It's not much related to the disappearance of all the other electronic manufacturers I mentioned.

A lot of that is simply due to general drop in people taking up electronics as a hobby any more. Now if it can't be built around some uC unit and have every issue of the circuit or devices electronics operations handled in code its isn't worth playing with.

Then add in that for those of us who still do the DIY circuitry online storefronts and wholesale supply companies from everywhere in the world give us unlimited access to their stock inventories of literally millions of components of every imaginable application and in any quantity anyone could ever use there's no way any brick and mortar store chain can compete.

 

Where do you suppose it will end?
Will it be with only those brick & mortar stores that sell stuff you want/need to physically examine before you buy?
I suspect even Walmart is in serious trouble.

I've already fantasized about how a person could go about setting up a near fully automated Gigastore type system where they have 99% of their stock all set up on automated pick and deliver based warehousing so that you just go online and order everything you need then stop by the giga center and go up to some distribution kiosk where you enter a code for your purchase and everything you order pops out on a conveyor a minute later all boxed and ready to go without you ever having to deal with another person face to face.

Sort of like the Amazon automated warehouse center systems but one in every town that you can stop by to get groceries and other such items you need quickly. The virtual grocery store and mall without all the pain in the ass clerks and other people wasting your time while you are there.

The only people there would be the ones behind the wall that keep all the systems working and the inventory stocked. Less employees and near zero theft or customer damage of inventory as well.

 

Where do you suppose it will end?
Will it be with only those brick & mortar stores that sell stuff you want/need to physically examine before you buy?
I suspect even Walmart is in serious trouble.

I really don't know where it will end. Thinking about it and really don't know. Then there are those things that I buy and like to see before I buy. Overall though it's pretty much an Amazon thing around this house. Kathy just makes it happen. When I find something I want I literally send my wife an email with a link to what I want. She is the duty Amazon person around here. Interestingly enough the things I like to see before I buy are in diminishing numbers. Stuff like clothing I have become more trusting with.

Back on target Radio Shack was my local parts source for decades as well as Arrow and I have memories of when Lafayette Radio opened their store in Syosset, LI, NY. Had a great new and used Ham Radio section. I actually got my first transmitter there, a Heathkit DX 40 and my receiver was a used National NC 173. Still have a few Knight Kits down the basement. Yes, they are all long gone. Surprised Radio Shack lasted as long as it did.

Ron

 

Up until the mid 90's RAdio Shack was my go to place for parts.

Then one day a Digikey catalog found its way into my hands. Sure a order had to be written out and took ~ 2 weeks round trip to fill but dang what I could get for the money, usually $100 order, made it worth it and that was way back when their whole catalog barely made it 50 - 75 pages!

 

That's what I think did Radio Shack in... people no longer needed to go to a store to see if they had what they needed, or to place an order they could pick up a week later. I think that catalog stores like Digikey, Mouser, Newark and the like were responsible for the Shack's decline. And steadily pushed it aside from the component market, forcing it to focus more in consumer electronics, and then in wireless telephony, which were markets already dominated by other more experienced brands, like Best Buy and others

 

That's what I think did Radio Shack in... people no longer needed to go to a store to see if they had what they needed, or to place an order they could pick up a week later. I think that catalog stores like Digikey, Mouser, Newark and the like were responsible for the Shack's decline. And steadily pushed it aside from the component market, forcing it to focus more in consumer electronics, and then in wireless telephony, which were markets already dominated by other more experienced brands, like Best Buy and others

It sounds like you haven't been in a RadioShack in the last 15-years. In the last 15 years, RadioShack stores had a "component section" that consisted of a row of 2 to 6 cabinets of drawers. Some additional wall space for wire, soldering tools and Protoboards. RadioShack has not competed with the online shops in a long time.

Their market has been batteries, cell phones, cell phone accessories, cables for home entertainment systems, RC toys (toys, not hobbiest grade), and a bunch of other crap.

 

RadioShack has not competed with the online shops in a long time.

Digikey was a major catalog long before it had a website. I might be wrong about Newark and Mouser, though.

 

I should have said, the industrial distributors of electronic parts. My mistake.

The few bits I would get there is when I forgot to have one or two bits. Also, the cheapest place to buy ferric chloride since shipping costs almost the same as a bottle of solution when purchased online.

 

from mail ordering in the 19th Century to "mail ordering" in the 21st Century.

Delivery delays may have decreased. Payment processing is faster.

 

I think a number of things contributed to Radio Shack's downfall, some of it there fault and much of it not.

I first discovered Radio Shack back in the 1980 time frame. I would go in there and just dream about all the cool ham radio stuff they had and all the kits and all the components. They also had pretty high quality audio stuff (I'm sure not super high end, but I think Realistic were components that were pretty well respected -- I know I sure thought they sounded great and stood up to pretty rough handling, too).

I think the biggest thing that doomed Radio Shack is the same thing that doomed nearly all of the electronics surplus stores. For decades you repaired appliances instead of replacing them. For a lot of ham operators achieving the goal of being able to talk to someone on the other side of the planet affordably meant learning electronics to build your own radio set. You could build many things, radios, clocks, computers, whatever, for a fraction of the cost of something commercial and you got something that had a lot more features than most of the off-the-shelf items. These fostered people getting interested in electronics for practical reasons and then the joy of electronics for its own worth took hold. Today, for the most part, you can replace things for a fraction of what it would take to repair them, you can buy something for a fraction of the cost of what it would take to build it and the performance and features are far beyond what you could reasonably make yourself, and if you want to talk to someone halfway around the world cheaply you just make sure to choose the right calling plan.

While I would have loved to see Radio Shack stay exactly like it was in 1980 (or probably go back to what it was like in 1970 or so) as far as emphasis and selection, the truth is that the market simply went away and if they had held on they would have been out of business a couple decades ago. So they tried to adapt to a changing market and it was a losing battle.

Does anyone remember their attempt to recapture the hardcore techies with the TechAmerica venture? I think that was in the mid-90's and only lasted a few years. They had everything, including an impressive technical book section that I spent serious amounts of money at. Their people really knew their stuff and were passionate about tech stuff. It was a joy to go there and just talk to them about what you were doing and get their suggestions. So they were fully aware of what it took and what the tech crowd wanted and they were willing to offer it. But the market had simply moved on and so they couldn't sustain it. They had to reduce their inventory and hire cheaper people to keep the doors open, which of course led to a rapidly spiraling decline. I used to drive the 70 miles just to peruse their tech books, but what started out with hundreds of titles shrank every time I went there until the last time they had fewer than a dozen books.

 

It's sad to see them go but I got a great deal on Breadboards,ferric chloride,and contact cleaner.

 

I think a number of things contributed to Radio Shack's downfall, some of it there fault and much of it not.

People go to business school to learn to identify iceburgs ahead and avoid them - identify new paths and move forward.

RadioShack could have pivoted many times along the way. Even if those pivots would have been stop-gap or short term business plans. They saw the rise of the PC, and could have been the low-cost source of PCs (desktop and laptop) and Dell never would have existed. Dell had its rise and fall but it would have been a good ride (Michael Dell is doing ok - he took Dell private again).

If they would have identified the whole "maker" concept early enough, they may have bought out the Arduino or other development environment - the adapter board and module creators like Adafruit and (few others), there would not be the dozens of reasonably successful online stores that charge reasonable prices for parts why buying online (how could they charge $2.99 for a 555 timer and expect to survive?).

RadioShack's management could have seen the rise in demand for local industrial parts and places like Graybar and Fastenal would not have local stores in every community (not quite as many stores as RadioShack but I'm guessing at least as many dollars in sales).

If they would have partnered with one cell phone plan provider (instead of many), they could have become the Verizon store or AT&T store of today.

Ultimately, they had no plan and crashed.

Failure to navigate is the fault of management - failure of a company is a failure to navigate. Has GE remained the same? How about any other old company?

 

Mouser had catalogs in the pre-internet days.

 

Mouser had catalogs in the pre-internet days.

They did, printed on newsprint and free for the asking. Digikey too. Both until they grew to the size of the Manhattan phone book. Still, it was great just to be able to thumb through them on the throne and find all the cool new things. And the best thing about early Mouser was that they gave away bamboo back scratchers at trade shows. Still have them. Nothing else compares.

BUT today, I dropped by the Radio Shack on the way home from the gym. For about $80, I brought home two huge bags of stuff that I likely don't need - double handfulls of MTA type switches for .20 each, lots of 1/4" phone jacks for the music, hardware, a couple of hideous beepers, an Arduino Esplora, a Basic Stamp, a bunch of Arduino shields - that don't plug into the Esplora - a bunch of EL wire and an inverter (grandson is going to have a hell of a Halloween costume) and just stuff. Looking around my home-office, I can get rid of a couple of cheap plastic drawers and maybe buy a couple of the big steel parts drawers. Yippee!

But back to the thread, the retail prices on all of it were out of line as always, so it was the first time in a RS for me in years. Somewhere between charging 60.00 for a 47.00 Arduino and 90% off might have been something for them to think about..

 

I did buy 2 sections of the parts drawers. Really solid construction. Trays have movable dividers. $75 ea. 2 bolted together (designed holes) topped by an Ikea LINNMONN table top for $20 and I have a nice island off my bench chock-a-block with storage. If you can get some of these, do it.

Also wrapped my grandson in 15m of EL wire, lit it off and sent a picture to his mom. We are having fun.

 

FWIW there a surprising number of 'rebooted' independent Radio Shack shops around... And, surprisingly, having active stock in electronic components and materials!

Best regards
HP

 

FWIW there a surprising number of 'rebooted' independent Radio Shack shops around... And, surprisingly, having active stock in electronic components and materials!

Best regards
HP

Enjoy them while they last -- they probably won't last long. Perhaps a few years. Would love to be proven wrong.

 

If

FWIW there a surprising number of 'rebooted' independent Radio Shack shops around... And, surprisingly, having active stock in electronic components and materials!

Best regards
HP

If they are running completely independant of the old parent corporation plus have people with actual intelligent business management skills I would almost think that in a larger population area if they used the big online electronics component companies as their source s for their inventory they could make it.

I was talking with one of my neighbors today and we got onto the discussion of how many large retail chain stores are have or are going under now due to online competition. The #1 thing killing them is their high overhead associated with being top heavy in management pay and overspending on their brick and mortar store spaces and where they are located. All key things that small store chains and online retailers don't have fighting them on profits.

Our local Sears is having a hard time largely due to those three problems now. Top heavy corporate management costs plus their store footprint and location are well beyond sustainable here.

As a key anchor storefront in our local mall they pay dearly for every square foot of space they have even though a quick walk through makes it obvious they could get by on half the square footage and personal, which if they were off the mall property and running as an independent stand alone storefront I suspect they would have half a chance of staying in the green in this region.

I think the #1 reason small stores in the mall here pack up and leave then set up shop again in the numerous new mini malls going up around town is their outrageous mall rent. Second is the amount of floor space they need to cover it which at the mall costs a premium whereas at the mini mall locations the few places I know of that moved out of the main mall and into the mini locations are running on half the up front floor space plus workforce but with way more backroom storage and boxed inventory to make up for it.

They don't need to have 20 - 30 racks of clothes with 50 of one size on each rack to fill floorspace when they can run on 10 racks with 5 - 10 of each size and 5 or so sizes on each rack plus half the floor crew to watch over things.

 

If

If they are running completely independant of the old parent corporation plus have people with actual intelligent business management skills I would almost think that in a larger population area if they used the big online electronics component companies as their source s for their inventory they could make it.

I was talking with one of my neighbors today and we got onto the discussion of how many large retail chain stores are have or are going under now due to online competition. The #1 thing killing them is their high overhead associated with being top heavy in management pay and overspending on their brick and mortar store spaces and where they are located. All key things that small store chains and online retailers don't have fighting them on profits.

Our local Sears is having a hard time largely due to those three problems now. Top heavy corporate management costs plus their store footprint and location are well beyond sustainable here.

As a key anchor storefront in our local mall they pay dearly for every square foot of space they have even though a quick walk through makes it obvious they could get by on half the square footage and personal, which if they were off the mall property and running as an independent stand alone storefront I suspect they would have half a chance of staying in the green in this region.

I think the #1 reason small stores in the mall here pack up and leave then set up shop again in the numerous new mini malls going up around town is their outrageous mall rent. Second is the amount of floor space they need to cover it which at the mall costs a premium whereas at the mini mall locations the few places I know of that moved out of the main mall and into the mini locations are running on half the up front floor space plus workforce but with way more backroom storage and boxed inventory to make up for it.

They don't need to have 20 - 30 racks of clothes with 50 of one size on each rack to fill floorspace when they can run on 10 racks with 5 - 10 of each size and 5 or so sizes on each rack plus half the floor crew to watch over things.

And to that I would add;
As a consumer, I'm bound to register my intense dislike of shopping centers (CIP 'Malls')! -- Strange tho' it seems to some, I am curiously reticent to embark upon a 'wayfaring journey' of several 'blocks' within a long-span structure, thronging with every sort of riff-Raff, to the end of reaching an outlet that might readily have been visited by merely parking out front, and walking into, a stand-alone shop...

If they are running completely independant of the old parent corporation plus have people with actual intelligent business management skills I would almost think that in a larger population area if they used the big online electronics component companies as their source s for their inventory they could make it.

I'm pleased to advise that the 'rebooted' RS stores hereabouts (which being an essentially 'sparsely populated' district) are building up quite nicely! -- FWIW It seems they've negotiated 'ties' with RS's original suppliers ...

plus have people with actual intelligent business management skills

Indeed! And as if that's not enough, they are conversant with stock (even as regards components/prototyping systems and amateur radio gear) and never pitch cellular plans/products!

There is a definite market for folks who prefer to inspect stock prior to purchase and have it ready to hand when required sans shipping delays! -- If it costs more -even much more- so be it! -- 'Tis a luxury worthy of its price!

Very best regards
HP

 

I am curiously reticent to embark upon a 'wayfaring journey' of several 'blocks' within a long-span structure,

In my case, there is no, "curious" about it. One legged people do not volunteer to walk half a mile inside a building to spend less than $100 when it can be delivered to their door for the same price (or less). The Mall is arranged to make you walk past 30 or 40 small shops to get to your second destination store like the airport in Atlanta where you have to walk past all the bars to get to every connecting flight...and I don't drink alcohol. The local Sears store is empty and the mall around it has tumbleweeds. I actually go to a shoe store 100 feet from the Mall parking lot, just so I don't have to walk the length of the Mall to get a pair of shoes.

Now for the nostalgia: I was doing electronics when the local parts stores had a mixture of TV components, surplus bins, and amateur stuff like crystal radio kits. The meters were VTVMs or battery operated analog movements. It was impossible to buy from higher in the food chain because of minimum purchase quantities, and the people who answered the phone pretty much wouldn't speak to anybody who wasn't buying for a factory. Later, there were so many Radio Shacks that they were almost sufficient. Anything from reject transistors labeled as 2N3904 to TV antennas. I have dashed to RS many times for two resistors in a blister pack or a connector to make a wiring harness for a car. Then there was an awkward period between RS being effective and the online parts vendors. I still have most of a 100 roll of 2N4416 j-fets because 100 was the minimum order. Now I order from Mouser and Antique Electronic Supply. No surprise to spend over $100, but I get what I want, in the quantity I want.

So, RS died for me because of less variety of parts for more and more money (compared to Internet vendors). I mean, seriously inefficient use of money! I still don't like the minimum $10 shipping fee for Mouser, but when it's less than 10% of my purchase, I'm not paying for two to ten useless duplicates for every part number, and I get 7% off for sales tax I don't pay, it's quite a bargain compared to RS.