Posted on 09/15/2014 8:19:49 PM PDT by Jack Hydrazine
Gentlemen and gentlewomen of a certain age harbor fond memories of trips to RadioShack. In days of yore, ham radios and homemade guitar amplifiers would emerge from the mysterious jumble of wires and audio components hawked by this unpretentious electronic retailer.
Whatever one’s view of this American institution with about 27,000 employees, it is near death. On Thursday, RadioShack warned that it may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Radioshack could have kept itself in business by becoming a niche business. There aren’t many businesses left that allows people to do old-fashioned electronics or science activities.
It might have meant shrinking their presence where they weren’t in every mall, but I think it could have been done.
No one said you had to give them a real address or phone number. Or one that you had lived at in the last 20 years. (^;
I too dumped them years ago when they started all that personal information crap. I thought they were insane pissing everyone off like that. I have fond memories of what they used to be, but they abandoned their roots. I knew they were going down when they changed their logo. Granted it took awhile, but I never liked the thing and felt it undermined a long established visual identity for literally nothing.
It was a “hobby shop” that lost its way...
I went to a Radio Shack last week. A gal clerk came running over and insisted on helping me. So I asked her for a 22 to 24 gauge stranded wire pair spool, preferably black and red. She hands me some electrical 16 gauge solid wire. I said forget it. She hovered around me trying to hand me various wiring, all wrong. I kept repeating myself, then told her to go away. Sigh! Can't find the soldering tips for my torch soldering iron. Can't find the electrical connectors I want. All they have are cellphone batteries and toys. Used to be able to get chips and resistors and other components easily 30 years ago. Now they're a joke.
The 80’s called, they want their store back...
I agree. They gave up what was distinctive about the band.
Not saying much, I remember the tube tester at Thrifty's and I could even get an ice cream there. I do have fond memories of Radio Shack in the olden days when they had the battery a month club and you could get kits and components. Those were the old days, they lost me when they started demanding addresses and phone numbers for a purchase.
I bought a null-modem converter from them last year. Thats all.
They probably should have become a hobby store covering planes, trains and automobiles. A good store to buy hobby train supplies would be neat.
So who exactly is responsible for this mess?
Radio Shack con man needs to go to jail.
http://www.cashamerica.com/aboutus/leadershipteam.aspx
OMG, I think I still have one out in the garage!
111 Jericho Turnpike, Syosset, NY ... orders usually delivered by Railway Express trucks. Wow, were those archived brain cells just accessed or what!
>.Radio Shack use to be a place for kids to get experiment kits and circuits and learn things about physics and electricity with real hands on experience. They were one of the first into personal computers too.
I imagine the first PCs, Apples and such, used many RS parts.
Yes, the TRS-80. Definitely a step along the path toward personal computing as we have come to know it.
Wouldn’t those be cheaper online?
Which ones do you use?
Used to love playing around with their circuit boards, electronic components and IC’s - built my own descrambler for the old sunken sync TV systems - worked great on the oscilloscope, could never get it to actually descramble a TV picture though - about the only reason I ever go near them any more is to find some obscure battery like the one for the remote control car key.......
These clowns make the idiots at FEDGOV look like high functioning autistics!
From Wiki:
“Fix 1500” initiative[edit]
In early 2004, RadioShack introduced Fix 1500, a sweeping program to “correct” inventory and profitability issues company-wide. The program put the 1,500 lowest-graded store managers, of over 5,000, on notice of the need to improve. Managers were graded not on tangible store and personnel data but on one-on-one interviews with district management.[18]
Typically, a 90-day period was given for the manager to improve (thus causing another manager to then be selected for Fix 1500). A total of 1,734 store managers were reassigned as sales associates or terminated in a 6-month period. Also, during this period, RadioShack canceled the employee stock purchase plan. By the first quarter of 2005, the metrics of skill assessment used during Fix 1500 had already been discarded, and the corporate officer who created the program had resigned.
CEO turnover[edit]
On February 20, 2006, the company announced that its CEO, David Edmondson, had resigned over questions raised about his résumé. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram discovered that he had not earned degrees in theology and psychology from Heartland Baptist Bible College as claimed on his résumé.[19] RadioShack’s board of directors stood up for Edmondson, but Edmondson admitted to the errors, calling them “misstatements”, and resigned.[20]
In wake of Edmondson’s absence Claire Babrowski acted as CEO, chief operating officer and president for RadioShack. She had just joined several months prior, after spending 31 years employed with McDonald’s Corporation, most recently as a vice president and Chief Restaurant Operations Officer. In August 2006, Claire Babrowski left RadioShack, later to become CEO and Executive Vice President of Toys “R” Us.
RadioShack had also admitted that 2005 fourth-quarter earnings had fallen 62 percent after a switch in wireless providers led to an inventory write-down. The news sent the company’s shares to an almost three-year low.
On July 7, 2006, RadioShack’s board of directors announced it had chosen Julian C. Day (then aged 54) to serve as chairman and chief executive officer of the company. Day had previously served in senior leadership positions at several large publicly traded retailing companies in the US and had played a key role in revitalizing such companies as Safeway, Sears and Kmart. Day had financial experience, but woefully lacked any practical front-line sales experience needed to run a retail company. As such, he was named as one of the “10 Crappiest CEOs” of 2009 (among consumer-facing companies, according to their own employees).[21] Day’s failing tenure lasted 5 years; he resigned in May 2011.[22][23][24]
James “Jim” Gooch, whom Day hired as Chief Financial Officer in 2006, succeeded Day as CEO of the company in 2011 and served for 16 months. He “agreed to step down” as CEO following a 73% plunge in the price of the stock.[25]
On February 11, 2013, RadioShack Corp. hired Joseph C. Magnacca as its fourth chief executive officer in three years, tapping a drugstore marketing expert to help revive the unprofitable electronics chain. Unlike his two predecessors, Magnacca has retailing experience.[26]
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