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A Eulogy for RadioShack

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Re: A Eulogy for RadioShack

#61

Post by damon_c »

jmelloy wrote: post #14
plg wrote: post #4

I remember flipping through the Radio Shack catalogue as a kid in the late 70s, early 80s, and making my virtual xmas shopping list (I almost never got the things I actually wanted). radio-controlled cars, walkie-talkies, metal detectors, tape recorders, electronics kits. I also remember being able to walk into a Radio Shack in my local mall and stroll over to the electronics section and pick out just the right resis…

Two Christmases in a row, I got a radio-controlled car from Radio Shack. Two years in a row, that car was dead by New Year's. I never asked for one again.

When I was about 8 or so, I had a friend who was all excited about the remote controlled car he found in the RadioShack catalog that advertised "scale speeds of 60 mph!!!". It was only about $40. What a deal!

He cashed in all his parental good will and actually got them to order it for him. Then it came and the 1:20 scale car basically went about 60/20 mph and we did the math... I felt bad for him, but hey... they didn't exactly lie!

Re: A Eulogy for RadioShack

#62

Post by ScottBurson »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #17

While it's glib to say that Radio Shack was lost for the want of a space, the change in their corporate identity from "Radio Shack" to "RadioShack" -- 1995 -- coincides with their slide to irrelevance nicely enough to seem kind of symbolic. We don't really know what the Internet is, but we've noticed that cool companies are using CamelCase. I suspect it's hard for people who are under 30, maybe even 40, to believe ho…

And don't forget the Model 100 [0], one of the first laptops. I still have mine. It worked the last time I turned it on.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100

Re: A Eulogy for RadioShack

#64

Post by vegashacker »

brianberns wrote: post #60

I learned to program in the early 1980s by playing with a TRS-80 floor model for an hour or two at a time while my mom shopped elsewhere in the mall. My first program animated a sine wave in BASIC by printing a single character one line at a time, and letting the lines scroll up the screen. I would've loved to own one of those computers, but my dad refused to buy one because he said it would be too tempting for me. H…

If my memory serves, two decades ago they were doing the zip code thing.

Re: A Eulogy for RadioShack

#65

Post by mgirdley »

Just tonight my father-in-law's new TV required a HDMI cable. He suggested RadioShack. I said "I'm going to Target. At RadioShack you have to talk to people."

The days of high-touch service are over.

Re: A Eulogy for RadioShack

#66

Post by Kluny »

kenrikm wrote: post #55
hagope wrote: post #46

I actually think RadioShack can turn things around. "Hacking" electronics is gaining ground esp with Arduino, Rpi, etc. Here's what I would do: - Beef up stock of "maker" electronics, Arduino's, Rpi, modules, kits etc. - Buy/build modules/kits, work with suppliers like SparkFun, Shmart, Adafruit for help in this area - Create "recipes" for building electronics and guide customers through purchasing the materials - Cl…

If you've been to Radio Shack recently, they have a decent number of Arduino kits and the like.. however I don't think people are not dense enough to pay $60 for a kit you can purchase for $20 on Amazon. I think their was a point where they could have course corrected though I think they missed the exit half a decade ago.

I bet they'd pay 10 bucks an hour for shop time with access to tools and advice, and buy arduinos at a slight premium out of impatience to get projects done.

Re: A Eulogy for RadioShack

#68

Post by softbuilder »

Radio Shack was always two stores in my memory. There was the legit geeky side with electronic parts, and there's the Realistic/Tandy side hawking so-so also-ran consumer electronics. The perspective always seemed to be that parts were sort of a loss-leader for consumables.

The employees almost never knew anything technical, and were often suspicious of nerdy kids like me lingering in the parts section. I remember one time I was building a circuit and needed a .22uF cap. I asked if a .22pF was the same (I was like 10 or 11). Instead of saying "I don't know" the sales guy just kind of stared at the package and then shrugged and said "Yep". My circuit did not work.

I hear people floating the idea of RS reinventing itself as more of a hacker-friendly place, but from an investor's perspective you'd be switching from a giant consumer market to a much smaller niche market. Personally, I think that's a great idea, but I'm not sure you could ever convince investors of that.

Re: A Eulogy for RadioShack

#69

Post by steven2012 »

The Radio Shack where I grew up gave out free batteries once a month. I did a science fair project that compared how good Radio Shack batteries were to Duracell, etc, and they were superior by far. It's sad that they are basically dead, but it's the Circle of Life, I suppose, and a good reminder to never rest on your laurels or take it for granted.

Re: A Eulogy for RadioShack

#70

Post by chipotle_coyote »

personZ wrote: post #57
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #17

While it's glib to say that Radio Shack was lost for the want of a space, the change in their corporate identity from "Radio Shack" to "RadioShack" -- 1995 -- coincides with their slide to irrelevance nicely enough to seem kind of symbolic. We don't really know what the Internet is, but we've noticed that cool companies are using CamelCase. I suspect it's hard for people who are under 30, maybe even 40, to believe ho…

Quite a few comments about how Radio Shack lost their way and squandered their opportunity, but really their business model was dead. Nothing they could have done would have changed what happened. It was a store with a very large number of SKUs that they could only sustain through very high profit margins. Sure that works great when it's Sunday and you need that resistor now, but the vast majority of times people wou…

Quite a few comments about how Radio Shack lost their way and squandered their opportunity, but really their business model was dead.

True, but I'm not sure those are mutually exclusive. I'd bet that the primary reason RadioShack never became a major online parts and electronics retailer is because of fear that it'd start cannibalizing their retail stores. Which it would have -- but either you cannibalize your own business or someone else does it for you. And I could certainly imagine an alternate history where they kept their own "captive brands" like Realistic and Optimus and competed reasonably well with the likes of Jabra, Jambox, Vizio and friends; I'm sure they had what they felt were sound business reasons for dumping that strategy, but it removed virtually all possibilities that buyers would go to RS for something only they sold, and I can't help but think that had significant value. (I suspect it's only the Sears captive brands that have let it hang on as long as it has, given how woefully it's been managed its last decade.)

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