RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing • Hacker News Board

Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#121

Post by 3pt14159 » Thu, Jan 15, 2015, 7:12 PM UTC

copsarebastards wrote: post #30

A lot of people think RadioShack should have made the transition to internet sales, but I think that they actually started failing earlier, when they expanded into a non-technical market. In the 80s and 90s I could go into a Radio Shack and buy resistors, fuses, soldering equipment, breadboards, various controllers and sensors, hard drives, processors: everything I needed to assemble an electronics project, fix a com…

Actually, even though many people think like this I don't think Radio Shack made the wrong move. Before the internet you needed a place like Radio Shack for all the electronics and super early computer guys. But nerds (like me) moved to software and the few remaining people still building physical stuff could generally get the parts they needed online.

Radio Shack actually tried to move back into resistors and Raspberry PIs, but nobody goes to a physical store to buy that stuff anymore.

Radio Shack wasn't large enough in most malls to offer a variety of home electronics like Best Buy, but cell phones were high margin and viewed as a commodity by consumers, which is why they moved into them. It isn't simple saving Radio Shack. They probably would have been better off splitting the brand into a small store (Radio Shack) and a larger box store where they could have competed more effectively.

Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#122

Post by rgbrenner » Thu, Jan 15, 2015, 7:13 PM UTC

copsarebastards wrote: post #30

A lot of people think RadioShack should have made the transition to internet sales, but I think that they actually started failing earlier, when they expanded into a non-technical market. In the 80s and 90s I could go into a Radio Shack and buy resistors, fuses, soldering equipment, breadboards, various controllers and sensors, hard drives, processors: everything I needed to assemble an electronics project, fix a com…

started failing earlier, when they expanded into a non-technical market.

Radio Shack was dead when the 80s ended. Look around, where are the small computer stores that used to be all over the place? They went the same way the record store did...

Radio Shack works in an era where computers are $10000, and people build and solder their own computers.

That era is gone. And that's why Radio Shack will die.

Pretending that the 80s market still exists is delusional... and completely ignores all of the companies that clung to that business model that died 10-20 years ago.

Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#123

Post by troymc » Thu, Jan 15, 2015, 7:15 PM UTC

gregd wrote: post #6

I graduated from high school in the 80s. My first computer was a TRS-80 WITH a cassette tape to save my programs to. How RS went from being ubiquitous to a laughing stock is beyond me, but I remember seeing the downfall during the 90s when they started offering really cheap toys (like remote controlled cars). They almost became embarrassing.

My first computer was also a TRS-80 from Radio Shack. We'd go to Radio Shack to get new game cartridges, new cassette tape games, magazines with actual code in them (!), and even an upgrade from 8K to 16K RAM.

Those days are long gone. I understand why they got into selling other stuff, but now one can get all that other stuff elsewhere, often at lower cost…

Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#124

Post by analog31 » Thu, Jan 15, 2015, 7:18 PM UTC

I wonder if the proliferation of component types, even for hobbyists, would just be overwhelming for a brick and mortar store. As a kid, I shopped at Radio Shack all the time. I designed things around the parts that I knew they had, but it was still a pretty small selection.

When I got my first Digi-Key catalog (remember when it was about 1/4 inch thick?) I was just astounded by the variety of parts that I had no idea even existed, such as interesting IC's. Jameco and Mouser each had their own spin on what goodies I might like to have.

So I wonder if brick-and-mortar hobbyist electronics parts really still makes sense in this day and age.

Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#125

Post by Florin_Andrei » Thu, Jan 15, 2015, 7:19 PM UTC

orthecreedence wrote: post #103

joeyh wrote: post #100

Good riddance. May whatever small void it leaves be filled by a diversity of mom-and-pop electronics stores. There's one such store in my area that seems to do well enough catering to the professional/hobby markets, with a couple locations, and has been around for decades. (Oddly it also has free popcorn.)

Agreed, in Santa Cruz there's Santa Cruz Electronics, which has tons of microprocessors/microcontrollers, tons of bare components, higher-level electronics, etc. It's what Radio Shack used to be before it turned into a consumer electronics reseller with outrageous markups and one tiny section tucked away in the back that has maybe 4 resistors and a couple of switches. I haven't been in SC electonics for a few years,…

I'll have to visit that store next time I'm in SC.

Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#126

Post by a3n » Thu, Jan 15, 2015, 7:21 PM UTC

dewitt wrote: post #15

Apologies about the link to a restricted site. I didn't notice it since I landed on the article via a search. Out of curiosity, since several comments here complained about the paywall ("paywalls are nsfl"), and an equal number or more on HN run adblockers and/or openly dislike ads in general (the whole "you are the product" meme), how do you think news sites should monetize? Seems like newspapers still add value in…

Since I use ddg, I can put this in my addr/search bar:

!gn site:wsj.com "RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing"

which brings me to this:

http://news.google.com/news/search?tbm=nws&q=site%3Awsj.com%...

Perhaps for sites that allow this (NYT and WSJ come to mind), it should become part of HN culture to just post links in the second form (the google news link).

Otherwise, I'm sure many people here are capable of creating a bookmarklet that does the above directly from an HN page. I just do the manual op that I described above, it's not that onerous or that often. But I'm rarely reading from a phone either.

Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#127

Post by a3n » Thu, Jan 15, 2015, 7:25 PM UTC

copsarebastards wrote: post #30

A lot of people think RadioShack should have made the transition to internet sales, but I think that they actually started failing earlier, when they expanded into a non-technical market. In the 80s and 90s I could go into a Radio Shack and buy resistors, fuses, soldering equipment, breadboards, various controllers and sensors, hard drives, processors: everything I needed to assemble an electronics project, fix a com…

> The tragedy here is that this transition completed at about the same time the maker movement started to emerge a little after the turn of the millennium.

Maybe it's simpler than that. For makers, maybe Radio Shack succeeded because there was no internet yet. Once the internet really took hold, there was absolutely no need for a Radio Shack (at least no what Radio Shack traditionally was).

If that's the case, then RS was doomed no matter what they did. Maybe they even saw that coming, and tried to survive (although fail they did) by shifting away from that disappearing business.

Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#128

Post by marincounty » Thu, Jan 15, 2015, 7:31 PM UTC

wycklendt14 wrote: post #17

I worked at RadioShack for 2 years in college in 2003 and I can say with out a doubt that the upper management lead the downfall of that company. They abandoned their core customers of electronics hobbyists and turned there employees into salesmen. I got paid $5.50 an hour but was told that was OK because I made commissions from cell phone sales which maybe upped my pay to $6.00 on a good day. No wonder there constan…

It's almost like upper management went out of their way to irritate employees and customers? I had a manager literally follow me out the store trying to get me to buy a cell phone. I never understood the Tie requirement--it's a electronics store? I applied in high school, but lasted one day with a angry local manager.(I don't blame the local manager--he had two, or three jobs at the time). I knew the problem was that upper management was stuck in the 50's; much like Sears?

Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#129

Post by rayiner » Thu, Jan 15, 2015, 7:35 PM UTC

rgbrenner wrote: post #122

copsarebastards wrote: post #30

A lot of people think RadioShack should have made the transition to internet sales, but I think that they actually started failing earlier, when they expanded into a non-technical market. In the 80s and 90s I could go into a Radio Shack and buy resistors, fuses, soldering equipment, breadboards, various controllers and sensors, hard drives, processors: everything I needed to assemble an electronics project, fix a com…

started failing earlier, when they expanded into a non-technical market. Radio Shack was dead when the 80s ended. Look around, where are the small computer stores that used to be all over the place? They went the same way the record store did... Radio Shack works in an era where computers are $10000, and people build and solder their own computers. That era is gone. And that's why Radio Shack will die. Pretending tha…

I missed the heyday of computing, but I was a kid in the 1990's and still remember going to radio shack to get resistors. I think as we grew out of it, that enthusiast market never really got replenished. My wife has two much younger siblings (13-14) and it's actually kind of surprising how they're less computer literate than we are (30-31). They use Snapchat and whatnot, but don't even know how to make more complicated search queries in Google.

Little bit nostalgic about the BK though. My first real computer was a Tandy we bought at RadioShack: https://parasomia.wordpress.com/2010/03/14/the-tandy-sensati.... I'm pretty much the guy in the article. Eventually maxed it out with 16MB of RAM, a 1.2GB HDD, and Win95.

Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#130

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast » Thu, Jan 15, 2015, 7:36 PM UTC

markrages wrote: post #104

specialp wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adafruit, Sparkfun, et al are also working out of cheap locations, Not malls and other high rent retail locations. I ordered from Adafruit once and it shipped from an apartment in Brooklyn. Radio Shack is a retail store with many locations. There are not many people that have an immediate need for Rasberry pi components, they order online. So that model is dead. Radio Shack despite this does indeed still devote a sma…

> Adafruit, Sparkfun, et al are also working out of cheap locations Adafruit is in Manhattan.

The office appears to be, that doesn't necessarily mean the rest of their operations are.