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With Nothing Left To Sell, RadioShack Is Selling Itself To People (theverge.com)

Posted by msmash on from the end-of-road dept.

RadioShack, an almost 100-year-old American chain of wireless and electronics stores, had a hell of ride at retail. The cradle of building your own electronics at home, and an early participant in the PC revolution, is finally facing the end after a long, slow death at the hands of consumer disinterest, a dysfunctional marriage with Sprint. From a report: Tons of electronics stores have shuttered over the past decade, but few are as tragic as RadioShack, which filed for bankruptcy in 2015, appeared to be rescued by Sprint in agreement to co-share the stores, then got kicked to the curb and had to file for a second bankruptcy this past March. The new agreement means hundreds of RadioShack shops will officially close down and be replaced by Sprint stores, fizzling out dreams of the Maker movement. So while this is an end to another chapter of our American electronics retail culture, we do have to wonder: how are the folks at RadioShack doing? They have been selling the leftover stocks of electronics for a while, with only mostly store fixtures, ladders, and carpet tiles seemingly left on offer. This is what RadioShack posted earlier this month. The company has since been tweeting about the leftover stuff it has up on sale, though.

9 of 240 comments (clear)

  1. Digikey kicks their butt by AntronArgaiv · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually, I think surface mount kicked their butt. I spent a lot of money at Radio Shack in my youth.

    1. Re:Digikey kicks their butt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yes, this so much ^

      I remember getting my first electronic project kit from Radio Shack as a kid for Christmas. It was followed by their CB Base-station, Battery club card and more electronic grab-bags than I can remember.

      Some of my first experiences programming was on a Coco3 (running os9 btw)

      Fry's Electronics recognized the market place and took over from Tandy in a BIG way.

      If anybody really believes that there is no market for the 'old' Radio Shack, then they should step into a Fry's Electronics and see where all the customers have gone.

    2. Re:Digikey kicks their butt by Penguinisto · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Nah, not really. Surface-mount would have been minor - if the management had half a working neuron to share between them, they could have sold those components, as well as finer-tipped soldering irons, a cheap-but-big lighted magnifying glass, and other bits needed for basic surface-mount repair. If they were really sharp, they could have procured and sold decent not-quite-lab-grade-yet-still-quite-usable higher-end gear to go with it (e.g. Oscilloscopes, etc).

      They could have also launched a usable website to sell components back in the 1990s, and if they were first, they could have kicked butt against the likes of Mouser.

      Shit - if they hadn't screwed up with the Tandy Computer line, they could have went in that direction harder, and could have grown into a halfway decent PC OEM by now (or at least do what NewEgg is doing now, but would have been bigger by dint of being among the first to do it...)

      Radio Shack's problems, as one sibling hinted at, boils down to this: They had a management that was both disorganized and dysfunctional as hell. They were completely blind to changes outside of their domain, never looked beyond the tip of their nose, and only reacted to changes when shit threatened to get real on their bottom line... then they reacted in the totally wrong manner to each of these crises - and did so consistently.

      (Seriously - anyone applying for a management position that has "Radio Shack" and "Executive" in the same job description on their resume should be summarily ignored...)

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    3. Re:Digikey kicks their butt by Darinbob · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Fry's worked because it was in Silicon Valley, back when there was still silicon in the valley and not just web advertising companies. There was a whole region full of people who wanted this stuff a couple decades before "Maker" was coined. They wanted to build a computer, they knew how to solder, they wanted DIY kits for their kids, or get a phone cable crimper.

      This was also in the boom of technology I think too, before the monoculture of the dumbed down PC and passive consumers. Remember the pilgrimage from Fry's to HT Electronics to the Computer Literacy Bookshop.

  2. They've had it coming for decades by suso · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I recently went to a local RadioShack going out of business "sale" and heard one of the employees yell at the customers "I don't have a job, stop buying stuff at Amazon people!". I can certainly agree that people have been buying too much toilet paper from Amazon to the demise of local business, but in RadioShack's case, its much deeper.

    The start of RadioShack's demise predates online shopping by at least a decade. I'm sure many long time readers here will attest to this that RadioShack for many years has lost its way. I found one of my own blog posts from 2002 in which I complained about RadioShack. There was an episode of Seinfeld in the 90s where they made fun of RadioShack for asking for your phone number when you buy batteries. Hiring people who had no idea what they are doing and little interest in working or helping customers. A product selection that was out of date with what was available on the market and prices that were unreasonably high. Even with their 90% discount on component electronics and maker stuff, I still wasn't interested in buying what they had left because it was still no better than online pricing.

    Now i'm hopeful that the vacancy left by RatShack (Its pet names go way back) can be filled by people who may wish to cater more to the Maker market, but have not wanted to risk trying to compete with RadioShack still around.

  3. How did Sears outlast them? by damn_registrars · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Really that is the only question I have left. I guess Sears is staying afloat by the fact that they own most of their real estate and can use it as collateral. RadioShack by comparison has really nothing to offer any more to keep the doors open. Even as stupid as the decisions made by RadioShack top brass have been, they are nothing compared to the rampaging stupidity and arrogance that is Sears CEO Eddie Lampert.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  4. I'll trade you by freeze128 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I would happily let Radio Shack close all its stores if it meant that we could get just one Fry's electronics store in my state (MN).

  5. Sure, RS dug their own grave by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    But when I was a wee physicist working on the space shuttle program back in the mid-90's (Jesus, has it been that long?), I had designed a control system to point a 24" mirror at the space shuttle for exhaust luminance measurements. About an hour before one launch I was tweaking pots in the box to zero out gimbal drift (the trailer I was in had a 250' power cord, and my local grounds drifted all over the place) - naturally couldn't find my pot tool so I used an ordinary screwdriver - and it slipped and shorted the power rail to a CCA inside. The display goes dark, the mirror won't move - I've got nothing. RS was AFAIK the only place to get electronic components. Went out, bought a bag of parts - relays, resistors, caps - they had it all. Cobbled a bypass for the roasted CCA and got it all working at T-3 minutes.

    Sure, they dug their own grave, but they saved my bacon back then, and for that I will always think fondly of them.

    Oh, and my first complete program was Space Invaders on a TRS-80.

  6. I was one of the last true Radio Shack Employees by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Back in college ('97,'98) Radio Shack was still holding on to it's true roots and was an awesome place to have a part time job. Your pay, while commission based, required that you pass a series of tests, and these tests were no joke. You had to understand circuits, voltage, amperage, why you can't sell anyone a business band radio etc etc. Radio Shack had never been about the money. It was about selling people things they didn't need, it was about helping them solve their problems.

    When the new CEO took over he began to focus on short term profit like Long Distance service, Cell Phones, Satellite, and things like that. Then came "You must ask everyone for their name and address" and about their Long Distance Provider, and what cell phone they had. I shit you not, they even called it "Helping your customers".

    The district and regional managers were slowly replaced by disgusting individuals who cared nothing about integrity and focused on profit. Our Manager Wayne Edwards was probably one of the most honest people I've ever known. What comes deeply disturbed him and it bothered me to watch him go through it.

    I'll always remember the day Thomas Montegue (District of Cary, NC) came to our store and told us how he could easily beat us in sales and bet us $100. I interrupted him and said I'll take that bet where you do your sales thing, and I'll do mine. At the end of the day I told more than $1000 more than him and never sold a phone, never asked a single individual for more than necessary info (some things you had to give your info). This is where the real poison showed. He turned things and went "Well I made more money for Radio Shack. You focused on making money for you". I was a bit surprised by this considering I didn't work there to "make bank", I worked there because I enjoyed helping people solve problems.

    Soon after, the test requirements were scrapped and Radio Shack starting hiring anyone they could "to meet growth needs". I'm talking the people who didn't know (or care) about the difference between a digital cable (hdmi) and analog.

    During the summer of 2000 I was the top ranked salesman in our district 7 weeks in a row. I worked 5 hours a week, on Sundays but had developed such a relationship with certain customers (NC State professors, electronic hobbiests, etc) that they would leave orders for me to put in for them. Keep in mind this was before online purchasing really took off. Thomas contacts our store and says any online order over X dollars is no longer considered for commission and is a higher level sale. Doesn't make a lot of sense does it? Corporate was taking large order profits for themselves and cutting us out.

    Needless to say this didn't sit well with those customers and they stopped doing business with us completely. They used us not because we were the cheapest, but because we knew where to order quality parts from and how to handle problems that arose to meet their needs.

    The last straw for me was the increased "trainings" at the district office where Thomas would put in a VHS video from the last 70's early 80's to teach us how to better sell modern technology. I'm not kidding, we're talking the whole leisure suit mustache combo and everything. The guy would say "You'll probably only see that customer once in your career. Sell them everything you think they need and everything they don't! That's how to be a winner". It was embarrassing.

    I placed my head on the table and was immediately called out by Thomas. I can't remember what he said exactly but it was something like "So Mr , is this training making you tired? Do you think you know everything there is to sales?" my response definitely ended my career. "Definitely not. But I beat your sales challenge, and everyone else for 7 weeks until you changed the rules." There was a lot of laughter.

    I was terminated a week later for failing to ask every customer for their Name and Address supposedly due to a "hired test customer" during the week. It was funny because I only worked on Sundays and hadn