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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 ha

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.
  - hellgas00 12y ago
    You posted a website that lays out relevant electronic components supply stores in an easy to digest manner. The problem I see is that the average hobbyist might not know where to start without first knowing about that site. For instance, I used to buy computer parts from BestBuy because it was easy, they were everywhere, and I didn't know about the smaller stores that were better priced and staffed with generally more knowledgeable staff. I knew about BestBuy because it had a large brand identity, and could market to the general population. RS was large enough to market their business stream to the general population, while these smaller stores can not. When it comes to sourcing components, you are left to do the research if you want to buy from brick and mortar. If you want to buy a tablet or gaming console come to BestBuy because they told me they have everything. I still think RS had a great model in hobby electronic, and I really think they could have developed that model, not only for their own financial gain, but to the betterment of society. I didn't find out about hobby electronics until I was in my late teens and more substantially early 20's studying Engineering, probably because it was never effectively marketed towards me.
  - astrodust 12y ago
    There was, at their peak, around twenty Radio Shack stores in Toronto. They were one of the few retailers in the 1980s and 1990s that would sell you one of something. Larger distributors were harder to deal with, and were geared towards thousands. Now there's about a dozen stores that sell components to the hobbyist community and university students that need parts for projects. They have a selection way better than Radio Shack ever did. It's not how many people live in a town that's the factor: It's how many university students you have. The more universities, the more likely you are to have an electronics savvy population. Perhaps the unusually high concentration where you are is due to that factor.
    - syntheticnature 12y ago
      I'll note they're closing one, and of the three, it was the one that still had electronic parts bins. (Admittedly, one of the two others stocks a number of computer parts one might be desperate for, notably replacement power supplies.)
tmm 12y ago
I live near Baynesville Electronics[1] and somehow they've managed to stay in business for a really long time selling stuff that RadioShack couldn't seem to competently sell. (The 50 years part of their sign has been up there at least 10 years). They do a surprising amount of business from local engineering firms, AV/network/cable installers, and little IT shops because where else are you going to get a 25 pair Amphenol connector, a quad op-amp, some colored heatshrink tubing, obscure batteries, and a 1% 27.1kohm resistor at 9am on a Saturday? They are expensive compared to online retailers (for small parts), but they carry Arduino and RPi and the cool-kids stuff too at only a small markup. As a kid, the closest electronics shop to me was RadioShack (Radio Shack then) (and it was my favorite place to go). It was right next to where I got my hair cut and in the same shopping center as the grocery store, so I got to go at least every other week. Back then, they had two (maybe three) aisles of electronic components, copper clad PCBs for etching, ferric chloride by the gallon, both 40xx and 74xx series logic in DIP packages; all sorts of stuff. I haven't been in an RS for a long time, but last time I was there I couldn't even find a barrel connector and they used to have a dozen different sizes. Even in the early 90s I guess RS was an expensive store - a five pack of resisters was $0.50 or a dollar - but ordering on the Internet wasn't an option and mail-order was difficult if you didn't have a business account. I miss what they used to be, but the state of the hobby has changed - most things center around a microcontroller now (RS never carried any in my recollection, though they did have some EPROMS ... maybe they had an 8051?) and I can do things with a half dozen discrete components and an Arduino in a few hours that would have required twenty or thirty TTL logic chips, wirewrap sockets, and a whole weekend not so very long ago. I wish there existed something like a fusion between the traditional hobbyist electronics store and a modern hackerspace. Some place where I could go to rent time on a 3D printer, CNC machine or reflow oven and also buy the missing parts I need and get advice on whatever I'm working on. I think the market still exists for walk-in hobby electronics stores, though I grant it's not an easy market to survive in. I don't have the answers, maybe the folks who own Baynesville do. [1]http://www.baynesvilleelectronics.com/index2.ivnu http://www.baynesvilleelectronics.com/index2.ivnu
- ghaff 12y ago
  A lot of things can work at small scale that don't work at Radio Shack public company scale. Example. There's a board game store in Harvard Square that has been there forever. I assume it must make enough money for its owners to have stayed in business all these years. That doesn't mean that opening hundreds or thousands of such stores across the country would be a brilliant business plan. The same applies to the individual model stores, comic book stores, aquarium stores, etc. across the country. I suspect few make a lot of money--and it probably still gets harder rather than easier--but they can work on an individual basis.

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.
- hellgas00 12y ago
  You posted a website that lays out relevant electronic components supply stores in an easy to digest manner. The problem I see is that the average hobbyist might not know where to start without first knowing about that site. For instance, I used to buy computer parts from BestBuy because it was easy, they were everywhere, and I didn't know about the smaller stores that were better priced and staffed with generally more knowledgeable staff. I knew about BestBuy because it had a large brand identity, and could market to the general population. RS was large enough to market their business stream to the general population, while these smaller stores can not. When it comes to sourcing components, you are left to do the research if you want to buy from brick and mortar. If you want to buy a tablet or gaming console come to BestBuy because they told me they have everything. I still think RS had a great model in hobby electronic, and I really think they could have developed that model, not only for their own financial gain, but to the betterment of society. I didn't find out about hobby electronics until I was in my late teens and more substantially early 20's studying Engineering, probably because it was never effectively marketed towards me.
- astrodust 12y ago
  There was, at their peak, around twenty Radio Shack stores in Toronto. They were one of the few retailers in the 1980s and 1990s that would sell you one of something. Larger distributors were harder to deal with, and were geared towards thousands. Now there's about a dozen stores that sell components to the hobbyist community and university students that need parts for projects. They have a selection way better than Radio Shack ever did. It's not how many people live in a town that's the factor: It's how many university students you have. The more universities, the more likely you are to have an electronics savvy population. Perhaps the unusually high concentration where you are is due to that factor.
  - syntheticnature 12y ago
    I'll note they're closing one, and of the three, it was the one that still had electronic parts bins. (Admittedly, one of the two others stocks a number of computer parts one might be desperate for, notably replacement power supplies.)

tmm 12y ago

I live near Baynesville Electronics[1] and somehow they've managed to stay in business for a really long time selling stuff that RadioShack couldn't seem to competently sell. (The 50 years part of their sign has been up there at least 10 years). They do a surprising amount of business from local engineering firms, AV/network/cable installers, and little IT shops because where else are you going to get a 25 pair Amphenol connector, a quad op-amp, some colored heatshrink tubing, obscure batteries, and a 1% 27.1kohm resistor at 9am on a Saturday? They are expensive compared to online retailers (for small parts), but they carry Arduino and RPi and the cool-kids stuff too at only a small markup. As a kid, the closest electronics shop to me was RadioShack (Radio Shack then) (and it was my favorite place to go). It was right next to where I got my hair cut and in the same shopping center as the grocery store, so I got to go at least every other week. Back then, they had two (maybe three) aisles of electronic components, copper clad PCBs for etching, ferric chloride by the gallon, both 40xx and 74xx series logic in DIP packages; all sorts of stuff. I haven't been in an RS for a long time, but last time I was there I couldn't even find a barrel connector and they used to have a dozen different sizes. Even in the early 90s I guess RS was an expensive store - a five pack of resisters was $0.50 or a dollar - but ordering on the Internet wasn't an option and mail-order was difficult if you didn't have a business account. I miss what they used to be, but the state of the hobby has changed - most things center around a microcontroller now (RS never carried any in my recollection, though they did have some EPROMS ... maybe they had an 8051?) and I can do things with a half dozen discrete components and an Arduino in a few hours that would have required twenty or thirty TTL logic chips, wirewrap sockets, and a whole weekend not so very long ago. I wish there existed something like a fusion between the traditional hobbyist electronics store and a modern hackerspace. Some place where I could go to rent time on a 3D printer, CNC machine or reflow oven and also buy the missing parts I need and get advice on whatever I'm working on. I think the market still exists for walk-in hobby electronics stores, though I grant it's not an easy market to survive in. I don't have the answers, maybe the folks who own Baynesville do. [1]http://www.baynesvilleelectronics.com/index2.ivnu http://www.baynesvilleelectronics.com/index2.ivnu

ghaff 12y ago
A lot of things can work at small scale that don't work at Radio Shack public company scale. Example. There's a board game store in Harvard Square that has been there forever. I assume it must make enough money for its owners to have stayed in business all these years. That doesn't mean that opening hundreds or thousands of such stores across the country would be a brilliant business plan. The same applies to the individual model stores, comic book stores, aquarium stores, etc. across the country. I suspect few make a lot of money--and it probably still gets harder rather than easier--but they can work on an individual basis.