RadioShack plans to close over 1,000 'underperforming' stores
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About time.
I can go to a hundred different places and buy cell phone accessories. These days I can only get a 12k resistor or a 12V SAE extender cable via mail order. Every time I go into a RS in the last 10 years I don't find what I need and am usually the only customer.
In the late 90s, RS opened a place called Tech America in several cities, including Denver. It was stocked with electronic and computer components, ham gear, pro audio/DJ equipment. The place was always packed with customers, but they closed it down after a year to "concentrate on their core business"
I can go to a hundred different places and buy cell phone accessories. These days I can only get a 12k resistor or a 12V SAE extender cable via mail order. Every time I go into a RS in the last 10 years I don't find what I need and am usually the only customer.
In the late 90s, RS opened a place called Tech America in several cities, including Denver. It was stocked with electronic and computer components, ham gear, pro audio/DJ equipment. The place was always packed with customers, but they closed it down after a year to "concentrate on their core business"
Our Radio Shack is always busy, still a lot of electronic stuff this is the only place to get here, maybe different in "big" cities...
Our is never busy, and I hate going in there. When I go in I know what I want and where it is. Yet they follow me around like I am going to steal something. I would probably look around and buy more if they wouldn't follow me... but now I go in and get what I want and get out.
You go in there in the usually hopeless search for a replacement part for something that just failed. Immediate gratification, but generally just frustration.
envious. My closest Frys is nearly 3 hours away, and you have to drive all the way through Chicago traffic to get there.
Didn't make it to Frys at this years trip to Vegas, went back to Convention center on my last day instead ...
Same here bud. I'd go in for the little stuff like resistors,capacitors,switches and even little motors. Radio shacks I've seen have been dying a slow death for awhile now.
You're saying the Colorado stores are going to reopen selling........?
That sure would make them VERY busy.
I only go into RS if I am desperate for a part that I cannot wait for internet shipping. Even then you do not know if they will have it.
Correction actually 3 locally. One 10m away (Woodland Hills) and other about 30m away (Burbank) and other one about 45m away too (Oxnard) all in California
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To be fair, it isn't just Radio Shack. RS has managed to hang on while most of the competitors I remember from the 60s have died off. Allied Electronics, Lafayette radio, Olsen electronics, all gone. RS has changed, but it still hangs in there.
There is a ham radio store here that I have been going to since the 50s called Amateur Electronic Supply. When I moved out of Milwaukee in the late 70s, this place was the gathering spot for hams. There were always 30 people in the store. A novice could get an education there from the customers. There was a large stock of components for homebuilding and repair. They had racks of used equipment so a kid could buy something of quality, although a bit obsolete and learn and grow. Now when I go back, I am the only one in the store. Two clerks are mostly on the phone or processing web orders. They mostly stock cheap Chinese radios, with some familiar brands (ICOM, YASEAU, KENWOOD) mixed in. All is prepackaged and heavily integrated. No room to modify, experiment. Thus no customers just hanging around, and it looks like just another dying hobby. I most recently bought a 2 meter mobile to use at car rally events, but frankly I only turn it on a couple of times per year.
There is a ham radio store here that I have been going to since the 50s called Amateur Electronic Supply. When I moved out of Milwaukee in the late 70s, this place was the gathering spot for hams. There were always 30 people in the store. A novice could get an education there from the customers. There was a large stock of components for homebuilding and repair. They had racks of used equipment so a kid could buy something of quality, although a bit obsolete and learn and grow. Now when I go back, I am the only one in the store. Two clerks are mostly on the phone or processing web orders. They mostly stock cheap Chinese radios, with some familiar brands (ICOM, YASEAU, KENWOOD) mixed in. All is prepackaged and heavily integrated. No room to modify, experiment. Thus no customers just hanging around, and it looks like just another dying hobby. I most recently bought a 2 meter mobile to use at car rally events, but frankly I only turn it on a couple of times per year.
I can't believe they aren't all "underperforming". I have been in a Radio Shack 3 times in the past 5 years. Not one time did they have what I needed.
We have a franchise store in town and the radio shack portion is not as much as it use to be. But they still carry the "geek parts" that you might need.
