Author Topic: Radio Shack Bankruptcy  (Read 13418 times)

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Offline LawsenTopic starter

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Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« on: April 21, 2017, 02:58:44 am »
Radio Shack is bankrupt. They are closing the remaining of 5,000 stores in North America. The causes are many from Sprint cellular telephones that bought them out and their pricing structure is too expensive compared to web sources to buy parts, lack of expansions into items for the maker culture, to the less reliant on over the counter and increasing reliant on web ordering and phone ordering parts.  The surgance in maker culture did helped but not enough. All Radio Shacks will be or are gone.
 

Offline brucehoult

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #1 on: April 21, 2017, 12:57:42 pm »
Radio Shack is bankrupt. They are closing the remaining of 5,000 stores in North America. The causes are many from Sprint cellular telephones that bought them out and their pricing structure is too expensive compared to web sources to buy parts, lack of expansions into items for the maker culture, to the less reliant on over the counter and increasing reliant on web ordering and phone ordering parts.  The surgance in maker culture did helped but not enough. All Radio Shacks will be or are gone.

I'm amazed they were still alive!

I doubt I've been in one since I was in the US in 1998 and visited a Radio Shack at Belmont, CA. A fruitless exercise as it had nothing other than TVs and mobile phones even then, at a time when Dick Smith stores in NZ still had components, connectors, wire, kits etc etc.
 

Online xrunner

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #2 on: April 21, 2017, 01:10:59 pm »
Quote
Closed RadioShack Goes Rogue, Tells Customers to Go ‘F–k’ Themselves

A shuttered RadioShack store in Reynoldsburg, Ohio published some questionable comments on its Facebook page this week.

RadioShack No. 4831, which Consumerist reports closed in March, told customers, "We closed. F--k all of you." It later posted, "Always hated all you p---k customers anyway." It's currently unclear who published the Facebook posts.

It's unclear if the Facebook page was truly the store's official account.

http://fortune.com/2017/04/20/radioshack-closed-facebook-ohio/
I told my friends I could teach them to be funny, but they all just laughed at me.
 

Offline daveyk

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Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #3 on: April 21, 2017, 01:24:07 pm »
Radio Shack is bankrupt. They are closing the remaining of 5,000 stores in North America. The causes are many from Sprint cellular telephones that bought them out and their pricing structure is too expensive compared to web sources to buy parts, lack of expansions into items for the maker culture, to the less reliant on over the counter and increasing reliant on web ordering and phone ordering parts.  The surgance in maker culture did helped but not enough. All Radio Shacks will be or are gone.

I'm amazed they were still alive!

I doubt I've been in one since I was in the US in 1998 and visited a Radio Shack at Belmont, CA. A fruitless exercise as it had nothing other than TVs and mobile phones even then, at a time when Dick Smith stores in NZ still had components, connectors, wire, kits etc etc.

Radio shack in the 1970s was great. Their p-Box kits were a wonderful thing for a teenager who wanted to learn. They had parts back then too. I was just learning electronics around 1975 and they were the only thing in town.

I am Facebook friends with the retired owner of our Radio Shack from back then. He's still alive and retired down south but active on-line. I can remember his patience when I would go to his store, which was in the back of his appliance store and then later as its own Radio Shack business moved to the local shopping plaza. Mom gave me so much money to buy parts each week for whatever I was building at the time and it would take me an hour to decide what to get. I did end up completing my own shortwave receiver and spend hours scanning the airwaves and collect DSL cards from a lot of shortwave broadcasters. I loved listening to Radio Nederlands.

I can not imagine my youth without Radio Shack, so this news makes me very sad, even if I outgrew RS by the early to mid-80s.

Radio Shack led to Heathkit, also sadly dead too, and then on to my Technicians education and job at the same place for the last 36years. Sadly that is ending too now that we were bought by GE and are being closed and moved oversees. 57 and being an electronics tech in a throw away society leaves me high and dry and possibly loosing a lot here in this small town.  I'm not sure how we will survive. So maybe, indirectly, and through three pass logic, I can blame my future problems on Radio Shack.

Dave


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« Last Edit: April 21, 2017, 01:25:56 pm by daveyk »
 
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Online tszaboo

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #4 on: April 21, 2017, 01:27:13 pm »
Again? This will be in the news: This year, Radio Shack did not go bankrupt.
 

Offline cvanc

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #5 on: April 21, 2017, 01:41:42 pm »
I can not imagine my youth without Radio Shack, so this news makes me very sad, even if I outgrew RS by the early to mid-80s.

This.  Exactly this.
 

Offline brucehoult

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #6 on: April 21, 2017, 02:21:42 pm »
I can not imagine my youth without Radio Shack, so this news makes me very sad, even if I outgrew RS by the early to mid-80s.

Radio Shack led to Heathkit, also sadly dead too, and then on to my Technicians education and job at the same place for the last 36years. Sadly that is ending too now that we were bought by GE and are being closed and moved oversees. 57 and being an electronics tech in a throw away society leaves me high and dry and possibly loosing a lot here in this small town.  I'm not sure how we will survive. So maybe, indirectly, and through three pass logic, I can blame my future problems on Radio Shack.

Australia and New Zealand still have Jaycar{.co.nz,.com.au}, which are pretty good. They claim "over 50 Stores & Stockists located throughout New Zealand", many times more than that in Australia. NZ has at least a couple of good owner-operated mail order hobbiest stores in https://nicegear.co.nz/ and http://www.mindkits.co.nz/, plus of course element14.

I'm living in Moscow at the moment and there is a wealth of internet order stores with electronic components, but most don't have any walk-in retail presence. Weirdly, they mostly let you select an order on the web site, then phone you to arrange delivery (which can often be in 2 hours, for a $10 fee). Cash payment on delivery seems to be the norm, at least with the places I've used.

Ohhh ... I just this moment found "Chip & Dip" which claims four actual retail locations in Moscow. I may just visit this one near me (3.3 km walk, or 15 min walk, 8 min on metro, 5 min walk) in the weekend. Looks reasonable.

https://www.chipdip.ru/en/shops/moscow-gilyarovskogo-39

I'm just looking at their price list (excel file) now ... lots and lots of ATMega, ATTiny, PIC, STM Cortex. Ah .. and I wanted a few shift registers for my HiFive1 Arduino compatable .. they have TI DIP16 SN74HC595N for 24 rubles (or SO-16 for 14 rubles). Definitely will visit :-)
 

Offline Brumby

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #7 on: April 21, 2017, 02:58:48 pm »
Australia and New Zealand still have Jaycar{.co.nz,.com.au}, which are pretty good. They claim "over 50 Stores & Stockists located throughout New Zealand", many times more than that in Australia.

Interesting that you mention Jaycar and their stores and stockists in this thread.

There is a business in Tamworth, NSW that is a Jaycar stockist as well as having their own product lines.  I personally know the guy who founded it.  From his involvement in the industry, he has had a fondness for the Radio Shack brand for some time and when Tandy disappeared from Australia, he looked at picking up the brand.  He had me prepare some graphics for trademark applications, but even I could tell he wasn't going to get them through.

He found a way to get close, though, and made it on a couple of points....
https://www.radioshackaustralia.com.au/


... so there's going to be a little hint of nostalgia that will live on in Australia.
« Last Edit: April 21, 2017, 03:10:35 pm by Brumby »
 

Offline daveyk

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #8 on: April 22, 2017, 02:04:53 pm »
Australia and New Zealand still have Jaycar{.co.nz,.com.au}, which are pretty good. They claim "over 50 Stores & Stockists located throughout New Zealand", many times more than that in Australia.

Interesting that you mention Jaycar and their stores and stockists in this thread.

There is a business in Tamworth, NSW that is a Jaycar stockist as well as having their own product lines.  I personally know the guy who founded it.  From his involvement in the industry, he has had a fondness for the Radio Shack brand for some time and when Tandy disappeared from Australia, he looked at picking up the brand.  He had me prepare some graphics for trademark applications, but even I could tell he wasn't going to get them through.

He found a way to get close, though, and made it on a couple of points....
https://www.radioshackaustralia.com.au/


... so there's going to be a little hint of nostalgia that will live on in Australia.

Solar snake repeller? Damn, I'm glad we don't need anything like that here in central Pennsylvania in the USA.  I hear there are more snakes and spiders in Australia that can kill you in a heartbeat than anywhere else? I guess you learn to be careful and adapt?


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Offline Brumby

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #9 on: April 22, 2017, 02:19:33 pm »
I guess you learn to be careful and adapt?

Just like anywhere else in the world.
 

Online DaJMasta

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #10 on: May 27, 2017, 06:29:46 pm »
I've stopped by my local store a few times in this closeout period, and they're in their final days.  My local store said 4 days remaining (closes after the 31st of May) and the sales were up to 80% off (60% off a couple weeks back), with blister packed components were a dollar each.

Perhaps more interestingly, they were also selling their store equipment: POS terminals, UPC scanners, shelving, component drawers, and even some basic repair equipment from their back room repair station.  They even had extra pens for sale at the register, it's really an everything-must-go situation and if you're near one, there could be some neat stuff.

I picked up half a dozen relays, a couple of 6 position rotary switches, and a few good quality connectors for like $11.
 

Offline Electro Detective

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #11 on: May 27, 2017, 11:48:57 pm »
It's an unfortunate BIG LOSS to decades of Electronics that Tandy/Radio Shack and Dick Smith have folded, but for a while/long time they were selling overpriced blister packaged crap,
smartassphones, iDiotPads, TVs etc etc and other stuff that was not exactly 'electronics hobbyist' addictive,

to make you wanna go back and get PARTS, a roll of solder, fuses, buy a new meter, lay-by an oscilloscope or sig gen, buy another kit, another book on circuits blah blah and
(EEVblog members please enter your poison/s here)


Not to mention techs, electricians and other professionals popping in to get bits as well to finish a job or on the weekend etc

They were also employing electronics challenged Red Bull addicted phone and gamer trash,
'staff' that were ZERO assistants/assistance, two legged clueless shelf stock labour puppies,
job interview winning organic mannequins to make the store look the business   :palm: :palm:

Let's hope Jaycar don't make the same blunder by going the full consumerism crap route,  :--
I'm not holding my breath    :horse:

« Last Edit: May 28, 2017, 12:05:58 am by Electro Detective »
 

Offline schmitt trigger

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #12 on: May 28, 2017, 12:56:50 am »

I can not imagine my youth without Radio Shack, so this news makes me very sad, even if I outgrew RS by the early to mid-80s.


Exact same feeling and situation here. My very first multimeter (an analog FET-VOM) I actually purchased there. Also my very first DMM.

However....... by the late 1970s I was already ordering parts via the ads which appeared on the pages of Popular Electronics, Radio Electronics and other hobby magazines.

Send a check via snail mail, waited for the check to arrive, waited for the check to clear, waited for them to ship components back.
Could take anywhere from 2 to 3 weeks, but there were certain components and/or kits that were better or lower cost than RS.
 

Offline jh15

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #13 on: May 28, 2017, 02:07:25 am »
They kept many a tv or radio station on the air in a pinch when you needed a standard part, audio transformers, power resistors, connectors, especially on a Sunday.
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Offline P90

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #14 on: May 28, 2017, 02:37:41 am »
good riddance... overpriced and no selection of parts...
 

Offline mdszy

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #15 on: May 28, 2017, 03:00:13 am »
I didn't even realize they were all closing... the one up the street from my place has just turned into a cell phone store, but they still have some components and such. I'll have to check and see if they're having a clearance sale of all that crap!
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Offline Electro Detective

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #16 on: May 28, 2017, 04:04:11 am »
good riddance... overpriced and no selection of parts...

The last 'overpriced' stuff littering their shelves was nice 'techy looking' intermittent 'FAIL' garbage too,  |O

I wrapped the suckers up with smelly horrible waste in the bin, so no possibility of bypassing the land fill 

With a bit of luck and PRAYER, after we are all history..  :'(
the broken down poisons will reappear in the uncaring scumbag benefiting company CEO's great great great grand children's processed food,
munching away in their warmed underground runner hideaways... ENJOY!
  >:D >:D >:D

« Last Edit: May 28, 2017, 05:34:59 am by Electro Detective »
 

Offline P90

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #17 on: May 28, 2017, 05:02:43 am »
I just found some rolls of solder I got ar RS over 20 years ago...  it's the stuff that has that nice smell well it melts... lol
 

Offline brucehoult

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #18 on: May 28, 2017, 09:48:02 am »

I can not imagine my youth without Radio Shack, so this news makes me very sad, even if I outgrew RS by the early to mid-80s.


Exact same feeling and situation here. My very first multimeter (an analog FET-VOM) I actually purchased there. Also my very first DMM.

However....... by the late 1970s I was already ordering parts via the ads which appeared on the pages of Popular Electronics, Radio Electronics and other hobby magazines.

Send a check via snail mail, waited for the check to arrive, waited for the check to clear, waited for them to ship components back.
Could take anywhere from 2 to 3 weeks, but there were certain components and/or kits that were better or lower cost than RS.

Mail order (or web order) is great, but sometime you just want to walk into a store.

I was happy a few weeks ago when I found "Chip n Dip" 30 minutes walk from me in Moscow. I wandered in a couple of Saturday's back, went to the counter, asked for 10x SN74HC595N and 80x 1k ohm 0.25W resistors, and wandered out with them a few minutes later, despite the language barrier (which is never as bad as you expect). Yes! That's what we're talking about!

My goodness they had some high end test gear in there too. And mini lathes and mini CNC mills and 3D printers. And Arduinos and Pis and clones thereof. Or bare MCU chips if you wanted. And goodness knows what else.


 
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Offline Dubbie

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #19 on: May 28, 2017, 10:23:35 am »
All those bemoaning the loss, try to think seriously how you might keep a store like the RS of old in the black. It's not an easy task to imagine how to do it, let alone actually do it over hundreds of stores. There just plain ain't enough hobbiests to support that many stores.
 

Offline Zero999

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #20 on: May 28, 2017, 04:36:54 pm »
All those bemoaning the loss, try to think seriously how you might keep a store like the RS of old in the black. It's not an easy task to imagine how to do it, let alone actually do it over hundreds of stores. There just plain ain't enough hobbiests to support that many stores.
That's true but I think the fact, that it's so much cheaper to buy online is the main factor in stores being unprofitable. It just doesn't make sense to stock around a million different low value parts, over thousands of stores.

Here in the UK we still have Maplin but they don't sell many small parts any more but consumer electronics and even that is limited. They still stock things for the hobbyist but nothing like it was before the Internet came along.

Even consumer electronics stores don't exist like they used to because they can't compete with online stores. I can't remember the last time I bought any consumer electronics from a real shop. I just buy online.
 

Offline Dubbie

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #21 on: May 29, 2017, 12:02:31 am »
Thats what I mean Hero.

It's almost impossible to imagine a business model that competes with the prices and range of online shopping.

It's certainly not a challenge I would want to take on!
 

Offline Electro Detective

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #22 on: May 29, 2017, 04:07:10 am »
Thats what I mean Hero.

It's almost impossible to imagine a business model that competes with the prices and range of online shopping.

It's certainly not a challenge I would want to take on!

No one was stopping them from trading online like the competition,
and they would have had the reputation, buying power and trade name to their advantage

If they had a web presence and still not making money, they had dimwits handling the online store

They F'd up, pure and simple, the wrong people running things, after the right people set it up properly and retired.

 

Offline Dubbie

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #23 on: May 29, 2017, 07:37:10 am »
That would make them another online store. It's the bricks and mortar that people are sad to have lost. Those can't be run indefinitely at a loss, subsidised by the online store.
 

Offline yada

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Re: Radio Shack Bankruptcy
« Reply #24 on: May 29, 2017, 09:00:46 am »
Did you ever notice all their sales were fake? I had a part time job there in college and every week we would put out price tags including "sale" tags. We had this one crap RCA TV that was always $299.99 but every other week we would put a card out that said "SALE" in red and said "was $399.99, now SALE $299.99". That's so shady. Every "sale" was like that or the sale price was actually more then it was last week, they would just edit the WAS price. That's theft by deception.
« Last Edit: May 30, 2017, 11:47:47 pm by yada »
 


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