Posted on 03/04/2014 6:37:03 AM PST by John W
(Reuters) - Retailer RadioShack Corp reported a wider quarterly loss on Tuesday and said it will close up to 1,100 U.S. stores after a huge drop in sales over the holidays, sending its stock down nearly 24 percent.
The planned closures would leave the Fort Worth, Texas-based chain with over 4,000 stores, including over 900 dealer franchise locations, its chief executive officer said.
Sales totaled $935.4 million in the quarter covering the all-important holiday season, down 20.1 percent from $1.17 billion in the year-ago period. Analysts, on average, looked for sales of $1.12 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Sales at stores open at least a year fell 19 percent in the fourth quarter on weak customer traffic.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
What do they sell that I would want that I could not get cheaper somewhere else?
Maybe the execs at that Company should ask themselves that question. I'm betting that the execs at Radio Shack themselves haven't bought anything in the last 10 years that Radio Shack sells.
Fry’s has 10 times the components at lower prices. Radio shack is gone.
That and their employees are exclusively idiots and jerks.
That is one of the problems.
We have a Fry’s here in Indiana.
I looked them up on Wiki and was surprised they have only 34 retail locations, most in Tx and Ca.
Cellphone Shack. They stopped being a goto (pun intended)electronics and radio store years ago.
I haven’t been in a Radio Shack in at least 8 years. The employees at that time were useless and it was easier to get what I needed (not a cell phone contract) online.
Usually when I need stuff like that, I need it on the same day...
And you have to drive 20 miles to get to one. When you drive 20 miles to get to a store, chances are you are going to spend some money.
Closing the stores is only one of Radio Shack's remedies. The other is finding a niche' that isn't already dominated by some other company (like Fry's).
If Radio Shack had any vision at all, there would never have been a need for a Frys'.
Fry's filled the niche that Radio Shack left open. Radio Shack reduced their selection and grew their stores. Fry's increased their selections and they keep their stores down to a minimum.
With Amazon Prime you get free shipping and get it within 2 days. And in urban areas they deliver on Sunday.
“Never went back.”
Which is what most consumers do when they are dissatified with an establishment, myself included. And management usually doesn’t recognize anything is wrong with the way their outfit is doing business until it shows up in the gross sales numbers.
That’s why ‘management by walking around’ is the best way to stay on top of the business.
Radio Shack sells vibrators now. Seriously.
Maybe the corporate leadership should go **** themselves.
They still exist?
I go into our local store when I need some odd electronic connector or component. I’d never buy a regular “consumer” product in there and much of their stuff is way over priced.
Pre-ebay and easy internet ordering they had a purpose. I get far more now from Jameco, Digikey, Mouser and ebay than I ever will from “The Shack.”
honestly, I am shocked they have lasted this long. They carry nothing but overpriced junk.
The only thing I really ever need from them is a small spare part every few years
partsdirect.com, free catalog, almost overnight shipping.
“I decided I didnt need to shop at Radio Shack anymore when I went into a store and asked for a capacitor and the kid working there looked at me like I had three heads.”
Yeah, I remember when you could get most of the parts to actually build an electronic gizmo. I spent a lot of money on cables, connectors, antennas, etc. I think I even got a couple of scanners and frequency counters there, maybe a DTMF decoder, too.
That's weird. I first heard of Arduino just last night, and here you are mentioning them on FR.
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