Sad news, RadioShack is said to be closing 500 of their 4500 stores. It's not yet announced which stores will be closed.
QuoteRadioShack Corp. is planning to close around 500 stores in the coming months as the electronics retailer continues working with advisers to restructure the company, people familiar with the matter said Tuesday.
It is unclear which of RadioShack's roughly 4,500 stores will be closed and when exactly the closings will begin, these people said, adding that it isn't unusual for companies to close stores when going through operational restructurings.
In October, RadioShack secured $835 million in loans to refinance about $625 million of debt. Those funds, from a group led by GE Capital, also freed up cash for RadioShack's overhaul.
The Fort Worth, Texas, retail chain has been working on transforming its image from an old-school electronics store into a destination for shoppers looking for entertainment gadgets, like headphones and smartphone cases.
RadioShack enlisted the help of well-known '80s personalities in its Super Bowl commercial Sunday. RadioShack
RadioShack advertised in Sunday evening's Super Bowl, with a commercial that poked fun at the company's outdated image with a collection of 1980s-era entertainment personalities. The ad, seen as one of the big winners in Super Bowl advertising Sunday night, generated positive reviews. The company's stock jumped more than 7% Monday morning.
The retailer has struggled to reverse a string of losses deepened by a sales strategy focused around smartphones, which failed to improve revenue over the past two years.
RadioShack executives last year suggested the company would resist downsizing its store footprint as they focused most of their attention on reinventing the brand's image. Stores might close in one section of a neighborhood to set up shop in more highly trafficked locales, but the number of outlets would stay the same, they had previously said.
"I think we're a 4,000-plus network," RadioShack Chief Executive Joe Magnacca said in a November interview. "My job is to make sure that we've got the market covered."
That was before the entire retail sector suffered a fiercely competitive holiday shopping season that eroded stores' margins while doing little to attract new foot traffic.
In mid-January, RadioShack named Dollar General Corp. DG +0.50% executive John W. Feray as chief financial official, with plans to start this week.
RadioShack's interim CFO Holly Etlin, from turnaround firm AlixPartners, will continue advising the company on its operational turnaround, according to a January statement from the company.
http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303442704579362870830018510-lMyQjAxMTA0MDAwNDEwNDQyWj
Did this come as a surprise to anyone?
The glimmer of hope for Radio Shack at this point is the fact the big box retailers such as Best Buy are also struggling as well.
Best Buy cannot wait to downsize their stores. Likewise, Radio Shack is still too small to compete or offer enough relevant products. Unless they change their business model, it is hard to see Radio Shack make it as a retailer.
Amazon is killing them. The goal of Bezos is to deliver same day items are ordered, with that, Radio Shack is dead.
Lots of jobs behind those closings. I've been to RadioShack a few times over the past few years and from what I can see all they really sold was phone chargers and contracts.
Maybe they should try to be like a small best buy, including the price matching that best buy does with Amazon.
Are they giving them back to the 80's?
Radio Shack is one of the few retailers who keep opening new stores when the majority of them have year over year flat sales or barely at the national growth rate.
You can't grow selling batteries, wall warts, kids electronic toys at Christmas and the odd overpriced cable (which they will sell you an extended warranty on no less!)
Since they were owned by Tandy years ago, they have shown no appetite for risk. Their website has been considered a fraud risk at times. They invented selling personal computers by retail, then sold it. They started the first big box electronics store (Future Shop and Incredible Universe) then sold it. They were the first to carry consumer cell phones for all carriers, and they still sell cell phones for all carriers since they don't own them outright.
They were the first catalog sales solely for electronics. The release of their catalog in the Fall used to be a real big deal. They were the king in the OEM electronics world at one time having a brand label for almost everything.
But the management, extremely conservative, shrunk the stores and withdrew product offerings every year through the late 80's until they reached their current state, which has as much value as Subway.
Radio Shack is still around? The last Radio Shack I went in was in a Central Florida shopping center anchored by a Zayre and a Kash n' Karry.
Quote from: JeffreyS on February 04, 2014, 07:52:37 PM
Are they giving them back to the 80's?
exactly my thought :)
It's now being reported that 1,100 stores will be closing, not 500:
http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/4/5469176/radioshack-will-close-1100-stores-twice-as-many-as-expected
that's almost 25%.
http://www.youtube.com/v/nHbKmSp1r7E
http://www.youtube.com/v/J2jRuh1bAxw
http://www.youtube.com/v/694TX2lQ7Uo
RS was the thing back in the day; their store is where I saw my first Apple computer in the 70s. Nowadays, they cannot compete with online purchase. Most people wanting electronic parts, etc. are savvy enough to be able to describe what they want well enough to shop for it online, where the prices can be a fraction of RS. Best Buy and others are suffering with this as well.
Where will I go for a $40 HDMI cable now?
From the Onion, circa 2007.
QuoteEven CEO Can't Figure Out How RadioShack Still In Business
FORT WORTH, TX—Despite having been on the job for nine months, RadioShack CEO Julian Day said Monday that he still has "no idea" how the home electronics store manages to stay open.
"There must be some sort of business model that enables this company to make money, but I'll be damned if I know what it is," Day said. "You wouldn't think that people still buy enough strobe lights and extension cords to support an entire nationwide chain, but I guess they must, or I wouldn't have this desk to sit behind all day."
The retail outlet boasts more than 6,000 locations in the United States, and is known best for its wall-sized displays of obscure-looking analog electronics components and its notoriously desperate, high-pressure sales staff. Nevertheless, it ranks as a Fortune 500 company, with gross revenues of over $4.5 billion and fiscal quarter earnings averaging tens of millions of dollars.
"Have you even been inside of a RadioShack recently?" Day asked. "Just walking into the place makes you feel vaguely depressed and alienated. Maybe our customers are at the mall anyway and don't feel like driving to Best Buy? I suppose that's possible, but still, it's just...weird."
A RadioShack store that somehow manages to bring in enough paying customers to turn a profit.
After taking over as CEO, Day ordered a comprehensive, top-down review of RadioShack's administrative operations, inventory and purchasing, suppliers, demographics, and marketing strategies. He has also diligently pored over weekly budget reports, met with investors, taken numerous conference calls with regional managers about "circulars or flyers or something," and even spent hours playing with the company's "baffling" 200-In-One electronics kit. Yet so far none of these things have helped Day understand the moribund company's apparent allure.
"Even the name 'RadioShack'—can you imagine two less appealing words placed next to one another?" Day said. "What is that, some kind of World War II terminology? Are ham radio operators still around, even? Aren't we in the digital age?"
"Well, our customers are out there somewhere, and thank God they are," Day added.
One of Day's theories about RadioShack's continued solvency involves wedding DJs, emergency cord replacement, and off-brand wireless telephones. Another theory entails countless RadioShack gift cards that sit unredeemed in their recipients' wallets. Day has even conjectured that the store is "still coasting on" an enormous fortune made from remote-control toy cars in the mid-1970s.
Day admitted, however, that none of these theories seems particularly plausible.
"I once went into a RadioShack location incognito in order to gauge customer service," Day said. "It was about as inviting as a visit to the DMV. For the life of me, I couldn't see anything I wanted to buy. Finally, I figured I'd pick up some Enercell AA batteries, though truthfully they're not appreciably cheaper than the name brands."
"I know one thing," Day continued. "If Sony and JVC start including gold-tipped cable cords with their products, we're screwed."
In the cover letter to his December 2006 report to investors, "Radio Shack: Still Here In The 21st Century," Day wrote that he had no reason to believe that the coming year would not be every bit as good as years past, provided that people kept on doing things much the same way they always had.
Despite this cheerful boosterism, Day admitted that nothing has changed during his tenure and he doesn't exactly know what he can do to improve the chain.
"I'd like to capitalize on the store's strong points, but I honestly don't know what they are," Day said. "Every location is full of bizarre adapters, random chargers, and old boom boxes, and some sales guy is constantly hovering over you. It's like walking into your grandpa's basement. You always expect to see something cool, but it never delivers."
Added Day: "I may never know the answer. No matter how many times I punch the sales figures into this crappy Tandy desk calculator, it just doesn't add up."
Best Buy will be happy to sell you HDMI cables at a 500% markup, KenFSU.
Quote from: funwithteeth on March 04, 2014, 01:34:37 PM
Best Buy will be happy to sell you HDMI cables at a 500% markup, KenFSU.
FANTASTIC, thanks for the heads up.
Hopefully they have something gold-tipped.
Will gladly pay the extra $60 for the additional hertz.
My first PC was a TRS-80 with 8 1/2 inch floppy discs that would hold a huge 140K. Anybody else remember CNTRL-C when you changed discs?
A capacitor blew on my TV a while back and I went to RS- they used to have racks full of components, now they had a two sided three foot high display. I hate to see people lose jobs but when Walmart has a better electronics selection than you? Time to hang it up.
Let m
Quote from: IrvAdams on March 04, 2014, 01:19:01 PM
RS was the thing back in the day; their store is where I saw my first Apple computer in the 70s. Nowadays, they cannot compete with online purchase. Most people wanting electronic parts, etc. are savvy enough to be able to describe what they want well enough to shop for it online, where the prices can be a fraction of RS. Best Buy and others are suffering with this as well.
I will add to the Best Buy discussion....
Two weeks ago Best Buy eliminated their district staff. 2000 employees will be laid off. Monday in phase 2 they eliminated half of the management on the store level. They say it was another 2000, but if the store I work in is an indicator it was way higher. We lost 5 in that one. Next month it's rumored that phase 3 begins with laying off at least 2 full time employees per store. They will keep all part time staff. Of course their cutting full time so they don't have to pay insurance and benefits which will be a large cut in expenses. In the store I work in there are only 6 full time employees on the sales floor. Now you kinda know why service in these places is so horrible. A bunch of, forgive me for saying this, 20 somethings who are just collecting a pay check are running the place.
I'm sure phase 4 will be store closings.
I don't see Amazon coming in and filling the gap in jobs when Best Buy goes under. These jobs will be lost. Maybe forever. We'll see.
All the online businesses will see an increase and they may hire more people to cover their needs but it will not be a help for the people in the state or city where the online retailers don't have a physical warehouse or call center. And believe me these jobs will be on the same pay scale as the Best Buy and Radio Shack which is needless to say low.
Quote from: thekillingwax on March 04, 2014, 08:50:24 PM
A capacitor blew on my TV a while back and I went to RS- they used to have racks full of components, now they had a two sided three foot high display. I hate to see people lose jobs but when Walmart has a better electronics selection than you? Time to hang it up.
WalMart's electronics is awful. It's gonna be interesting when they are the only game in town.
I don't really know what could be done to save best buy. The internet is killing them and right now, tons of people use them as a showroom for amazon. Personally, I don't like buying big electronics online but they've also got competition from places like costco- I know when I bought my last receiver, BB was selling it for $700, Costco had it for $400 and the TV I bought was a few hundred cheaper there as well.
Conversation that occured between me and my mother after finding out she spent $50 at Best Buy on HDMI cables for her new HDTV:
Me: You can get perfectly good HDMI cables for less than $10 on Amazon.
Her: No, as the salesman said to me, "If you were driving across the country, would you rather travel in a Geo or a Lexus?"
Me: It's his job to convince you to spend more money. Were $50 cables all they had?
Her: No, they had some $15 ones, but those aren't as good. And it's not like he makes a commission, so why should he be trying to get me to spend more?
Quote from: thekillingwax on March 05, 2014, 03:40:31 PM
I don't really know what could be done to save best buy. The internet is killing them and right now, tons of people use them as a showroom for amazon. Personally, I don't like buying big electronics online but they've also got competition from places like costco- I know when I bought my last receiver, BB was selling it for $700, Costco had it for $400 and the TV I bought was a few hundred cheaper there as well.
The old model is dead as a door nail, but these companies are trying to hang on to it for dear life. Obviously it isn't going to work because there's very little ways you can compete with internet commerce companies that have such smaller overheads & where you're able to find any item with just a simple search from your smartphone while sitting on the toilet in your cozy home for way cheaper & less frustration.
The ONLY way to do it would be to hit them where they are weak, and that's with waiting for deliveries (which takes days). People sometimes need stuff right then, that day. Places like Best Buy could turn their stores into distribution centers, staffed by a few knowledgable employees, where someone could order what they need online (at Amazon prices) & go pick it up that same day.
Anything else is just delaying the inevitable. Which is exactly what they will do.
Quote from: thekillingwax on March 05, 2014, 03:40:31 PM
I don't really know what could be done to save best buy. The internet is killing them and right now, tons of people use them as a showroom for amazon. Personally, I don't like buying big electronics online but they've also got competition from places like costco- I know when I bought my last receiver, BB was selling it for $700, Costco had it for $400 and the TV I bought was a few hundred cheaper there as well.
I believe Costco also has a generous 90 day return policy with no restocking fees.
I NEVER go in radioshack. I actually forgot they existed until I seen this thread.
Quote from: peestandingup on March 05, 2014, 04:07:38 PM
Quote from: thekillingwax on March 05, 2014, 03:40:31 PM
I don't really know what could be done to save best buy. The internet is killing them and right now, tons of people use them as a showroom for amazon. Personally, I don't like buying big electronics online but they've also got competition from places like costco- I know when I bought my last receiver, BB was selling it for $700, Costco had it for $400 and the TV I bought was a few hundred cheaper there as well.
The old model is dead as a door nail, but these companies are trying to hang on to it for dear life. Obviously it isn't going to work because there's very little ways you can compete with internet commerce companies that have such smaller overheads & where you're able to find any item with just a simple search from your smartphone while sitting on the toilet in your cozy home for way cheaper & less frustration.
The ONLY way to do it would be to hit them where they are weak, and that's with waiting for deliveries (which takes days). People sometimes need stuff right then, that day. Places like Best Buy could turn their stores into distribution centers, staffed by a few knowledgable employees, where someone could order what they need online (at Amazon prices) & go pick it up that same day.
Anything else is just delaying the inevitable. Which is exactly what they will do.
This could be a food truck vs B&M restaurant argument...
Radio Shack I thought was onto the right path about a decade ago. Does anyone else remember when they were positioning themselves as the electronic fixit guys? When the junk you bought stopped working, they could tell you what was wrong and fix it. I used them for a problem with a cd rom. Most crap these days are easier to dispose of and replace than fix. So I guess that's why that didn't fly so well.
Quote from: funwithteeth on March 05, 2014, 04:01:59 PM
Conversation that occured between me and my mother after finding out she spent $50 at Best Buy on HDMI cables for her new HDTV:
Me: You can get perfectly good HDMI cables for less than $10 on Amazon.
Her: No, as the salesman said to me, "If you were driving across the country, would you rather travel in a Geo or a Lexus?"
Me: It's his job to convince you to spend more money. Were $50 cables all they had?
Her: No, they had some $15 ones, but those aren't as good. And it's not like he makes a commission, so why should he be trying to get me to spend more?
I pissed a salesman off in BB when I was in there buying a new HD TiVo several years ago right after they came out. There was couple buying a TV and the salesman was trying to convince them to buy the Monster HDMI cable. You could tell that they didn't really want to spend that much money and he kept trying to sell them. Finally I got tired of waiting and told them that the Monster Cables were overpriced and told them that an HDMI cable was an HDMI cable and spending $150 on a Monster Cable wasn't going to make their picture any better. He tried to argue with me about the warranty and how it was worth it and I finally said, if a cable is made to meet the spec, it is going to give you the same picture as that monster cable and I could easily buy 8-10 or more HDMI cables online for the same cost as that Monster Cable, so the warranty is pointless.
After they decided not to buy the Monster Cable and the salesman went to get the TV they thanked me for my advice. I told them about a couple of websites they could buy cables from cheap, monoprice.com being one of them.
Looks like they're not going to make it.
QuoteReports of RadioShack's demise are nothing new, but now it seems like the electronics retailer may be done for good. Bloomberg reports that company is in talks with Sprint to hand over around half of its remaining stores to the wireless company. The rest of RadioShack's locations will close, and those that are included in the deal will be painted yellow and black. This means the shops where most of us purchased parts for a project will cease to exist. Nothing's final, and until the ink is dry, another suitor could swipe up the company and allow it to keep on chuggin' along. RadioShack is facing bankruptcy after years of declining sales, so even if Sprint doesn't agree to buy those stores, a move of some kind is imminent for the company that's been selling tech since 1921.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/02/radioshack-sprint-buyout
Too bad, they really lost their identity in the early 90s, maybe sooner when they started selling nothing but phone chargers.
Best of luck to all the employees.
Not surprising. I had forgot that they were still around. I haven't been inside of a Radio Shack since the early 1990s. I think I stopped in to look at the price of pagers then and I walked out because they were too high.
I wish the employees well too. Jon Bois, the sportswriter for SBNation, wrote a funny but sobering essay a while back about his experiences in working for Radio Shack for a couple of years. Sounds like they painfully overworked their employees and store managers, and management (obviously) gave little thought to modernizing the store's inventory or approach. There's fascinating vignettes in there about inventory purchases too, e.g., his store in Kentucky was forced to buy 100 radio controlled versions of a cartoon car from a British TV series, and predictably sold none.
Quote from: thelakelander on February 03, 2015, 08:07:12 PM
Not surprising. I had forgot that they were still around. I haven't been inside of a Radio Shack since the early 1990s. I think I stopped in to look at the price of pagers then and I walked out because they were too high.
I actually shopped at one twice this holiday season
RIP: Radio Shack
The Jacksonville regional sales office for Radio Shack is at the corner of Beach & University next to the retail store in the same building facing Virginia College.
Sprint is attempting to pick up some of the retail store leases on the cheap.
Amazon is also bidding for some of the assets as well, though its not clear why.
The beginning of the end of Radio Shack occurred when they sold their computer business to AST and spun off their big box concept store Incredible Universe. At the time they were years ahead of what was CompUSA, Circuit City, Best Buy and others. When BestBuy rose up, many people were baffled as they thought Radio Shack should have the niche. The final straw for the hobbyist crowd was when they started charging for the coveted catalogs.(long before the internet came along)
Like Blockbuster, Sears and other retailers that couldn't adapt to the new trends, Radio Shack held on (barely).
The Tandy Corporation, which bought it from Allied, became so risk adverse in the early 1990's, they flat out refused to embrace anything new after that. It was the only chain that could open new stores while the others barely broke even. In fact the majority of the stores had flat sales for years.
I even stopped using their website after my credit card company called after I made an online purchase. They said radioshack.com was the worst source of fraud and they had to validate all the purchases made there.
I laughed out loud when I recently bought a $2.99 audio cable and they tried to sell me an extended warranty!!
I remember going to Radio Shack when it was owned by Allied Industries in 1965. It was one of the few places where you could get replacement vacuum tubes for your TV.
I still have my Radio Shack Single Side Band (SSB) CB radio from 1978 with the power supply. (back when 23 channels was normal) Most people don't even know what a CB radio is anymore.
The store just north of Regency Mall is on its way out - going out of business sale underway.
Like Sears? You know they're still on business right? I'll admit Sears is having a rough time, but they have a MASSIVE amount of assets, including real-estate. I think they need to dump Kmart, go back to making all their craftsman tools in the USA and advertise that.
I don't think you can put Sears in the same breath as RadioShack and Blockbuster.
Quote from: coredumped on February 03, 2015, 10:32:48 PM
Like Sears? You know they're still on business right? I'll admit Sears is having a rough time, but they have a MASSIVE amount of assets, including real-estate. I think they need to dump Kmart, go back to making all their craftsman tools in the USA and advertise that.
I don't think you can put Sears in the same breath as RadioShack and Blockbuster.
Sears Holdings has assets, but they are dying slowly, just like Radio Shack.
They peter off a few more assets every so often to fund some remodeling or new marketing effort, but later, end up the exact same way.
Merging with KMart was a bail out for KMart management and a stopgap reach for more assets by Sears.
They had a chance to line up with Target and Walmart with Sears Grand Central. The test markets for it were rated some of the best, but shareholders refuse to let management invest or take any long term risks, so they completely dumped the concept and wrote it off. One large strategic mistake. They were going to push the Craftsman Tools and Auto Stores into Grand Central along with grocery and low end clothing. Keep high end clothing, appliances and furniture at the mall based Sears.
The idea was to go after Walmart and others where they have a weak market, tools and auto service. Go after Target in dry goods and clothes.
It was going to cost Sears many millions to get the brand split in two and re-positioned. But it meant institutional shareholders were going to have to give up some dividend for awhile until the split was completed.
Sears also looked at a Home Depot style appliance/tools/home improvement big box layout. Same issue. Not willing to invest. Institutional Investors were unwilling to accept the risk.
So Sears will gradually over time, continue to pare down their assets to prop up the retail stores and the dividend until they either sell out or die out.
Dec 25, 1989:
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/Other/mi/i-5JQqMrk/0/X3/radioshack-X3.jpg)
Yeah, that ad shows pretty well how they lost their way.
Every time I've been in there in the past decade, they never had some battery, a capacitor, or really anything else I was looking for, that you used to be able to get there. One of the last times I went was to get a small sized stereo for my office back in 2011, and they don't sell those anymore. It was basically nothing but a cell phone store. If I wanted a cell phone, a cell phone charger, cell phone car charger, cell phone case, cell phone anything, it was overflowing with that but not much else.
At some point awhile ago they decided to become a cell phone store. Sorry to see a brand I associated with fond childhood memories fade out, it used to be exciting to go in there, there was always something cool inside. Usually you'd go back and visit it until it showed up for your birthday or Christmas. I got my Atari and my original Nintendo from there. I'm giving my age away. Cell phones were a big deal even in the 80s/90s, yet those were always just one smallish display. If the whole store had been nothing but cell phones, it would have been as boring then as it is now.
The ONLY reason I have been in a Radio Shack in the last 10 years has been for fuses, fuse blocks, solder, or dial lamps for radio repairs. The capacitor selection is awful, but the higher voltage ones can be found online.
The salespeople seem friendly enough, though geared towards selling cell phones and chargers, as many in this thread have already pointed out. Sadly, I think Radio Shack's time has come and gone, regardless of the business model they followed.
Cool story...I remember checking out the progress of the preparations for demolition of the Robert Meyer Hotel downtown in the 90s, and the workers had opened up the former storefronts on the south side of the building as they were gutting the place. There must have been a Radio Shack there at some point, as the walls of one section had the "TRS-80" logo painted on it. I wish I had taken a picture. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the hotel closed for good in 1982, so that section must have been left "as is" until final building demolition.
(http://i.imgur.com/gDmnO9u.jpg)
Not quite...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/lauraheller/2014/05/30/why-radioshack-is-bumming-me-out/ (http://www.forbes.com/sites/lauraheller/2014/05/30/why-radioshack-is-bumming-me-out/)