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RadioShack Near Deal To Sell Half of Its Stores, Close the Rest
mrspoonsi sends a Bloomberg report about a possible endgame for RadioShack. The company will reportedly sell half its store leases to Sprint, and the remaining stores will simply close. Negotiations are still underway, and the deal could fall through — but as it stands, the stores still open will likely change to Sprint's branding.
Sprint and RadioShack also have discussed co-branding the stores, two of the people said. It’s also possible that another bidder could emerge that would buy RadioShack and keep it operating, the people said. The Chinese backers who took the Brookstone chain out of bankruptcy, Sanpower Group, also have been in discussions about bidding for RadioShack assets, one person familiar with the talks said. ... The discussions represent the endgame for a chain that traces its roots to 1921, when it began as a mail-order retailer for amateur ham-radio operators and maritime communications officers. It expanded into a wider range of electronics over the decades, and by the 1980s was seen as a destination for personal computers, gadgets and components that were hard to find elsewhere.
I was so upset when Tandy closed up shop in England, they had the best gear in - not to mention the Battery Club which kept me in PP3s for a decade.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
a la Circuit City.
It's a shame, Radio Shack was so early in the PC game with the tape drives, 16KB of RAM, no hard drive, peek and pokes...they catered to the true tech junkies and with just a bit more business acumen, they could have ruled the computer world.
But then Commodore 64 came out with color and games, then came the the 8086 etc., but for a while the real eggheads knew how to play with the machine that looked like it came straight from the Star Trek bridge.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
but they just don't have anything to offer anymore. Sears will be next.
Maybe putting out another Super Bowl commercial this year would have helped.
... if I'm sad or happy about this.
Back when I was a kid, Radio Shack was a place where you could buy electrical components. Sure, they sold RC cars and stuff at the front, but at the back you could buy breadboards, wires, resistors, capacitors, microchips, etc. it was great.
In the past 15 years, most of that good stuff is gone: Radio Shack is nothing more than a non-denominational mobile phone store.
So, since they aren't much different than, say, Best Buy, or any number of other similar retailers, it's no wonder they are going under.
If they still sold components, I'd mourn their loss. Since they don't, I'm not sure I'll be shedding any tears.
Time to board up that Shack and go home. Where once you excelled as a mail order company, you have fallen victim to E-Bay, mail order and big box stores, not to mention your own hubris. How long did you think you could charge outrageous prices for that substandard product to the hobbyist? I can get cheaper cables from Amazon and electronic parts from Dig-Key (and others) in just a few days, and I won't have to throw out 60% of the parts for being out of spec.
It's been a fine run, right up to the part where your customers left you and you started to try pump the bilge water selling Cell phones and overpriced accessories of all things... Say WoHo for the bean counters and MBAs who did you and Circuit City the same...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Most of you probably don't remember back in the sixties when Radio Shack was the retail distribution arm of Allied Radio (yes, it was known as Allied Radio Shack), a major components distributor. It was a real parts store the. Eventually Tandy picked up the chain, began selling branded parts, and it was never quite the same. The reality is that the advent of the personal computer, the death of manufacturing in the U.S., and an educational system that no longer valued engineering skills combined to kill the electronics hobbyist market that the Radio Shack depended upon. Their change of focus to consumer electronics was a reflection of that new reality, but unfortunately that is a saturated market. This was, alas, a long time in coming.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Remember in Short Circuit 2 when Johnny 5 was able to repair himself by grabbing parts from a Radio Shack? You go in there now looking for electronic components and you find a dusty pack of alligator clips and maybe a sun damaged 4xAA battery holder. It's sad.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
I was a teen in the glory days of Allied and Lafayette catalogs when Radio Shack was nicknamed Rat Shack but everybody else died and Radio Shack remained as the place to get many components.
Went to one just a few weeks ago looking for volt meter....it was just pethetic looking in the store. Like almost no stock of anything DYI related. Sad....
Don't go to Radio Shack for a volt meter. You can get better volt meters from Harbor Freight... Usually for free with coupon. (I know I have a drawer full of unopened meters from them.) Unless you want one that's accurate, then hit up E-Bay for a fluke...
Actually, don't go to RS for even a cell phone, unless you already know exactly what you want and they can make you the best deal on it (unlikely).....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
So, nothing changes except they wall off the back 1/3rd of the store?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You're both wrong. The market exists and is doing well. Just look at Fry's electronics. A good quarter of the store is devoted to things like packs of resistors. They do have things like appliances, cameras, and TV's as well.
Radio shack could never decide if they wanted to go 100% geek or 100% consumer electronics. So they just kinda did both and neither well.
ars technica makes the point that neither radio shack nor sprint are willing to comment on this story, let alone confirm it.
http://arstechnica.com/busines...
Sigh, and I posted without realizing I wasn't logged in. Dementia is coming on fast.
Used to be the TRS-80 go-to guy in highschool, owned a Tandy 1000HX (It was a giant leap from my TI-99/4A, but the TI still works), that developed random floppy read/write errors, I solved it by gluing pennies to the read head of the drive, eventually it would go south, and I would glue another penny on, then one day, I sheared the head off when I put a disk in, because the spring had suddenly decided to stop holding those pennies up.
For anyone in the greater Seattle area looking for a good brick-and-mortar electronic components store, check out Vetco Electronics in Bellevue. Lots of great stuff...
Its ironic that they are selling to Sprint given that its the cellphone crap (and their stupid requirement that everyone who enters the store has to be given the cellphone hard-sell BS) that has caused so much of their problems.
I worked for Radio Shack back in the early 90's I thought it would be such a cool dream job, Within 6 months, I was promoted to a store manager and given my own store. Sadly, I soon learned the harsh reality of corporate marketing, sales gains, profits, and other related BS. Imagine having to ask your customers to sign a document saying that you tried to sell them a Tandy service plan! What a joke. I don't know what the Hell John Roach was thinking. I used to have small time hobbyists as customers that came to my store because I knew something about electronics and could help them out with whatever project they were working on. I loved it, and they loved it. I know it didn't make for huge profits, but it sure made for a loyal, steady, customer base. Radio Shack demanded double digit sales gains every quarter. No way that was going to happen when the customers knew they could buy the same TV or VCR at WalMart for half the cost, But my best memories were of the old time HAM's and retired tinkerers would come in and chat about designing a speaker cabinet with the best volumetric efficiency and frequency response, or some other electronic project they were working on. They could chat for hours! and they would willingly spend money with you because they trusted and confided in you. Too bad it just didn't jive with "profits", and "shareholder value". I understand the reality of it. But it still sucks. I miss those old guy's bringing in coffee and snacks, talking for what seemed like hours. My part timers eyes would glaze over after about 5 minutes of our conversation. It must have seemed to them like a conversation with Stephen Hawking LOL! But they knew all those old folks, as my store was located in a rural community, and they knew that it was the highlight of those old folks day to come in and talk tech with somebody who enjoyed it as much as they did. I will always remember those days.
Um... most folks can't remember that, because it never happened. Tandy bought Radio Shack in 1972, and then Radio Shack bought Allied Radio in 1970 and merged them. (Prior to that, Allied Radio had been a subsidiary of Columbia and a competitor to Radio Shack.) They were only briefly known as Allied Radio Shack, before Allied was spun off by court order and it subsequently died. On top of that, Allied pretty much followed the same path as Radio Shack - it started as a parts and components dealer, but by the 1960's it had long since become a consumer electronics dealer with a strong sideline in parts and components.
The reality is, Radio Shack hadn't been wholly dependent on the electronics hobbyist market since the 1930's - when it entered the hi-fi market. In 1954, the Realistic brand was introduced as it began to move into the more general consumer electronics market. By the early/mid 1970's, though the product mix varied by store (especially if your local store was independently owned), the transition company wide was largely complete - viewed as a whole they had become a consumer electronics store with a modest sideline in hobbyist parts and components. The advent of the personal computer was a decade away.
There are many causes to Radio Shack's decline and fall, but moving away from the electronics hobbyist market played no significant part.