"Radio Shack" predicted to disappear in the next year.

SORRY:http://www.247wallst.com

 

It's kind of sad... Radioshack was my first real job before university, plus I buy my first pair of CB walkies from Radishack back on the late 80's (or maybe mid 90's).

At that time radioshack was full of interesting things and electronic proyects to do at home, now there are just a bounch of cellphones.

 

RADIO SHACK:
YOU HAVE QUESTIONS,
THEY HAVE CELLPHONES.

 

Radio Shack

I for one will miss the Radio Shack of old. In the past several years my local radio shack only had about 3 or 4 of any given item in stock,(sometimes less). When I bought connectors or whatever, I usually bought all three or four of the item so that they would have to re-order the item, mainly adapters, electronics components, tie wraps and such.

For those who would like to go back to the time when the Radio shack was king check out this website:

http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/catalog_directory.html

 

Radio Shack Toccoa, Georgia

The Radio Shack store in Toccoa, Georgia still has the entire back wall with dividers stocked with all sorts of components, bread boards, connectors, 102 whips, antenna rotors, antenna masts and plenty of other stuff. It is one of the last stores that stayed somewhat true to there once famed success. If it were to close i would not be out on a limb but it would be a sad day.

 

The Cell Shack

Once Radio Shack went to their overpriced cell phones, it was the beginning of the end. I bought my first radio there, a DX-160 shortwave reciever. I loved it. Yes, I bought resistors et.et like everybody else. Then they hired these inexperienced college kids that did not know the difference between a coax cable and monster wire. SEE YA! Used to get good quality masting, solid copper gnd rods, tripods, even a 2 meter HT. No more. And they are no more...

 

Their model counts on being able to stock the most SKU's and make sure what they are stocking is selling. However I think their stores are too small to compete with Best Buy, Fry's, etc.

Then about 5-7 years ago they went to the Store in a store model where they would stock one companies products. Remember the RCA products that took over the store? I worked for Thomson/RCA then. Met all of their management and while this was good for RCA short term, it did not work out well for either after few years, but they continued that model. selling a DVD/Cell Phone/anything like that nets more money than a 239 connector.

They need to have the ACE hardware store mentality. Here ACE is the small hardware store going against HD, Lowes, Menards, etc, but the people at ACE can help you so much and they have what you need and the stores are like 1/3 the size. I go there always.

 

Radioshack

here is a great article from Wired magazine on the subject http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/04/ff_radioshack/. Radioshacks problem was it moved away from the parts and pieces market even though they had huge profit margins on these, and started focusing on items with almost no profit margin, but had a sort of backside longer term profit stream. In doing this they slowly alienated the customer base that made Radioshack what it was. This is why they have to beat you over the head with high profit margin items like batteries and such. If Radioshack wanted to keep itself alive all they would have to do is look around, and realize the niche market they created is still there and no one else has even tried to fill it on the scale that they did. Alas poor Radioshack we knew you well.

 

This was true for Thomson/RCA and RS. We sold stupid things like Monster cables and would make big money on accessories and then on TV's we would put $20 on most when we sold them.....but we continued to focus on TV's until the bitter end.

 

You know I used to walk into Radio Shack during the day they had actual "Radio's " for sale.

Radio's of all kinds. Hello.... I mean it was after all called "Radio Shack" right? Heck I even have stories about the actual idea of buying a Morse code practice key at Radio Shack when I was 13 years old.

However, today, "Radio Shack" is anything but "Radio." But rather, it's a place where you buy high priced computer junk, cell phone accessories and best buy type of garbage. Some people actually think this is some form of technological business advancement, but the fact remains it really isn't.

Perhaps, if they changed the store name to "Computer Shack," "Cell Phone Shack" or "Electronics Shack" then they would have survived huh?

I have no idea what they are thinking in the marketing department exactly, but they started losing focus on everything when they started competing with the computer industry and large electronic retailers.

It seems they lost their niche when they were servicing outside their niche. After all, it's not called "Radio Shack" because they are competing with other electronic "doo dad" electronic retail outlets.

That's exactly why they are going out of business!! It's because they are no longer specializing in a niche market!! End of story.

Stupid move in my opinion. My observation over the years is that it's like they are intentionally sabotaging themselves.

If I had anything to do with corporate management at Radio Shack, it would seem a better business model would be to position Radio Shack as the worlds largest distributor of Yaesu, Kenwood, Icom, Ameritron and MFJ radio equipment. However, it seems they are short sighted in this respect.

It seems they have no such desire to rake in the money in this way. They sure as heck isn't doing anything even remotely close to this in terms of potential profitability in the current manner they are operating their current business model at the moment.

They don't think big enough because they are blindsided because they are too busy trying to compete and trying to be more like Best Buy..

Screw the entire competition mentality. It's far better and more lucrative to be involved in a unique and niche market and have no competition.

Sad really.

 

Radio shack. Tandy, ? Micronta

for the last 10 years I have been saying they will bite the dust just from observation on how they were running things the were getting further away from product the were in their Name "RADIO SHACK" and turning more to computer and cell phones starting with their first PC if you can call it that.

 

Who's going to replace my "Lifetime Guarantee" tubes if Radio Shack bites the dust? I might actually have to buy some new ones!

Woe is me.

 

This is just a sign of the times, like it or not, do it yourself electronics has lost popularity and people have no need or interest in such things anymore. Amateur radio, CB radio, Shortwave and everything along those lines are dying very fast. Radio Shack was a fun store way back when, but they hanged on as long as they could and did well over the span of the last 40 years or so.

Like I said, sign of the times.

Bravo Radio Shack

 

It seems to me that Radio Shack has gone the same way as Woolworth in the UK, they survived, just about, but never ever made any progress because the bosses were useless at marketing. We have an old Woolworth store taken over by another company selling food and general items and the store always has long queues at the checkout now. What an amazing turnaround
Tandy left UK years ago. Perhaps Radio Shack are now going into bike sales selling Armstrong bikes !

G0GQK

 

Stores and businesses don't create and/or increase interest in hobbies! There has to be a demand for a business to thrive, and stores don't create demand: demand creates stores.

There is no radio and electronics demand for RS to get back into, and I think it highly unlikely that there ever will be again.

As much as we all love radio communications and experimentation as a hobby, we are for sure an insignificant niche in the retail market place. Increasing supply isn't going to change that because lack of supply is not the cause of loss of interest. Increasing the local availability of radios and parts is not going to give birth to some resurgence of interest in radio in this age of common and inexpensive world-wide communications.

Do you think if some store opened that offered everything under the sun for cassette tapes that there would be some renewed interest in using that media for anything?

Supply follows interest (demand), not the other way around.