Bye, Bye Radio Shack?

Seems another "icon" is about to bite the dust:

http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/14/news/co ... ankruptcy/

Of course, today's Radio Shack is only a shadow of what it was when I was in my teens, going back some 40 years, and earlier -- http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/catal ... ctory.html .

Joe

It's a pity. For some of us, Radio Shack is the only local store to buy any kind of electronic components. They actually sell good quality solder and have a decent selection of fuses.

I think the Len Roberts era was the start of the downfall of Radio Shack.

Indeed, when I was starting to purchase electronics back in the 70's, Radio Shack was a hot place to check out.
And being into "electronics" it was one of my favorite places, among Allied, Lafayette, and others.
But once the new millenium hit, and they started with computers and cellphones, things started turning sour.
See? - some modern technology isn't good for a business.
I got dragged into a RS store the other day by a friend looking for 12 volt zener diodes.
They had them, luckily, but the salesgirl was so ignorant - god forbid we disturbed her from her important TEXTING to her friends in order for her to run the cash register for my friend.
Ugh!

Doghouse,
"Tandy" was a leather supplier here for years. Sometime ago, they purchased Radio Shack from Allied Electronics, and changed their corp. name to Radio Shack. IMHO, it's been "downhill" since then. Within the last ten years (memory is real "cloudy" on dates !) Radio Shack spun off the Tandy leather biz to an other company ( which I understand is doing well). Ron Rich

Store closing list:

http://qz.com/340292/here-are-all-the-s ... s-closing/

Ken Layton wrote:Store closing list:

http://qz.com/340292/here-are-all-the-s ... s-closing/

According to an article in Forbes -- http://www.forbes.com/sites/lauraheller ... t-the-end/ -- this may not be the complete end of Radio Shack.

I walked into the Radio Shack at 20th Ave. and Geary Street in San Francisco, on Thursday, and as far as the manager was concerned they're still open for business as usual -- no sales, no notices. The manager told me that, so far, he had not received any information from the company.

Interestingly, the store at Spruce and Geary, some 24 blocks up the street, DID have a "Going out of Business Sale" posted in the windows!

So, if you buy something from the Spruce and Geary store, you'll get it at 50+ percent off, but if you buy it at the 20th Ave. and Geary St. store, you'll pay full price.

You'd never know that there were any issues, if you visit the Radio Shack website to buy online -- http://www.radioshack.com/


David

Joe,
I have seen Radio Shack, do this before--offer 50% off, in a store they are closing--"Kohl's" here in Millbrae, did the same thing last year--
Had a five day, no notice, except for the signs around the store, which announced a "closing sale"--"all fixtures for sale !" . This store was one they had opened about a year earlier. Purchased all new fixtures, for it. It formerly was another dept. store that had been there for at least 25 years--
Ron Rich

Will be missed, always found it somewhat different than typical bust buy or future shop. I guess this is the new economy.

MattTech wrote:Indeed, when I was starting to purchase electronics back in the 70's, Radio Shack was a hot place to check out.
And being into "electronics" it was one of my favorite places, among Allied, Lafayette, and others.
But once the new millenium hit, and they started with computers and cellphones, things started turning sour.
See? - some modern technology isn't good for a business.
I got dragged into a RS store the other day by a friend looking for 12 volt zener diodes.
They had them, luckily, but the salesgirl was so ignorant - god forbid we disturbed her from her important TEXTING to her friends in order for her to run the cash register for my friend.
Ugh!

Yes, I remember Radio Shack years ago. I still have some of their catalogs dating back to 1994, maybe even earlier. I was around 40 back then. In the 70's, that's where I bought all my semi-conductors, plus reel-to-reel tapes. In addition to the above mentioned stores, there was also Olson Electronics. There was a store in Columbus, Ohio, and they sold alot of used stuff, including speaker cabinets and erased reel tapes.

Radio Shack is a joke, selling cellphones, cheezy plastic keyboards and some TV/sound-around stuff. I'd rather pay the small S/H online from more serious establishments that are still going strong in business today.

I take exception to our one electronics store in Tucson. Elliott Electronics is sort of an old-school place, but they also have all kind of cabling to install what ever features, whether music, security, sattellite installations, Romex house wiring etc,. for whatever you need. They are like the old Radio Shack back in the day and then some, and they also carry tubes (have an old tube tester in-house), NOS phono cartridges, needles, connections, caps resistors, diodes...they run the whole gammet. Oh, the employees are very friendly.

The place is absolutely amazing. There was another electronics place a few blocks over and around the corner, but I don't know if they're still in business. They couldn't touch Elliotts Electronics, though. --BB

Bobby Basham
Tucson, Arizona

Ours is still there, but they sell mostly mobile phones.