Article: RadioShack to close 400 to 700 stores

"RadioShack 4Q Earnings Plunge 62 Percent "

02.17.2006, 10:10 AM

http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/feeds/ap/2006/02/17/ap2535255.html

"Electronics retailer RadioShack Corp. on Friday said fourth-quarter earnings dropped 62 percent and said it plans to close 400 to 700 underperforming stores and distribution centers in Charleston, S.C., and Southhaven, Miss., as part of a plan to improve its financial performance."

well that sucks to hear.

All the Radioshacks I know have long converted to cell phone outlets and stock "quick buy" supplies. Long gone are the days of hard to find electronic parts. Seems a shame that corporate thought they could chase the fickle cell phone market for more money and dump their original clientel genre.

Years ago, when Radio Shack sold things that no one else did, they were a good store. Now they've done away with their core merchandise (and customer base) and they're trying to compete with Best Buy and Circuit City. What the hell did they expect?

"Sales results were good in many low-margin non-wireless categories; however, we experienced lower sales in high-margin categories," said David Edmondson, president and chief executive, in a statement. "In addition, wireless sales and profits were below our expectations."

Non wireless categories: resistors, capacitors, relays, transformers, et al. that RS was noted for once upon a time back in the day.

When I think of buying a cellphone I don't naturally think of Radio Shack for some arcane reason.

Yes, it is sad. I hope the two local RS stores survive since they pretty much wiped out the local independent electical component stores.

It's funny that every time I go to RS I have to find my own components (the salesperson seldom knows all the things they stock) and the have to spend a few seconds (or minutes, sometimes) convincing them that I really like my 4 year old cell phone and the carrier I use.

It was sad when Heathkit went away. I'll be saddened if RS does the same.

Daniel

Radio Shack hasn't been on my radar in years as far as a place to buy parts. Very occasionally I'll go there if I need something right away, but more often than not I first check eBay, then Mouser, Digikey, etc. It's simply not worth paying ten times or more per part just to not wait a few days. And cellphones are another reason I try to avoid RS. It's tiring to hear the same sales pitch every time I pay for the few parts I do buy there. One time one of the sales guys looked at me like I was nuts when I said I don't have a cell phone and don't need one. I'm probably the only person in NYC under 50 who doesn't have a cell phone at this point but to me it's a completely useless gadget.

Monolith said:

All the Radioshacks I know have long converted to cell phone outlets and stock "quick buy" supplies. Long gone are the days of hard to find electronic parts. Seems a shame that corporate thought they could chase the fickle cell phone market for more money and dump their original clientel genre.

Click to expand...

I can't agree more, though I'll never know RS's glory days, I'm too young. I can only remember them phasing out ham/cb and suddenly being filled with computer monitors and TVs. Next to go were the knowlegdeable/ older sales staff.
I call this "Sunny's Syndrome" since that's the store that did this first to me. Sunny's Surplus used to be cramped, poorly lit little thrift stores, crammed floor ceiling with the most interesting things a kid has ever seen. I remember seeing things like french/german military helmets, bayonetts, machettes, combat boots, all sorts of great clothing and gear. Then they all closed. THEN, they all reopened as large chain SuperStores, selling LL Bean bookbags, canoes, and $80+ hiking boots. I'm not buying a nalegene bottle for $8 at Sunnys, and I recently passed up RS's $12 cheapest soldering iron.

Sad to say, but Hi-ho internet! The only place worth shopping nowadays.

If RS were smart, they would jump on the online bandwagon. Sure, keep the retail stores for the high margin items, but add a couple kiosks for accessing a more robust online prescence. If they were smart, they would become THE online source for all things electronic, just like their walk-in stores used to be in the pre-internet days. As hobbyists, we've all had to go one place online for circuit components, another for wire, someplace else for tools, etc. I don't know about anybody else, but I would pay a slight premium if there were a single online shop that I could go to and get everything I need with a single order. Unfortunately, RS has taken the same approach to online shopping as many other brick and mortar stores. They only offer a limited selection of their most popular items to try to force you to go look in the stores. They need to look at the internet as an expansion of their customer base instead of competition.

In the worse case scenario, it sounds like they might be closing about 10% of their US stores (not including shopping mall kiosks.) Given the proliferation of Radio Shack stores, I'd suspect that the reduction in stores will most likely be transparent to the majority of the US population. In my general area, there are probably as many (maybe more) Radio Shack stores as McDonald's and a few of them closing would only be a minor inconvenience and more likely barely noticed.

I think the net really wiped them too. They have done nothing but pay Shaq too much money to push their "consumer" items. In this day you need to be better, faster or cheaper and the Rat Shack is neither....


I hear ya with the phone pushing.. I work for Sprint/Nextel and fight them off with my work badge when I just want some coax, adapt or other stuff...

RadioShack has been in this state for years with boring, over priced consumer electronics from mediocre manufacturers and brain dead, know nothing clerks.

On a Ham Radio forum, about two years ago, a poster mocked the RS slogan by posting:

"You've got questions? We've got cell phones."

73
dim

I was sad to see their print catalog go away a few years ago. I have dial-up and surfing through their website trying to find something is quite tedious and I usually give up and find what I need elsewhere.

-Keith

Ditto about the print catalog. I never bought really hard to find stuff at RS (because it cost a fortune) but they always had things no other local place did. Certain light bulbs, batteries, power jacks, stuff that you wouldn't want to pay $5 to ship. Around the time they dropped the catalog they also stopped carrying the last of the interesting small things.

I think one of their problems _isn't_ that they abandoned their customer base, it's that their customer base died. Literally. I know a handful of people in town who are into electronics and most of them started off repairing tube equipment 60 years ago. Radio Shack for a couple years recently did have a mammoth in-store catalog rack for _every_ part you could think of. I was the only person I ever saw looking at it.

Speaking of stores that died out, how about Lafayette? Not many people remember those guys, but they used to be the big one around here. I have a couple of multimeters, a sheetmetal brake, and lots of parts my father got there years back.

I'm surprised it didn't happen a long time ago. If I wanted to throw away my money and get bad service I'll go to the DMV. The only time I ever go to radio shack is for parts, and even then I'm usually disappointed. They could have done a lot of things to start competing in 2006, but they haven't even tried...

BatteryCharger said:

If I wanted to throw away my money and get bad service I'll go to the DMV...

Click to expand...

That sounds about right!

They used to also have specialized parts and adaptors that were often cheaper than other stores. Now it seems like everything they have is always more expensive.

Like NeonLights and Abtomat, I too miss the catalog. I was so bummed when they stopped printing them that I wrote to RS to bring it back. I was even willing to pay for a copy of the catalog, and told them so, but no luck. Even the guys working at the store said they missed the catalog.

I tried the RS website several times, and found it to be much too cumbersome and inconvenient. Just couldn't beat the hard copy catalog that you could thumb through, write on, and stick bookmarks on, etc. Much faster than wading through their website.

Haven't been back to their website in a long, long time, and without the catalog, I know my spending at RS has gone down. That being said however, I would hate to see my local RS store close.

For the most part, print catalogs from Parts Express and MCM Electronics have replaced the Radio Shack catalog for me. I've been ordering from PE and MCM for more than ten years, and if I need to save on shipping or need to pick up something large, both places are only an hour or so away. I used to go into a local RS store once or twice a month, now I barely make it in to a Radio Shack once a year.

-Keith

Monolith said:

All the Radioshacks I know have long converted to cell phone outlets and stock "quick buy" supplies. Long gone are the days of hard to find electronic parts. Seems a shame that corporate thought they could chase the fickle cell phone market for more money and dump their original clientel genre.

Click to expand...

I had the same impression for some time and thought it was cynical outlook. Many times the bins are either empty or contain limited stock. I go online now for specialty parts.

I always hated RS because the clerk would pester me for personal info, even when I was paying cash.

The last straw was when a cashier started giving me attitude, beacuse I wouldn't give him my name and address.

I never went back to RS after that.

RS served a niche, and that niche has pretty much died out.

Honestly, I'm surprised they've held out this long.