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Radio Shack: 25% off....

Started by Babybearjs, February 04, 2015, 07:17:31 PM

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TelePlay

For what it's worth, while driving around Milwaukee for work yesterday, I noticed some stores closed already, some with no inventory on the floor (when you walk in the front door, all those floor displays you have to walk around) and others full of inventory as if nothing is happening. Guess that means if Sprint is going to operate some stores, it will be those who have taken inventory from those that are going to close, and have already closed. That is what I noticed at 6 stores in the area. Seems like those stores in the heart of a commercial district are stocked, the others not.

Babybearjs

John

19and41

Probably shifting the inventory to the outlets where the stuff will move.  A common sense action.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
— Arthur C. Clarke

Russ Kirk

I used to go to Radio Shack a lot many years ago.  I would buy audio connectors and cables and several other electronic related items, but over time they evolved away from those items and became a cell phone store.  Well, for cell phone stuff I now go to Amazon, Best Buy, eBay or my carrier's store.

Radio Shack's demise was, besides poor Management, they moved to far away from their roots and lost a very important customer base. That is why the smallest carrier, Sprint, bought some of the stores.

Now if I need any of those small electronic items I will get them on Amazon or eBay.
- Russ Kirk
ATCA & TCI

LarryInMichigan

I thought that one of Radio Shack's biggest shortcomings was its outrageous prices.  A few times in years past, I went into Radio Shack to buy computer accessories and generally found their prices to be far higher than almost anywhere else.  About 25 years ago, I went into a Radio Shack in Evanston, IL to buy diskettes (remember those?).  I picked a box off the shelf and took it to the counter.  The store manager started asking me for my address and phone number (so that they could bombard me with marketing), and I told him that I would not give it out.  That annoyed him.  He then scanned the item, and the price came up more than twice the usual retail price for such an item.  I told him that the price was unreasonable, and he angrily replied that I would have known that they had been on sale a couple of weeks earlier if I had allowed RS to add me to their marketing mailing list.  I left the store without buying anything.

Larry

twocvbloke

Tandy in the UK (basically Radio Shack with their parent company's name) from what I've been told used to be an expensive place to buy electronics and components from, and that's part of the reason why they closed down and were bought out by Carphone Warehouse (ironic that, Tandy was bought out by a mobile phone shop, and Radio Shack is being bought out by a mobile phone shop!!), leaving only Maplin as a highstreet electronics shop, though even they're terrible now, pretty much being an outlet for dodgy DealExtreme products, won't surprise me in the least if they go the same way as Tandy and Radio Shack...

It's the end of an era I suppose, where the average person can go into a shop and buy components and get advice on building circuits... :-\

19and41

There is just no way that the specialized markets that Radio Shack catered to can be served in brick & mortar stores anymore.  The high prices that the stores had to charge were for the most part to offset the overhead each store incurred.  It will have to be online sales to bring such products to the scattered clientele that will purchase such products. 
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
— Arthur C. Clarke

Bill

#22
Part of the problem, of course, was Radio Shack's marketing decision to open hundreds of new stores, each of them tiny. I remember the giant Radio Shack store near Kenmore Square in Boston in the 1960's. As I recall, it occupied much of a city block, had three floors of merchandise, and at one point had actually expanded into the building next door. Boy, could that store move product ! Of course, it was nourished by all the students at Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Northeastern University, and all the tech schools in the area, as well as all the tech industry workers in the area, so I realize that it could not be duplicated very often in other locations.

But a 1,000-square-foot storefront in the mall can't possibly provide anywhere near a complete selection of electronics parts, and Radio Shack's attempt to prove otherwise was a disaster. You have to sell a lot of electronics small parts to earn the same revenue as the sale of one cell phone. And that drove Radio Shack's marketing shift, which in turn drove away the electronics hobbyist. Sadly, my opinion is that if Radio Shack had chosen to open fewer stores, each of them strategically placed and more sizable, they might have made it. But what do I know?

Today, there are quite a few Radio Shack stores here in greater Phoenix. Not one that I have visited has as much as 1000 square feet of retail space, and of that, well under 100 square feet is devoted to anything you would call "electronics" in the old sense of the word. About half of them are slated to close shortly, and the rest will concentrate even more closely on cell phones.

And the beat goes on.

Bill

podor

The store near me is not closing, so no deals. I browsed for about 10 minutes and the counter guy followed me the whole time. It was extremely uncomfortable. I never realized how expensive they were. I bought a universal remote about a month ago that was 1/2 the price they were asking. I won't be going back.

I was talking to my dad about Radio Shack a few weeks ago, before the bankruptcy. He fixed TVs for a living (and anything electronic). He used to build Allied and Heith Kit radios and testers when he was a kid. He hates Radio Shack with a passion. It started back when they muscled in on that market and pushed some of them out of business. I seem to remember they bought Allied out at some point. He's pretty happy with their current situation. Not to mention, he gets his parts through commercial suppliers. I'm going to have to grab one of his catalogs.

LarryInMichigan

I was out this afternoon and happened to stop at a nearby shopping center with a Radio Shack store.  The signs in the window stated that the store was closing in five days and everything was 75%-90% off.  I bought (more than) a few things.  There were only a few customers there.

Larry