Bingo!!!
Posted on 02/17/2006 12:06:55 PM PST by iPod Shuffle
Expensive products, poor selection. That's Radio Shack. Who wants to make a special trip to Radio Shack for a plug in or a cord.
The place has changed. They now sell only a handful of radios (most made by Tecsun in China) and tons of Dish TV, cell phone services and well, that is about it.
Maybe time and bad marketing has caught up with Radio Shack the way it did with Lafayette Radio Electronics.
"it is replacing old, slower-moving merchandise like speaker wire "
Great! They'll get rid of the only stuff that brings me into the store. I guess it's off to Best Buy from now on.
Too bad, too. They were an easy place to buy small, common electronics components. I'll miss that. I won't miss most of Radio Shack, though.
By the way, price is a factor. A radio available online for $60 is $100 at Radio Shack.
Could it be that everything I ever purchased at Radio Shack broke after 3 or 4 days of use.>>>>>>>>>
I bought an answering machine there years ago, it was junk, it would have been better if it didn't work at all but it had INTERMITTENT failures, when I took it in to try to get something done it would work and the idiot clerk would treat me as if I was too dumb to know how to use it even though I ran my own electromechanical maintenance business and I am an ex-Navy electronics technician. Finally I took it back to the mall and waited until the store was full of people and I took the useless thing back and laid it on the counter. I announced in a very loud voice, "here, this piece of junk is the reason I will never shop here again, you can keep it". Every single customer turned and looked at me but nobody said a word. I then described my experience in detail so that everyone in the store heard me clearly and then I turned and slowly walked out. I never heard a peep from anybody.
"I remember when RS was the only electronics store."
Since I am a ham radio operator, from the 50s, I remember when Radio Shack got started. It was, and has always been a Mickey Mouse operation.
In the early days, I went to the local electronics wholesale distributor, the same that sold to business and radio repair people. I also bought from mail order companies like Allied, the parent company of Radio Shack.
Radio Shack filled a nich but has outlived it.
It's a shame. Truthfully, I don't shop there cause of the rigamaro you have to go through when you buy something there.
Bingo!!!
"Expensive products, poor selection. That's Radio Shack. Who wants to make a special trip to Radio Shack for a plug in or a cord."
Well, I do. You have a point there, but I'm not surrounded by electronic distributors. RS is my only choice for a lot of small items.
I still have RS scanners and accessories over 20 years old that work perfectly. I'm sure you're right about the newer stuff, though.
It's getting so you just about have to go to eBay for many specialty electronic things. No local stores carry them anymore. I don't really mind, as my experiences with hundreds of eBay purchases have been very good, but it changes the consumer dynamic. Lately, a flood of electronic products are being offered directly from Hong Kong at ridiculously low prices. For example, I got a stereo headset with noise-reducing mic for $1.98, compared to $30+ at RS or BestBuy. No, I don't expect it to be working in 20 years, but it works for now.
They stopped it, I think - but too late. Turned off a lot of potential shoppers. Then factor in high(er) pricing and low(er) quality and you have a recipe for doom.
I still visit RS if I need a wacky micro switch or a capacitor or some solder. And that's only because Lowes or Home Depot offers up a 2 mile walk through the aisles just to get to the proper dept, then once you find the proper shelf in the proper dept, you have to find the proper tray and then the proper cubby hole in that tray, which is usually empty or has a backorder card in it.
A $3 sale shouldn't take an hour and a half or worse, 3 days.
Grainger is even easier!
>>>If you don't sell stuff people want you can't stay in business........>>>
Exactly.
Good. I'm still angry at them for putting Lafayette Electronics out of business here. I suppose when you sell expensive junk you have few return customers.
>>> Everything there is way overpriced. They're good for wires or cables when in a crunch, but that's about it.>?>>
LOL! I just posted the same statement (virtually). Guess it isn't just me.
"I quit going in Radio Shack years ago, cause even just to make a simple purchase required that you give them your entire life history."
Wow...I now remember that. It really irritated me.
One time I was in a hurry...ran into a RS store to buy
something like a resistor, and was subjected to a list of questions.
I blew a fuse !
Why is everyone in here always so happy when a business goes out of business? Radio Shack carries parts you can't get anywhere else....
"True, but there may be a means for Radio Shack to reinvent itself into the component supplier of choice for industrial tech buyers like me."
It would be good if that were the case. Ther are times when I need various cable connectors and such as well but have to wait for them on order.
Yes...the hard to find stuff. Where else can you buy those types of items? On the cordless phone batteries, I know they probably get a 400% or better mark up, but what choice is there? I needed an AC power inverter while on the road one time....stopped at Radio Shack and it was $149. No thanks. I then got an idea and stopped at a boating supply type store, and bought a higher wattage inverter for $64. Like many here, I can't believe it has taken this long for problems to surface.
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