Radio Shack May Be Finished

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Originally Posted By: antiqueshell
Maybe now is the perfect time for someone to come in and buy up the RS name, of some of the infrastructure, and revamp it entirely.

I'd eliminate many stores, get rid of the cell phone business, except for accessories like batteries, and the like, and bring back discrete components at competitive prices, Amateur radio gear, and accessories, add lots of kits, also have it become a place where you could take your FCC test for your Amateur ticket, and also add things like modern Ku band (small dishes) Free To All satellite TV and Radio equipment, and support. There is a LOT of neat stuff on satellite that is still free once you buy the equipment.

Also need to hire true electronics geeks that love what they do that can actually answer REAL technical questions.

I'd basically run the company at a slight loss for some years to bring back customers and get new ones in the door.

You want to make the visit an experience, yes I know it sounds
obnoxiously droll now but model it vaguely after the Apple model but in their own unique way. Make folks want to come into the store and stay, and hopefully buy things too.

RS would be a neat project for some enterprising folks that had patience, drive, and an enthusiasm for the kind of products they sell. Perhaps Warren Buffet would bite?
All the stuff you list is stuff with little demand. And there's no way to sell at "competitive prices" if you have to hire knowledgeable people and have a nice store for customers to enjoy when the other guy has a little warehouse and a guy to put items in a box.

I really like your concept but sadly it wouldn't make any money today.
 
Radio Shack was my candy store in the early to mid seventies - there were also Olsen and Lafayette Radio stores in my area. There were also a few large electronics part houses locally with walk-in sales. Now you have to go internet for components. Things have evolved for sure.
 
Originally Posted By: Win
. . . That's why Rat Shack has such clueless employees - the potential base of knowledgeable employees dried up a couple of three decades ago.


Yes Win, saw this happening too. Employee caliber has eroded there over the years.

In the 60s-70s, when you walked in one, there were always a couple knowledgeable adults. Older men who treated it as a serious job.

Later in the 80s-early 90s, you might find one such adult running the place, and a couple college students - who were still responsible, but not as knowledgeable.

By 2000, you started to see kids - basically cashiers who could guide you to things, but couldn't tell a capacitor from a candy cane.

Last time I walked in one, the kid working the store looked barely out of high school and was more interested in her own cell phone than ringing me up.
 
Originally Posted By: Kruse
One of my hobbies is audio vacuum tubes. They used to sell a line of tubes that had a lifetime warranty. So if you buy one, it was warrantied for life. Then, they changed the warranty so that if you brought in a failed lifetime-warrantied tube, they'd just give you a new one, but the new one no longer had a lifetime warranty.
I guess the warranty is similar to Craftsman tools, The warranty was killing them.
I stopped being a faithful customer when they stopped printing up their yearly paper catalogs.


All of the Realistic brand tubes were lifetime tubes, and the 7 and 9 pin miniatures all had gold plated pins.

Most were made in Taiwan, Japan, or Korea for Rat Shack, but they would get some interesting stuff every once in a while. I have personally seen 5992's washed and relabeled as Realistic 6V6GT on more than one occassion. So, it always pays to look inside a Realistic box.

You are correct that replacement tubes are no longer lifetime. I turned in some 12JB6's six or seven years ago, and a month or two later some replacements turned up in the mail, washed and screened Realistic, but no lifetime warranty on the replacements.
 
Some of the Japanese RS tubes back in the day (60s) were for the most part Japanese Philips, using either old tooling from Europe as they were winding out of it, or which the Europeans set up for them.

So you might get a "Japanese Amperex", which was a pretty decent performing tube, especially at the low price. Other times, they would even go as far as to remark an occasional Mullard or Telefunken. You had to know how to "read the internals" to really know what manufacturer and location you had.

The later stuff from Korea was not so good, and the Sino bottles were junk.

The gold plating was a problem, though, as on more delicate equipment could cause socket stretch. Fortunately, RS' was more of a flashing then a plating, so fitment issues didn't arise very often.

I recall RS honoring the "lifetime" policy at least into the 90s.
 
By the very nature of name Radio Shack it was antiquated when I first set foot in back in mid 1980's. I never really got it and never will. Not my cup of tea.

I never got the TRS 80 but was on Apple at school back in the late 1970's.
 
I made the mistake of buying some Coax and other AV cables from them several years ago...which turned out to be complete junk.

I never stepped inside another RS since.
 
Originally Posted By: Win
I've been a ham since I was 13, and most hams are tighter than the bark on trees. I'm the same way - if i can fix it or scratch build it myself, I do. Or I buy it at a hamfest.

I have an empty space in a building I own that I've thought of putting in a little ham shop or gun store just for fun, but the cold hard reality is that most folks will come in to handle the merchandise and size it up, and then order it online to save a dollar and the sales tax. You just wind up tying up a bunch of money in inventory, and if you don't own your own place, you're paying rent and a bunch of overhead to boot for the convenience of people that will ultimately be someone else's faceless customer from a faceless vendor.

Brick and mortar is done for except for big box and products and service that are impractical and inconvenient to purchase online. Making sales tax applicable to all internet sales would level the playing field a little bit, but the brick and mortar guy still has to have employees, bathrooms, ADA compliance, parking lots, shoplifting thieves, an attractive storefront - all very expensive stuff that a web site doesn't have to invest in.

Most everyone laments the loss of domestic industry and good jobs, but they only need to look in the mirror to pin the blame.
People are cheap, and the get it a dollar cheaper mentality, is bringing all the chickens home to roost.

A ham shop / hobby shop would be a great tax loss, but I don't need any more of those. There might still be a buck to be made off of Audiophools, but I imagine even many of them get their magic pebbles and ridiculous cables and power cords on line.

Radio Shack rarely sold ham gear, btw. They did a bit when it was Allied Radio Shack before the antitrust break up. And again in the 90's when they had some VHF gear. But when I worked there, aside from shortwave receivers, and parts and coax and the like, ham gear was not a part of the business. But all of us counter kids were hams and knew what we were talking about and how to fix stuff. That's why our customer service was so good.

edit: these kids are mostly gone now - it takes no technical knowledge to get a ticket these days, it's been dumbed down severely like most of the rest of society so it can be more inclusive. That's why Rat Shack has such clueless employees - the potential base of knowledgeable employees dried up a couple of three decades ago.


Some of the most dumb ones work at Wallyworld,imho
 
Originally Posted By: hatt
[All the stuff you list is stuff with little demand. And there's no way to sell at "competitive prices" if you have to hire knowledgeable people and have a nice store for customers to enjoy when the other guy has a little warehouse and a guy to put items in a box.

I really like your concept but sadly it wouldn't make any money today.


Sure the demand on a large scale is limited but again that is why I say eliminate many stores, just as importantly, if you are an expert and can make heads of tails of the things you buy off the
internet you are in the rarest group of consumers, many folks interested in these things won't be nearly that knowledgeable
which is why having decent quality items on hand with well trained
staff would be a huge asset and could be a successful formula.
If RS would have been on that path for the past twenty years or so they would be in a much different place, and likely at least somewhat successful. I would also add an element of the old
Heath Kit stores as well.

Part of the problem with Radio Shack for years has been that they haven't marketed things properly that attract hobbyists. The biggest reason why RS is where it is today is because the people running the company don't have a forking clue about what they do or the products which went on for decades!

If the Apple Store model can work for computers and phones it can work for other things as well.
 
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Originally Posted By: antiqueshell
Originally Posted By: hatt
[All the stuff you list is stuff with little demand. And there's no way to sell at "competitive prices" if you have to hire knowledgeable people and have a nice store for customers to enjoy when the other guy has a little warehouse and a guy to put items in a box.

I really like your concept but sadly it wouldn't make any money today.


Sure the demand on a large scale is limited but again that is why I say eliminate many stores, just as importantly, if you are an expert and can make heads of tails of the things you buy off the
internet you are in the rarest group of consumers, many folks interested in these things won't be nearly that knowledgeable
which is why having decent quality items on hand with well trained
staff would be a huge asset and could be a successful formula.
If RS would have been on that path for the past twenty years or so they would be in a much different place, and likely at least somewhat successful. I would also add an element of the old
Heath Kit stores as well.

Part of the problem with Radio Shack for years has been that they haven't marketed things properly that attract hobbyists. The biggest reason why RS is where it is today is because the people running the company don't have a forking clue about what they do or the products which went on for decades!

If the Apple Store model can work for computers and phones it can work for other things as well.


It's clear you don't have a clue how a business works.

The Radio Shack business has failed precisely because they tried to follow your outline. Radio Shack failed to move out of the past decades and into the 2000's until it was too late. They catered to a very limited market with very limited profit potential. Their online presence is non-existent.

Comparing the Apple store model to the Radio Shack store model simply doesn't work. The Radio Shack hobbyist model you propose simply doesn't have the customer base, the volume, or the massive profit potential that the Apple store has. Apple can sell it's own brand of products to a huge, loyal customer base at massive profits. Radio Shack, appealing to hobbyists, has a very small customer base selling items that can be bought online and shipped to the hobbyist's home for less than Radio Shack can sell them in their store. Most of the information the hobbyist needs is freely available online-no store clerk needed.

Even a limited number of stores won't have the volume and profits to sustain the minimum requirements of a corporation.

I do encourage you to stand behind what you preach. If you really believe that the business model you propose has potential, then I suggest you go out and open your own store using that business model. If you really think you understand business, and you really think you have what it takes to own and operate a business, then go out and prove it.
 
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It's clear you don't have a clue how a business works.



So what professional qualifications do you have to state this?
Tell me the extensive experience you have with the electonics field and business. Please.
crackmeup2.gif

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The Radio Shack business has failed precisely because they tried to follow your outline. Radio Shack failed to move out of the past decades and into the 2000's until it was too late. They catered to a very limited market with very limited profit potential. Their online presence is non-existent.


No, they haven't followed my outline. What the DID do is
try to be all things to all people, and of course that will fail.
Yes, they did not build up their online presence I agree that is a failure.

Obviously you don't have much experience or familiarity with
electronic and radio related hobbies. I know because I'm a
Ham operator, and have always been involved with electronics
as a hobby for several decades.

RS went with and concentrated on many things they were NOT supposed to be and never should have been, especially cell phones.
I'm not arguing that they couldn't adapt to changing marketplace, but they didn't adapt what made them worthwhile and a viable business, they abandoned it almost entirely.

As I mentioned before, the number of stores would have to be drastically reduced, and the quality of the help and product would need to be greatly increased.


I'm not going to continue on because obviously you know it ALL, and have nothing to learn.
 
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Tandy computers were good computers and were accessible because they were less expensive than IBM and Apple computers and yet somehow they still failed to capitalize on this. I'm talking about before "PC clones" were ubiquitous. Computers were not cool at the time.

I mean for the people that are saying they should have followed Apple's model - Radio Shack WAS the Apple store model before Apple stores. There was no other national chain that sold personal computers in shopping malls and strip malls. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this. At that time there was IBM, Apple, Commodore, Tandy, TRS-80 and ? but in retail stores, in malls? There were regional chains that sold computers...
 
of course, if they had followed my advice, they'd probably still be out of business today. There is again just one national, retail chain that sells computers today (Apple).
 
As good a strategy as any for RS would be to start a counter-culture campaign to appeal to the prepper, anti big brother, etc types.
 
Originally Posted By: hatt
As good a strategy as any for RS would be to start a counter-culture campaign to appeal to the prepper, anti big brother, etc types.


I agree that they could cater to those folks and the fact is that there is a very big market because (although I hate to say it) it has spawned a reality TV series on National Geographic called Doomsday Preppers! So there is an audience ,and more and more folks are at least making some modest preparations for general disasters.

The best thing about Ham radio in a practical sense is that if you have a car battery and a long wire you CAN receive and transmit if the phone system goes down. In many natural disasters the first things to fail are cell phone communications which is usually related to power failures at the towers, also fewer and fewer people have the old POTS which is pretty reliable in such disasters.

I've never understood why the ARRL hasn't done a better job of marketing Amateur Radio.

Also know that many other Amateurs might get upset with me but I believe that the tech license should be extended to offer full HF
privileges which includes phone too.
 
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I don't know if that market would support stores. Most of these folks are going to buy the $40 radio from Amazon and holler "break" a couple times into the mic before deeming their SHTF comms good. At least it's a market.
 
Sad to say there is a radio shack in a strip mall I've visited for the last 8 years and tonight is the first I'd ever noticed it. I suspect it's been there all along. Just never noticed it. If we had not been talking about it here, I doubt I'd have paid it any mind.
 
The first time I shopped in one was to buy a kit to lace together a leather bill fold. I agree Amazon, etc is hard on them. We are looking at adapters to turn our house wiring into wifi cabling and just ordered off of Amazon. You can learn about your full set of product options in detail from the web. RS offers a narrow band of products with no good way to price shop. Brick and mortar businesses selling stuff like you can buy online are at risk for sure. We 'ship' all of our software by the web now. After the last postage increase at the office we ditched the postal meter and got a debt card and pay most bills over the web.

Radio Shack once was the place to find a computer and they were actually leading edge in computers before the IBM PC hit the market. My experience over the last several years has not been positive however. Who has time to drive looking for stuff anymore when in a few clicks it is at your door in two days.
 
MAN! I've never read every post in a 6 page thread before.

I'd guess the large financiers got behind IBM and Apple and simply left Radio Shack in the dust.

The post of the guy buying lace to make a wallet (Summer camp stuff, really) describes the mud into which the image of Radio Shack got stuck.

It was radio controlled cars for Christmas and cell phones which kept them alive this long.

No one has mentioned that there are small electronics parts shops here and there across America. The one in Denville, NJ is authentic, dirty and well stocked. I did notice that the Radio Shack on Wall Street (NYC) has more parts drawers than any other I've seen. That has to do with traffic density.

Good luck everyone. Kira
 
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