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The Shack is back!
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ataradov:
Yeah, but that was a long time ago. Now they sell Chinese crap at 10x markup. The name is irrelevant, contents is what matters. And the RS as it is today is a pointless waste of effort.
SilverSolder:

The online store is pointless...  but physical locations have a point, especially when there are no alternatives in the area.

They should cooperate with Adafruit et al and carry some of their stuff too.
DrG:

--- Quote from: SilverSolder on March 03, 2021, 02:25:33 pm ---
The online store is pointless...  but physical locations have a point, especially when there are no alternatives in the area.

They should cooperate with Adafruit et al and carry some of their stuff too.

--- End quote ---

I concur and that is what the US chain Microcenter https://www.microcenter.com/ has done. If you go there and search for adafruit, elenco, a whole bunch of popular brands, you will see a whole bunch of stuff. In fact, if you browse their DIY section, you will likely find a couple of thousand entries. I was last there to pick up three RPi Picos, which they had on sale for $2 (regular price $4). I have gone to them many times (less often during CoVid) for a variety of items - UNO clones, LEDs, solder - stuff that I might want now and without shipping charges or delays and with the benefit of seeing the thing.

The challenge for RS, as I see it, is that you would need to carry MORE than a store like Microcenter is carrying and I don't know if Microcenter makes any money off of their DIY section. It is only a small part of the store and they already carry more, in general, than RS ever did.

Then of course, there is maintenance of the stock in a reasonable fashion. Many products get superseded with faster or better products at lower prices. These become dead end products for all but the most needy or naive customer. Additionally, organization is an issue. While their online inventory is basically accurate, if it only shows 1 or 2, you might be searching for a while.

Sure, I would love to see a consignment based system that would sell all sorts of specific things (try getting a bezel for a 1.8" LCD). I just don't know the fiscally reasonable side of that.

It is going to be a challenge for sure.
ataradov:
Microcenter is good, but the closest one to me is 6 hours of driving. This is an issue. The model does not scale well. If you have one close to you - great, otherwise you are out of luck. And in this case majority of people are out of luck.

Old RS had way more stores, but it would obviously be hard to do what Microcenter does with more locations.
DrG:

--- Quote from: ataradov on March 03, 2021, 06:01:08 pm ---Microcenter is good, but the closest one to me is 6 hours of driving. This is an issue. The model does not scale well. If you have one close to you - great, otherwise you are out of luck. And in this case majority of people are out of luck.

Old RS had way more stores, but it would obviously be hard to do what Microcenter does with more locations.

--- End quote ---

Concur, but they (Microcenter) may be growing - not likely to ever reach the 8,000 US RS stores (is that what I heard correctly?), but neither is the new RS. Still, there may be room somewhere (community-dependent) for something brick and mortar....I mean, it is not out of the question and that seems to be their hope.

I would like to know whether Microcenter actually makes a profit on their DIY.
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