Why did Radio Shack fail?

[pastafarian]

Just went into the local radio shack, haven't been in there in years. Needed an audio cable. Checked the wed site first, $6. A bit high, but it's local. In store? $12 and this is generic find for a buck on ebay quality, not name brand!! Ethernet cables, I'm short a couple. Can buy online ~.75 ea, $1 with free shipping. In the shack, cheapest albeit 3ft is $9.99 (4.99 online). I expect to pay a bit more, not get fleeced. Since Home Depot is around the corner, I found 1ft cables there for $2.65, a buck more for 3ft. The audio cable will have to be ordered online.

Not only is it not surprising they're all but bankrupt, it's surprising they lasted this long.

 

[codesplice]

The Internet killed a lot of the big specialty electronics stores who weren't able to adapt to keep up in time. Tragic, as I do miss being able to run down the road for that one doomaflootchy I need to complete my turboencabulator project, but getting one two days later for $1.5o shipped from Amazon is still pretty convenient.

 

[bjacks12]

The Radio Shack in my hometown went out of business last year. Ironic that an electronic/tech company doesn't give a shit about remaining relevant in the digital age.

It was a shame though because the local owner also operated a kickass video rental store there. Unlike Redbox it had all the great classics. Wanted to rent Jaws? They have it. Beverly Hills Cop? No problem.

But I guess Netflix really did a number on them.

 

[zuben el genub]

Stopped getting business when people stopped customizing sound systems, antennae and tubed radios and building equipment. The Vulcan used to get parts there. That was the last store that had a tube checker.

 

[mikedt]

Rip-off Shack(Tandy) in the UK and Europe shut down 15 years ago. I used to like them in 70s and early 80s because they often stocked components couldn't get anywhere else locally, like certain integrated circuits for projects. And some of their Science Fair project kits were excellent, such as 100-in-1. Which is what got me really interested in electronics in the first place. But they stopped doing stuff like that years ago. Tandy PCs where a pile of crap, out of date, incompatible and horribly over priced. Like they were selling 286s when everyone else had moved onto 386.

I'm surprised they lasted this long, Circuit City crashed years ago, done in no doubt by Amazon and the internet in general.

BTW if anyone wishes to remember the better days of Radio Shack, checkout....
http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/
...has almost every RS catalog online, since 1939 to 2005. Plus a whole load of other things as well, like history, inside corporate stuff, TV ads. I didn't know that Tandy was originally a leather company, who bought the loss making Radio Shack business in the late 50s. In the UK Radio Shack was called Tandy, because there was another business already called "Radio Shack" in London. Although many products that Tandy sold did have Radio Shack branding on them.

 

[mikedt]

Stopped getting business when people stopped customizing sound systems, antennae and tubed radios and building equipment. The Vulcan used to get parts there. That was the last store that had a tube checker.

That was it, when they did the specially and niche things locally. Last time I looked at their site, it was just iPhones and Samsung tablets and TVs and stuff like that. Don't think they even sold soldering irons any more.

 

[Revenant Ghost]

My local Radio Shack is still open at the moment, AFAIK.

 

[olbriar]

My Radio Shack is always very busy. I have no way of knowing if they are solvent however. The owner of the store is an active amateur radio guy and is known state wide and beyond to have everything a ham operator might need. We call his store the candy store. He even sells used equipment on consignment as well as home brew antennas and related equipment. He is the go to source for amateur gear and information/help. I do understand that it is a small niche that he is filling but it's that specialty calling that keeps the place slammed with business. I'm certain if the Shacks go out of business, his doors will still be open under a different name.

 

[Gmash]

We still have a few open around here, but the company is living on borrowed time. Mainly killed by the internet, but also the disposable society. People used to fix things, now it's cheaper to pitch it and get a new one. It's nice to be able to get a cable if you absolutely need it right now, but how can they stay in business when the few customers that do walk in there only spend $10 a pop? They tried to turn themselves into a one-stop cell phone store with all the carriers ala Best Buy, doesn't seem to be working too well and probably alienated the old-timers looking for ham radio doodads. Shame to see more brick and mortar stores going away, but that's business. Compete or die.

 

[Sento]

I noticed too that radioshack stocks are falling like crazy. I like my local radioshack because if I need a cable or something and don't want to wait to get it online I can get it right away, and it's much better than going to walmart where you have no idea where anything is, if they have what you want, and you can NEVER find an employee anywhere, and if you do they have no idea what you are talking about.

At the same time my local radioshack people aren't exactly gurus, but they are better than walmart - I don't feel too sad though because I applied for a job there and never got a call back And I know I would have been one of their best employees!

 

[nickdalzell]

Ours is still open, but it isn't recognizable as a RadioShack. no more Duo-Phone tapes or parts they'd have a few years ago (seeing their customers held onto legacy Shack products and the demand was still up).

Today they appear as nothing more than a reseller of MVNO pre-paid cellular phones. in their stock they do have some Arduino kits and such, the usual stock of diodes, resistors and various electronic parts, and overpriced audio/video equipment under the Optimus rebrand, but that's it.

 

[mikedt]

Optimus was always their house brand for speakers. Audio equipment, tuners, tape decks, radios etc, was Realistic.

Do they still sell CB rigs and antennas, and do they still run the "Free battery club", where you had a card and could claim one Enercell, AA, C, D or PP3 battery a month. I had a Realistic CB in the early 80s. I think the demand for answering machine tapes and Concertape 8-track head cleaners might have declined somewhat.


Just found this page from the 1980 UK Tandy catalogue.

"Not available in UK", CB in the UK was illegal at the time but many people were using it, and so the local Tandy store was selling CB rigs under the counter. CB was legalized the following year, Dec 1981, and then all hell broke loose.

CB was really just the 1970s and 80s equivalent of internet social networking, and had more than its fair share of nutcases and idiots.

 

[zuben el genub]

Some stores do have components, but usually shoved way in the back and you are lucky if the clerk even has a clue.
Think you can still buy a digital antenna and rotator at some stores.

 

[nickdalzell]

Optimus is their name for receivers and tuners here, has been since the late 1990s. i haven't seen 'Realistic' on anything since the 1980s.

 

[codesplice]

Optimus is their name for receivers and tuners here, has been since the late 1990s. i haven't seen 'Realistic' on anything since the 1980s.

I had a Realistic-branded handheld frequency scanner in my car around 2006ish until I upgraded to the since-discontinued Radioshack Pro-96.

 

[lunatic59]

Mike, I actually had the TRC613 in the ad there. We (my brother and me) had it rigged that it could be popped out of my 1962 VW beetle and hooked up to a 12V power supply to be used as a base station. The Beetle, BTW was 6V so I needed an inverter to get the 12V to power the radio. I had a 102" whip mounted on the bumper and we'd drive to the top of the nearby mountain and talk skip.

I think I'm beginning to understand why I never had a prom date.

 

[mikedt]

Optimus is their name for receivers and tuners here, has been since the late 1990s. i haven't seen 'Realistic' on anything since the 1980s.

I haven't actually been in a Radio Shack or Tandy store since the 1990s. They shut-down their UK and European operation in 1999. My former local Tandy store is now an Indian restaurant.... LOL. Some of the former stores became Carphone Warehouse, who sells mobile phones. There was a few that continued as electronic stores, where was deemed sufficient demand from radio amateurs, electronics hobbyists, etc. Their heyday for me, was 1970s and 80s.

 

[mikedt]

Mike, I actually had the TRC613 in the ad there. We (my brother and me) had it rigged that it could be popped out of my 1962 VW beetle and hooked up to a 12V power supply to be used as a base station. The Beetle, BTW was 6V so I needed an inverter to get the 12V to power the radio. I had a 102" whip mounted on the bumper and we'd drive to the top of the nearby mountain and talk skip.

I think I'm beginning to understand why I never had a prom date.

We sometimes used to try and get dates on CB, and usually didn't end so good, or meeting some really unpleasant people...."going for an eyeball" as we'd call it in CB lingo. We had the rigs at home, put a great big antenna on the roof, and prior to 1981 quite a few people got busted "Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949" When CB was legalized in the UK, couldn't use the imported AM rigs, had to buy new UK legal "CB27/81" FM rigs. Once it was legal, that was the beginning of the end of good CB, children got hold of rigs.

 

[lunatic59]

The '70s was the hayday of CB here. I remember my dad having a rig in the '60s but it was a simple single-band base station in the attic ... most likely because coax was expensive then ... shorter antenna cable. 15 channels with 2 reserved for emergency use. (?) No sideband or FM bands.

When they released "Smokey and the Bandit" in '77, that was the end of it for me. Every yahoo had a CB in their firebird or Chevy Nova and drove around clogging the airwaves with nonsense. By the '80s it had pretty much reverted back to truckers only.

 

[mikedt]

Don't know how well this little venture is going to go, given Radio Shack's current financial woes.
http://insideretail.asia/2014/04/10/radioshack-expands-asian-presence/

"Mobile technology products retailer Radioshack has opened two new concept stores in China and Malaysia.

Working with joint venture partner First Honest Enterprises, RadioShack opened its first concept store in China at Huacao Town, Shanghai."

 

[huh]

Too small of a niche..not enough inventory or selection...bad marketing and even worse business sense...too little too late..

 

[Gmash]

That was weird back in the 80's when Radio Shack put their brand names on everything in the store. I also remember Sears doing the same thing for awhile. You would see things like an Atari 2600 with Sears branding on it. Odd. I was too young to put much thought into it at the time, but I can't see that happening today. Not even Wal-Mart has the influence to make that happen now. Seems like a lot of trouble for not much benefit, really. If anything it would be a handicap, as most people would rather have the name brand instead of the exact same item with the Sears or Radio Shack badge on it.

 

[mikedt]

Some things were Radio Shack originals, probably most notably the TRS-80s, and the Science Fair electronics kits, think they're were designed in-house as well. A lot of the Realistic audio equipment was Japanese, much of it made by Kyocera or Funai I believe. Realistic radios often came from Taiwan or Hong Kong.

CB radios and calculators were definitely re-brands. See the same scientific calculators with either Casio or Radio Shack stamped on them. Back in the day I'd often see the same Japanese, Kyocera or Uniden CB rigs, with many different brandings on them, Realistic, Cybernet, Harrier, Harvard, President, Midland, Motorola, etc. The Duo-fone answering machines and cordless phones, they were actually Uniden. Sure most of the Realistic radio scanners were Uniden as well.

 

[mikedt]

Too small of a niche..not enough inventory or selection...bad marketing and even worse business sense...too little too late..

Reading though their recent history on Wikipedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RadioShack
Seems they've been having troubles for ten years or more, and have tried various strategies such as "Fix 1500", downsizing, layoffs, going through umpteen CEOs, dropping the Tandy name completely, re-branding themselves for a short while "The Shack", ventures into China. Don't think that's going to go very well, almost nobody has ever heard of Radio Shack here. I'm sure the end is nigh for Rat Shack.

 

[olbriar]

Mike, I actually had the TRC613 in the ad there. We (my brother and me) had it rigged that it could be popped out of my 1962 VW beetle and hooked up to a 12V power supply to be used as a base station. The Beetle, BTW was 6V so I needed an inverter to get the 12V to power the radio. I had a 102" whip mounted on the bumper and we'd drive to the top of the nearby mountain and talk skip.

I think I'm beginning to understand why I never had a prom date.

I had no idea you were once a good ol boy lol. I had a CB as a young man. EF Johnson much like the unit you described. Chrystal, not tuneable. I had my 102 inch whip on my 57 olds. I was licensed. KPH 5768 lol.
I moved onto more regulated communications when the FCC forgot or at least ignored all the rules in their part 95 rules and regs. It was a great hobby and a fun means of communication way back in the day. I was active in civil defense and react which required one to be a licensed operator. And you are right, it was a real chick magnet, NOT.