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Imminent Collapse of Fry’s?
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GreggD:
And Mendelsons Surplus, Dayton Ohio just closed after ~65 years.
It was giant. In the old days it had boat loads (big boat loads) of electronics.
I got my first computer keyboard there (~1977), and contacted the military contractor to find out it worked.
They sent me a schematic. Turned out to be standard ascii.
Made a adding machine using a 3 board NCR 8080 computer that was meant to be a cash register.
It had 1/4 K of battery backed ram.
engrguy42:
Nobody would question the fact that the retail industry has been destroyed by peoples' desire to buy from Amazon and China.

The issue is whether there is greater interest in electronics as has been suggested. I recently saw a report that interest in STEM education by teenage boys has dropped from 36% to 24% in 2017-2018, and stayed flat with girls at around 11%. And if you look at Youtube statistics it's clear that people aren't interested in real technology training anywhere near their all-encompassing desire for entertainment. No contest.

I've been an electrical engineer for over 45 years, and I have no doubt that there's less and less interest in the basic, low level technology, and all that interest is moving into high level stuff. Even in the software world, a lot more coders expect low level libraries to help them do their work, as opposed to those decades ago who wrote that low level code themselves.
MikeK:

--- Quote from: engrguy42 on February 24, 2021, 03:30:53 pm ---I think the problems with Fry's and Radio Shack and every other electronics supply store here in the US is that nobody is interested in tinkering with electronics anymore. Only a few of us old guys, and much fewer young guys. Now people want dancing robots and AI and smartphone apps where you click a button and it does your laundry while you sit on your butt.
--- End quote ---

People are still building stuff.  As mentioned, it's different now.

Even when I was a kid Radio Shack was poorly run.  They were always trying to sell me something and get my phone number.  Possibly an old style of management, I dunno.  Just carrying chips, transistors, or LED's at 5x the cost isn't going to get people buying them.  They should have held demos, had classes, to show people what they can do and how.  Today, people are seeing Instructables or YT videos and then ordering the parts to build exactly that.  Tons of Arduinos (or clones) are sold today that didn't exist when I was a kid.  What did Radio Shack ever carry?...An official Arduino at more money than anyone was willing to spend on it.  But...a brick and mortar electronics store may not be sustainable today when we can buy everything online and have it delivered.
Sal Ammoniac:
Even ten years ago, before the inventory issues of recent years, Fry's stores seemed old and tired--like the owners just didn't care anymore and just wanted to continue milking the cash cow indefinitely. Worn out carpets and scuffed up linoleum floors, discount junk in shopping carts in the middle of aisles, and more. Fry's hasn't been an innovator in electronics retail for over twenty years now.

I knew Fry's was a gonner when the local store replaced the soldering irons and supplies with perfume.
nctnico:

--- Quote from: engrguy42 on February 24, 2021, 06:20:15 pm ---Nobody would question the fact that the retail industry has been destroyed by peoples' desire to buy from Amazon and China.

--- End quote ---
Not at all. The retail industry has destroyed itself by only selling high margin items. Every time I go to a store they don't have what I need. There simply is much more choice and stock online so I stopped going to stores. You read it in every story about Fry's for the past couple of years: nothing in store. How can a store make money if they don't have what people need?
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