSX to keep people from freaking out. RadioShack has the experience in high-touch sales and the infrastructure to pull it off. All that's needed is the will.

lisper 12y ago
You should send the RS board a proposal. Maybe they'll hire you.
- brudgers 12y ago
  Doubtful, undoubtedly. I'm not cut out for schmoozing wealth. Just for expressing the idea that there may be a space for computer stores.

nickysielicki 12y ago

I wanted to get a Beagle Bone Black over the holidays for some project. Didn't want to wait the 2 days for amazon, I wanted it that same day. They wanted $100... So I got mine off of amazon for $54. Nuff said.

harmonicon 12y ago

Urh, anyone think Amazon might buy them? It would be nice for Amazon to have a physical store to demo Fire products.

anigbrowl 12y ago

Nearly three years of losses and sales at their lowest levels in decades had forced the electronics chain to turn to debt investors for financial lifelines to stay in business. Objections from some of those same lenders prevented the company from closing hundreds of stores it felt it needed to shut down to stay afloat. Sounds like they want to asset-strip the business and only lent money in order to have more leverage than they would get by purchasing equity on the open market.

jhulla 12y ago

Radio Shack has a warm place in my childhood: the Radio Shack Battery Club. As a poor nerdlet in the early 80s, all my electronic projects were built with scavenged parts. Even so, I needed batteries. Batteries were not cheap - say compared to buying a gallon of milk for the family. So, I had my parents and siblings sign up with me for the Radio Shack battery club at the two Radio Shacks nearby. These battery cards entitled you to a free battery once a month. My family supported my habit - and between the two stores and our cards - I had a steady supply of batteries. Those batteries powered my devices and my development as an engineer. The first time I saw Fry's and WeirdStuff in the Bay Area in the early 90s, I think my heart skipped multiple beats. Seeing a DigiKey catalog for the first time had a similar effect. I haven't stepped in a RS in more than a decade. I am sorry to see them go.