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RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

wsj.com

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Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#51

Post by specialp »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #37
wdewind wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because what you're talking about is a much, much smaller business.

Adafruit, Sparkfun, et al, might like a word with you. Even though they are smaller businesses, they are thriving, there is nothing to say that they would be if RS had taken the same road.

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 small area of the store to things like this.

Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#53

Post by jack-r-abbit »

The day before Christmas I found myself at a Radio Shack looking for jumper wires to go with an Arduino/breadboard kit I bought my daughter for Christmas. (A mix up with my wife's Amazon order left us suddenly without jumpers. Desperate times, desperate measures.) What a sad place. I ended up with some crappy jumpers that cost 2x more than the good ones we wanted from Amazon. The component section of RS is a joke. They used to be my go to in college (early 90s) when I needed components for a project. Now they are just trash. I left there Christmas Eve thankful I had some jumpers but they have now joined Walmart on my list of places I will only go if I am truly desperate and have exhausted all other options.

Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#54

Post by angersock »

debacle wrote: post #45
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…

People who use adblock are just entitled. They are manipulating the tragedy of the commons and then absolving themselves of any responsibility. They'll defend their right to use adblock militantly and then go pirate a game using the same defense. It's a personal moral defense rather than a logical justification.

Or, you know, we just don't want to have to deal with bad ads cluttering up our content, or ads that spy on and track us, or ads that start playing sound for no apparent reason, or ads that break our browsers.

Yeah, no, on second thought--it's probably that we're actually pirates. That's a much more obvious answer.

Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#55

Post by quadstick »

As a Geezer Geek, this breaks my heart. When I was eight years old, my mom dragged me along to the Tandy Leather Company so my sister could buy some leather for some stupid project. In the corner of that huge store was a section with all kinds of electronic parts. I was fascinated. My mom bought me a crystal radio kit, some books and a CK722 germanium transistor, and later, an Ocean Hopper shortwave receiver (all of which I still have). For another generation, it will be the TRS-80 that was their first love, electronically speaking. Before they lost their way, Radio Shack started a lot of engineers down their career path and it is very sad to see this outcome.

Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#56

Post by bentcorner »

zokier wrote: post #23
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…

I think paywalls are reasonable good way (from consumer point of view) to bring in money, although I realize that it probably would mean scaling down for many major publications. The LWN model might be the ideal balance point; recent items are subscriber-only, older stuff is free. That should work even better for WSJ style publication where I'd assume most people are more interested in breaking news rather than week…

Complete aside, but I just did a google search for "site:news.ycombinator.com lwn.net" and filtered to "this past week" to make a comment similar to yours, and Google found your comment, which is 24 minutes old right now. I'm pretty jaded with internet search, but frankly I'm astounded (Although I might have just gotten lucky with the spider).

Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#57

Post by sharkweek »

One of my favorite writers covered his tenure at RadioShack back in the early/mid augts

http://www.sbnation.com/2014/11/26/7281129/radioshack-eulogy...

It's one of the funniest/most heartbreaking articles I have ever read, but also explains a lot about RadioShack's slow spiraling collapse.

Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#58

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

themoonbus wrote: post #46
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adafruit, Sparkfun, et al, might like a word with you. Even though they are smaller businesses, they are thriving, there is nothing to say that they would be if RS had taken the same road.

It doesn't matter that they are successful though, they operate on a much, much smaller scale than Radioshack. The maker market isn't nearly large enough to sustain a company of that size... that is to say, if Radioshack shrank to the size of one of Adafruit, it be a colossal failure as a corporation. The only chance they had to stay relevant was to challenge the Best Buy's of the world, but they failed to do that.

Right I posted a conjecture that RS might be able to grow the maker market.

>The maker market isn't nearly large enough to sustain a company of that size.

Well, neither are any of the other markets RS targeted, obviously. I wasn't proposing that RS go all-in on Raspberry pis.

>The only chance they had to stay relevant was to challenge the Best Buy's of the world, but they failed to do that.

Best Buy is not exactly killing it, but RS could have probably done something interesting there, I agree.

Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#59

Post by mistermumble »

funkdobiest wrote: post #40

Last time I was in RadioShack was in the 90's in Washington DC, and I went there for a connector, and there were literally 20 people in line all buying minutes for cell phones, with only one person in the store. I thought this was some sort of hidden camera reality/joke tv show. I just put the item down and left.

I remember going to RS stores to buy a 99 cent part and the clerk having to write, in long hand, on a triplicate form, my name and address and the item, before entering the amount on a cash register. I refused to give my info, and he said he could not sell me the part without it, so I said: "OK, my name is John Doe at 123 Main Street". He looked at me quizically and then wrote it down on the form without a word.

For a long time I avoided Radio Shack stores because I did not want to go through this charade. Only when desperate ("I need this connector right now"). The desperate-user scenario is not one for business success, especially when selling 99 cent parts.

Re: RadioShack Prepares Bankruptcy Filing

#60

Post by wozniacki »

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #53

The day before Christmas I found myself at a Radio Shack looking for jumper wires to go with an Arduino/breadboard kit I bought my daughter for Christmas. (A mix up with my wife's Amazon order left us suddenly without jumpers. Desperate times, desperate measures.) What a sad place. I ended up with some crappy jumpers that cost 2x more than the good ones we wanted from Amazon. The component section of RS is a joke. Th…

May I ask why is it that Walmart (for you) belongs in the same bin as Radioshack, in terms of the variety of offerings and availability?

Do you prefer Target or some other store for a greater selection or does your household mostly shop at Amazon?

I've heard Walmart was making a shift to smaller, approachable and more centrally located stores and was curious to see if this was the reason why.

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