# How is Radioshack still in business? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 25, 2014, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498 "2014-09-25T04:12:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/21 "2014-09-25T19:47:15Z")
Did the market of the electronics hobbyist become too small for them? I knew one guy who managed a Radio Shack for a while and heard of another. The home office seemed to not want to sell electronic parts. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/22 "2014-09-25T19:47:35Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Obama would like you to collect your stack of Radio Shack catalogs and fliers, please. Nah, the sales are probably all over. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/23 "2014-09-25T20:03:51Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Did the market of the electronics hobbyist become too small for them? Almost certainly. They didn’t carry enough stuff for the serious hobbyist/enthusiast and probably not 1 in 100 customers even knew what a resistor was. I was central in hobby electronics in the 1980s and it was clear that the day of the soldering-iron hobbyist was well towards sunset. Thirty years later? Surprised they even have that tiny part section any more. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/24 "2014-09-25T20:08:22Z")
> [@AncientHumanoid](#): > > One thing I disliked then and now was the “Give me your entire contact info before I sell you 28 cents worth of stuff” check out procedure. We would get reprimands if we didn’t have a certain percentage of receipts with completed info. RS, being weird, was among the first to try hard (obnoxiously hard, obviously by leaning on the employees) to collect tracking information. I don’t think I was ever in a store without encountering someone who got pissed at the insistence on taking their address and info, and that’s over a period of years. Now, of course, we all just wear our tracking tags around our collars and love it. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Grestarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grestarian/32/3227_2.png) [@Grestarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grestarian)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/25 "2014-09-25T20:19:41Z")
> [@Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](#): > > Where will I purchase a transistor radio when they close? I still use one during baseball season. Perhaps you could safely store the one from this season until winter has passed. Y’know, rather than using it as a target down on the pistol range…😉 –G! I mean, yeah, they’re cheap and it’s really cool when the parts go flying, but… ---
**Author:** ![Grestarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grestarian/32/3227_2.png) [@Grestarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grestarian)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/26 "2014-09-25T20:22:08Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Now, of course, we all just wear our tracking tags around our collars and love it. :smack: Yeah! Did you SEE that line for the model 6 last week? 😃 I didn’t know they came with a collar, though. –G! ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2014, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/27 "2014-09-26T03:15:37Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > I once made the mistake of asking them for a 6’ RCA cable, which is something any electronics store in the past 50 years should have. They said they didn’t know what it was I’m sure I mentioned it in the other thread too, but I went in for a phone jack. This was years ago when it was still heard of to have a landline. So one of these [https://angelelectronics.ca/shop/image/cache/data/products/surface-mount-modular-phone-jack\_\_1-700x700.jpg](https://angelelectronics.ca/shop/image/cache/data/products/surface-mount-modular-phone-jack__1-700x700.jpg) He had no idea what I was talking about. So I went to KMart and found one for a few bucks. I was tempted to go back and show him. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/28 "2015-02-05T23:02:00Z")
battery cards no longer good. RadioShack files for Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection [http://finance.yahoo.com/news/radioshack-files-ch-11-bankruptcy-222534944.html](http://finance.yahoo.com/news/radioshack-files-ch-11-bankruptcy-222534944.html) ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/29 "2015-02-05T23:13:50Z")
A fellow on NPR this afternoon was blaming it on the failure of the TRS-80. I think it’s what happens when you go from selling electronic parts to cell phone plans. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2015, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/30 "2015-02-06T00:13:34Z")
11 straight quarters of losing money and years of mismanagement. They have been terrible at their core business for almost 2 decades now. The business of selling parts to home hobbyists. ---
**Author:** ![Tuxie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ee59a6/32.png) [@Tuxie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuxie)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2015, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/31 "2015-02-06T00:31:13Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Radio Shack has made more than 50% of its profit from cell phone sales and accessories for quite some time. As for knowing anything about the other products, RS has always maintained a proud tradition of hiring completely ignorant sales people, so that they knew only what they were trained and told. (This goes back to the 1980s, when a good friend who managed a Radio Shack told me he\* could not\* - would _not_ be allowed to - hire me [for seasonal overload sales] because I knew too much.) > > I also worked with RS central in Texas on several projects and the pre-Apple, navel-gazing, smugly self-satisfied “nothing else exists” 'tude went all the way to the top. They \*are \*as seriously strange and head-up-ass as you might imagine. Too smart to work at Radio Shack? Isn’t that like being too fast for the Special Olympics? ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2015, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/32 "2015-02-06T00:37:32Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > …RS has always maintained a proud tradition of hiring completely ignorant sales people, so that they knew only what they were trained and told. (This goes back to the 1980s, when a good friend who managed a Radio Shack told me he\* could not\* - would _not_ be allowed to - hire me [for seasonal overload sales] because I knew too much.)… > [@Tuxie](#): > > Too smart to work at Radio Shack? Isn’t that like being too fast for the Special Olympics? What other companies have this kind of policy? I don’t know much about drills or plywood. Will Home Depot hire me as an ignoramus sales drone? Will NAPA Auto Parts hire someone who horribly flunked the ASE mechanic’s exam? Can I turn my profound lack of knowledge about propane and propane accessories into perhaps not a glorious but a stable career? ---
**Author:** ![purplehearingaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@purplehearingaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehearingaid)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2015, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/33 "2015-02-06T00:41:46Z")
> **[RadioShack Officially Files for Bankruptcy](https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/radioshack-officially-files-for-bankruptcy-394768963785)** > > After suffering years of losses, electronics retailer RadioShack filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Thursday and says it will sell up to 2,400 stores. RadioShack Officially Files for Bankruptcy , this was on the news tonight and I bet the store in my city will be closing . ---
**Author:** ![Tuxie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ee59a6/32.png) [@Tuxie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuxie)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2015, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/34 "2015-02-06T00:47:46Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > What other companies have this kind of policy? I don’t know much about drills or plywood. Will Home Depot hire me as an ignoramus sales drone? Will NAPA Auto Parts hire someone who horribly flunked the ASE mechanic’s exam? Can I turn my profound lack of knowledge about propane and propane accessories into perhaps not a glorious but a stable career? I confess with great shame that I was told I was “Too pretty” to work at the local Waffle House. They had some measuring device that determined my makeup was applied at an insufficient thickness, my ponytail wasn’t crooked enough, and my shoes “Were liable to remind patrons they are eating at the Waffle House”. Also got too many tattoos for the bank, not enough for Hot Topic 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Kansas\_Beekeeper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@Kansas\_Beekeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kansas_Beekeeper)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2015, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/35 "2015-02-06T00:52:26Z")
If I understand this Bloomberg article right, some 1700 stores will remain open, with a Sprint store within a store, so RadioShack is not going away entirely (yet). [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-05/radioshack-files-for-bankruptcy-protection-as-losses-mount-i5spaw86](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-05/radioshack-files-for-bankruptcy-protection-as-losses-mount-i5spaw86) I’m baffled how a company that was so successful, especially with the TRS-80 back in the late 70s, could fall so far. But then again, Montgomery Ward is gone, and Sears has gone under the surface for the last time. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2015, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/36 "2015-02-06T01:15:45Z")
[Businessweek’s cover story](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-02-02/inside-radioshack-s-slow-motion-collapse) this week is about how Radio Shack got to this point. It’s an interesting history of the company. BTW, I heard that Amazon might be interested in buying some of the Radio Shack stores, so that it would have a retail presence. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2015, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/37 "2015-02-06T01:21:12Z")
I went to Radio Shack a couple of months ago to buy a 12 V CT transformer. The kid asked me what a transformer was. Sears is going bankrupt because they fucked with me over lawnmower repair. I wanted the pull start repaired.'They sent it from Little Rock, Arkansas to Texas, and I was called by an outsourced woman who, bless her heart, spoke English very badly, and insisted on $500 of repairs, including a muffler. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2015, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/38 "2015-02-06T01:45:55Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Did the market of the electronics hobbyist become too small for them? I knew one guy who managed a Radio Shack for a while and heard of another. The home office seemed to not want to sell electronic parts. > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I went to Radio Shack a couple of months ago to buy a 12 V CT transformer. > The kid asked me what a transformer was… I was a bit of an electronics hobbyist from the mid 1990’s until about 2003 or so. Although I didn’t, many of my fellow geeks called Radio Shack “Rat Shack” due to a perception that it was a money-grubbing company selling overpriced stuff to people who didn’t know what it was really worth. In 1998 or thereabouts, the “real” source of resistors, capacitors, breadboards, and commodity IC chips was mail-order catalogs. While online sales did happen, the Internet, for most people, was still somewhat slow (e.g. it might take you 2-3 minutes to load a simple website) and the Internet as a whole was still a bit Spartan in terms of retail space. There were, however, fewer cat videos. ---
**Author:** ![Kansas\_Beekeeper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@Kansas\_Beekeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kansas_Beekeeper)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2015, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/39 "2015-02-06T01:57:26Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > [Businessweek’s cover story](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-02-02/inside-radioshack-s-slow-motion-collapse) this week is about how Radio Shack got to this point. It’s an interesting history of the company. > > BTW, I heard that Amazon might be interested in buying some of the Radio Shack stores, so that it would have a retail presence. Great article, thanks. I remember going into RadioShack stores in the early 2000s for a resistor, or a cable, or an obscure battery, and having a salesperson yap at me endlessly about my need for a cell phone. I eventually gave up on RadioShack, and ordered over the Internet. I’m guessing the Amazon thing is just a rumor; I can’t find any confirmation. ---
**Author:** ![straight\_doped](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@straight\_doped](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straight_doped)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2015, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498/40 "2015-02-06T03:36:06Z")
Radio Shack: You’ve got questions, we’ve got cell phones! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-radioshack-still-in-business/699498.md?page=3)