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

Radioshacks downfall is that they are focusing on being $1 in the already oversaturated cellphone market. I worked there for just under 2 years, most of that time as an Assistant Manager and the company is so micromanaged that it is insane. Now they have checklists of things they must do everyday, and another checklist to make sure you did the first checklist.

Another place they shoot themselves in the foot is in their inventory.

They are generally 12 to 18 months behind the other CE stores on HOT selling items. When they do get them and run a sale they only have 2 or 3 in stock and are told that they can order it online and have it sent to their house which only pisses the customer off. The upper Management is constantly threatening the District Managers (DM) to get their sales numbers up. The DM's threaten the Store Managers (SM) and the #### rolls down hill to the Sales Associate (SA). If you can't sell cellphones then you are not long for employment with the company. On the flip side I have seen SA's and SM's who do some dirty unethical dealings that should get them fired but because their cellphone sales are great so they overlook it. What a way to run a company huh ? Reward the ones who are ripping you blind and kick the honest guy who can't sell a cellphone to the street.

If you are ever looking to buy something during one of their big sales my suggestion to you is to stay home and sleep late. By the time you get there what little stock they have will be gone and they will try to talk you into buying something else. Bottom line: You will walk out pissed off.

MY ADVERTISEMENT:

If you want to hear just how bad things are at the store level register for my website, most of our members are current or former Radioshack emplyee's.

http://www.radioshacksucks.biz/forums

 

I worked for Radio Shack for a couple of years in the 90's. We were still carrying lots of components, scanners, etc. When I left, Tandy was just starting to try and turn themselves into a miniature Best Buy; that model might work in rural areas that are 50 miles from the nearest "big box" store, but not in most areas. Typically, the real rural areas are serviced by Radio Shack Dealer stores; these are RS franchised stores, and the owners can stock pretty much anything they want to from any supplier (I've even seen a RS Dealer store inside a drug store). If you see a RS sign that has the word "dealer" on it, it's a franchise. Otherwise they are all owned by Tandy.

Within a few years of trying to emulate the big box stores, RS found themselves closing about 600 less profitable stores and changing their store model once again, focusing more on cel phones.

It's tough to make a living selling 89 cent packs of resistors and the occasional PL-259. I can fully understand why they had to focus on more store profit, but I think where they missed the boat was in trying to be a Best Buy with some parts and I also think they didn't close enough stores. I forget the actual stat, but in the mid 90's it was something like 80 percent of all Americans either lived or worked within 10 minutes of a Radio Shack store.

I think (and it may not be too late for this), if RS closed more stores and re-modeled themselves more as a hobby shop (and not just electronic hobbies) with the cel phones they might just make a go of it. Replace some of the closed stores with cel phone kiosks in a partnership with some other chain, such as K-Mart or Target. This wouldn't be profitable with 3 stores in a town of 25 thousand people (as RS does now), but reduce that number to 1 store in that size of town......with that scenario they would also be able to reduce costs by downsizing their corporate staff, creating a better chief to indian ratio. I don't like to see anyone lose their job, but it's better to see some go than all.

Yeah, for hams it would be nice to have a place to go and get pretty much any part we need, but let's face it; even if you live in a city that has 500 hams, who would open a store that would have to depend upon 500 people making up the bulk of their sales? AES,HRO, all the major ham stores depend upon mail order/internet sales to keep them going.

 

KTL,

In the 90's Radioshack was still a descent store to shop at, it wan't till the turn of the century that things went downhill. When Len Roberts took over he started the continuing screwing of the store level employees not to mention the fact that he took a 2 million dollar loan out from the company that DOES NOT have to be paid until he is dead.

I worked from 2001-2002 and things were constantly changing. They had just picked up DirecTV which we couldn't keep on the shelves if we tried. There were so many customers who wanted them and we would get in like 30-50 units a week but they all went to customers on the waiting list. If we did not get a response from that customer in a fair amount of time off the list they went and the next sucker was called.

At that time they wanted us to push cellphones, DirecTV and Sprint Long Distance. Really, how much stuff can you try to shove down a customers throat before they get mad ?

From the stories I hear on my website things have gotten progressively worse to work there. Changing Payplans and SPIFF structures, moving one part of the store to another part only to move it back a few months later. They pay crap for a salary and they work you to death for every cent of it.

Register for my website shown below and you can see how getting out when you did was the perfect time.

 

I have no regrets about getting out when I did. I still think if they would downsize the company and change their business model they could succeed, and pay their employees a decent wage.

 

Count me in as a former RS employee, 10 years ago from 2000 to 2002, I served my time in a pretty decent store (8754 Cumberland Mall Atlanta) and made pretty decent money, UNTIL after 9/11. But you are correct in your observations WS2L, a screwed up company full of too many "Bobs" who lost touch with that their company was once famous for.

The days of Hot Friday and selling pallets of Sprint Qualcomm 2760's are gone. Every 9 year old has a Blackberry, and you can buy wireless phones and accessories (the REAL moneymaker for RS Come on, 29.99 CLA's that cost less than a dollar to make?) at gas stations. The market saturation is so deep unless you are a high volume location it's pointless to come to work there. Gone are the other unique products such as scanners, radios, and parts. It's just another ovepriced brick and mortar store which are dying as fast as they are being built. My town is full of empty strip malls and shopping centers.

People are buying such items online or at WalMart/Target. The retail industry is sucking wind. Even Best Buy's days are numbered. the almighty Circuit City downfall is a foretaste of the feast to come. Look at how many once giant and revered retail institutions have taken a dump in the last 10-15 years: CC, Service Merchandise, Lechmere, etc. Retail is shrinking, we have the Internet to thank for that. Not that it is a bad thing either, I for one would love to see this overgrown bloated collection of strip malls razed and replaced with parks, schools, and green space as it once was in my hometown.

I knew RS was dead when there was no 2003 catalog. A great site to remember the RS of yesteryear is:

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

Goodbye RadioShack, aka RadioShaft, the Shaft, etc. Your glory days of the 1970's and 1980's are long over. It's time to sign off.

 

It really is remarkable how quickly market dynamics can change things.

Only 6 or 7 years ago, I did not own a cellphone. I resisted getting one because my company paid for a pager, and in an emergency my wife could get ahold of me easily enough. We did have e-mail to communicate as well when at work, and land line phones. It just wasn't a dire necessity to own one. However, it seemed like overnight the only place you could find a payphone was the "seedier" parts of town, and getting cellphones DID become rather important. It wasn't long after that my first wife and I divorced, and I moved into my own place. I had a land line for all of 6 months before deciding I was wasting money and cut it off. My cell phone serves every need I have.

As was stated earlier, they have become so inexpensive (relatively) that most 9 year olds carry them, some more elaborate than mine! RadioShack doomed itself to a flooded market, and toy robots and RC cars only sell at Christmas.

There just isn't enough people who care anything about universal wal-wart adapters etc and all the other junk they sell can be found at Wal-mart, Best Buy, or Home Depot. And where all else fails, internet mail order.

Yeah, I guess the internet and cell-phone industries sure put the hurtin' on RadioShack. It is a shame, too...Many a modern-day Electrical Engineer had his eyes opened at RadioShack stores over the years. Probably a lot of the cellphone designers and internet developers who helped run them out of business.

 

Well, I guess all that connects "radio shack" to radio communication technology is the name, hence the downfall...

 

Hmmmm

I guess since the Ham stuff died so did their sales. Hey Shack Bring the Ham Back you may get mo Business oh yeah I still own stuff like the HTX 10 sitting on my desk for a additional rig in the shack and 3 scanners and also replacement parts and service manuals.

 

I worked for Radio Shack in the summer of '97, right out of high school. Our store was the highest volume store in the district and I made pretty good money. One day my manager yelled at me for helping an older gentleman find a resistor for a project instead of selling him a new cellphone. After I made enough to get my HTX-202 on a discount, I was gone and went off to college.

Good riddance to bad service. You don't see Fry's hurting these days.

 

OTOH... RS used to send returns back to the Tandy resale center in FW, not just shrink wrap 'em asnd throw 'm on the shelf again like Frys does.



Cortland
KA5S

 

I'm not so sure they're dead.

I visited two of their stores in the last couple days. I was looking for one of their decent-quality mobile speakers for my HF rig, to match the one I have on my dualband VHF/UHF rig.

The first store was a new one. It was almost 100% cellphones and iPods. Now, the appeal of that store was that they had a ton of fairly unique little items, some of which I had not seen before. And, if I was looking for an accessory for my cellphone or iPod, I would probably go there first - even over Best Buy. But for anything else, fuggetaboudit.

The second store was an older one tucked in the corner of a strip mall. It was like stepping into a time warp. They still sold CB radios, and scanners! I think most of that stuff has actually been discontinued, but they still had it in that store. I managed to find the speaker on a shelf, after the clerk checked stock and told me there weren't any. They had a great sale on batteries, too, just like in 1967.

I'm learning to buy my needed supplies on infrequent trips to the nearest ham dealer, and I load up on goodies when I go to Silicon Valley. If there was a Fry's near me, I would just sign over one paycheck a month, though I see they have recently stopped selling Alinco rigs like they used to. I think those of us outside major population centers will be doomed to mail order before long. OK, I like Digikey, too, and RF Parts is a great outfit.

If Dick Smith Electronics couldn't make it here, it's hard to see how Radio Shack could. They certainly do a brisk business in cellphones - I really don't know why. Why would I buy a contract from them, when I can drive two blocks or less and get a better deal from the cellphone company? My daughter lost a cellphone that we bought at RS. It was going to cost us over $300 to replace it - but the company that actually provided our service replaced it for free - with a one year contract.

Still, there is a lot of traffic in many of their stores, which means they are making sales. The company exists without any visible means of support, defying all the laws of business and economics.

 

Doesn't break my heart. They haven't got much of what I need anyway. The local stores are just dealers and sell very little Radio Shack stuff. They'll just use the space for other things and go right on selling to the consumer.

I do have fond memories of the Allied Catalog though. It was my wish book years ago.

Phil
KD7ZD

 

they never have a thing I need for my radio shack so I don't go there. I would if they did but they don't so I Won't. simple! Get in line, or go on line that's the only choice, bye bye Radio Shack!