Radio Shack is dead.

[displacedinMN]

RS filed for bankrupcy. Years of mismanagement, high prices and online competition killed a great company.

Let's hear those RS stories. I like to use spoilers to keep the OP short

My time working as RS

Spoiler!

I worked for RS part time. Just to pick up a few extra bucks before I found a teaching job.

It was going down hill then. The district manager was not happy when I told him many of our products could be found some where else cheaper. That did not make him happy. This was before the big depression.

Hey, price first. six bucks cheaper at wal-mart than RS. Printer ink at Office depot across the street was CHEAPER than I could get it WITH MY EMPLOYEE DISCOUNT!

We would have Saturdays where no one would be in for over an hour. Hey, Its Minnesota. Most are at their cabins on the weekend and RS is not a first stop store.

Lesser named electronics, low inventory, did not focus on the electronic geek or do it yourself person.
Terrible management the last 10 years.

Every customer was supposed to be asked about phones and Directv.

RS employees were always informed, but price sells.

Have not been back into my old store much since I left. Amazon has more and cheaper.

Old man Tandy is rolling over in his grave.
Modify message

From the Onion

Spoiler!

Electronics retailer RadioShack filed for bankruptcy after 94 years in business, ultimately unable to keep up with consumers’ shift to the wireless and digital technologies of the internet age. Here is a timeline of RadioShack’s decline:

1962: Retailer establishes a 40-year period of peace and prosperity among electronics retailers known as the Pax Radioica
1980: As a joke, RadioShack employee asks customer buying game-TV switchbox for name and address. Practice lasts company-wide for another 22 years.
1995: Poor microcassette harvest devastates first-quarter sales
1996-2005: Company coasts by on purchase of single VGA cord from Fort Myers, FL location
1999: RadioShack CEO assures Americans that products will break down regardless of Y2K
2001: Company introduces cordless Howie Long
2005: Corporation celebrates one-millionth customer walking in, scoffing at cost, and walking out empty-handed
2007: Email leaks reveal RadioShack in serious talks to buy pack of AA batteries from Duracell
2008: Company loses lucrative Defense Department contract
2010: Executives hold press conference to address issue of what exactly is going on with that one aisle of just copper wire and cable splitters
2015: RadioShack management forced to euthanize millions of thumb drives they can no longer support

Old Radioshack Magazines online. Open, don't download anything (so I have been warned)
http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/

[cosmo20002]

Originally Posted by Deberg_1990

How much longer do we give Sears?

At least they are a decent place to go for some large appliances. I was there on a Saturday afternoon once getting a dishwasher and walked through the rest of the store. There wasn't a single person in any other department. Clothes, electronics, tools (they do have decent tools)--all just barren. Not sure how they stay in business.

[Why Not?]

Originally Posted by Baconeater

I had no idea they were even still around.

This

[stevieray]

My lovely bride walked into a Radio shack about five years ago, asst mgr was swamped, she commented on how they could use some help..he told her to apply...she did...gets hired for AM training...he walks out two weeks later. Wife gets promotoed to Manager...within a year she takes the store's sales to the top 100 out of 4000...being paid chump change, coupled with 70hrs week and more expected.."possible raise if you keep it up"...she walked.

....she giggled when she heard the news of Bankruptcy.

p.s. most of the cash inflow was Cell Phones...prolly why Titus was ignored.

[cosmo20002]

I remember going into a Radio Shack a few years ago for some oddball battery and I noticed they no longer had any Realistic branded electronics.
I had never actually seen a Realistic brand anything in someone's home, but I'm going to assume getting rid of Realistic was a fatal mistake.

[Miles]

15 years ago or so they used to sell quality cables for home theater that were cheaper than you could get locally. Imagine monoprice/internet hasn't helped them in that market.

Kind of amazing they have been in business this long.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by stevieray

My lovely bride walked into a Radio shack about five years ago, asst mgr was swamped, she commented on how they could use some help..he told her to apply...she did...gets hired for AM training...he walks out two weeks later. Wife gets promotoed to Manager...within a year she takes the store's sales to the top 100 out of 4000...being paid chump change, coupled with 70hrs week and more expected.."possible raise if you keep it up"...she walked.

....she giggled when she heard the news of Bankruptcy.

p.s. most of the cash inflow was Cell Phones...prolly why Titus was ignored.

This is true. A cell phone may ring up to the customer as $99, but the wireless company would kick $300-$500 to the store as a "sale."

Some of it depended on the kind of store you worked for too. There are V, W, and Y stores. V stores don't pay commission, but give you cash incentives to cell certain items, like cell phones. When I was there you got $15 for every Sprint phone and then an escalator for accessories. If they bought three accessories with the phone you could get another $10. You also got 10% of the price of any extended warranty for any product. When they sold Dish or DirecTV is was $10 per satellite system.

If your wife worked at a W store, then sales associates made 5% commission on regular sales plus the aforementioned incentives, and 7.5% on parts, batteries and accessories if such commission raised them over minimum. Basically, you needed to cell about $100/hr worth of merch to make "commission" when min. wage was $5.15.

Y stores had slightly different compensation plans, but the store I worked at was never part of one, although your wife putting the company in that level would have gotten them there, but that pay scale wouldn't have kicked in until the next year. Also, they were fond of paying their managers in their increasingly worthless stock, which had lost 80% of its value.

This info is all from when I stopped working there 10 years ago, so it may be dated.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Miles

15 years ago or so they used to sell quality cables for home theater that were cheaper than you could get locally. Imagine monoprice/internet hasn't helped them in that market.

Kind of amazing they have been in business this long.

Yes. In gold and black packaging. They held up better than Monoprice, too. Quality connectors for component video that were well insulated.

They dipped their toes in the Monster snake oil about 11-12 years ago, but that was a total bust.

[stevieray]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

This is true. A cell phone may ring up to the customer as $99, but the wireless company would kick $300-$500 to the store as a "sale."

Some of it depended on the kind of store you worked for too. There are V, W, and Y stores. V stores don't pay commission, but give you cash incentives to cell certain items, like cell phones. When I was there you got $15 for every Sprint phone and then an escalator for accessories. If they bought three accessories with the phone you could get another $10. You also got 10% of the price of any extended warranty for any product. When they sold Dish or DirecTV is was $10 per satellite system.

If your wife worked at a W store, then sales associates made 5% commission on regular sales plus the aforementioned incentives, and 7.5% on parts, batteries and accessories if such commission raised them over minimum. Basically, you needed to cell about $100/hr worth of merch to make "commission" when min. wage was $5.15.

Y stores had slightly different compensation plans, but the store I worked at was never part of one, although your wife putting the company in that level would have gotten them there, but that pay scale wouldn't have kicked in until the next year. Also, they were fond of paying their managers in their increasingly worthless stock, which had lost 80% of its value.

This info is all from when I stopped working there 10 years ago, so it may be dated.

I'll show her this post when gets home and expound.

[cosmo20002]

Originally Posted by KCChiefsFan88

Please let Best Buy be next.

The last time I was in a Best Buy store (about a year ago), their customer service was so evil they could work for ISIS.

I remember being in there 10 years ago near Christmas and lines were a mile long to check out. I was there this year and lines were almost nothing.
The demise of CDs I assume has killed their walk-in traffic and Amazon/internet likely killed much of their other sales.

[splatbass]

Originally Posted by Deberg_1990

Tandy 100!


Never had one, but had several friends who did.

My first computer:



It had a whopping 4K of RAM, upgradable to 16K.

My second computer:



My third computer:



Now I manage a team of 8 system administrators, a UNIX server and a bunch of Windows workstations at several military basses in Hawaii and Korea. I learned about computers from those Tandy computers (my education is in electronics technology, not computer science).

I'll be sad when Radio Shack is gone.

[ChiefsCountry]

I thought Sprint was buying them and making them into half Sprint stores/half RadioShacks? I could of swore I read that in the Kansas City business journal.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by cosmo20002

I remember being in there 10 years ago near Christmas and lines were a mile long to check out. I was there this year and lines were almost nothing.
The demise of CDs I assume has killed their walk-in traffic and Amazon/internet likely killed much of their other sales.

They've put all their eggs in the mobile basket. Basically, if it's not a cell phone or a tablet they really don't give a shit.

The computers were always very low margin for them; I think they carry them because they have too, but no one buys a PC unless it's on sale, which means they are often losing money on the computer unless they sell you services from the Geek Squad, who are usually just a bunch of potheads who couldn't hack it at even ITT or DeVry.

In fact, for the time I was there, almost all of the Geek Squad work involved them putting a CD in the computer that removed all of the bloatware and installed the necessary A/V software for them. They would type in the activation keys, and that was about it. They couldn't repair much of anything on a computer.

One dude got shitcanned because he used one of their VW Beetles to go out and **** on the company dime, which worked fine for him until he got wasted and wrapped it around a tree in the middle of the night.

[displacedinMN]

RS treated managers like crap.

RS used to train employees. Tried to have the best customer service. But some today just look at it as a job. Don't care. Don't try to care.

The old managers knew their stores, and OLD inventory. Tried to take care of the regulars.

Sprint can take over some things. Others, bye bye

Hamas-all true. I remember my manager giving me the lowdown on that

[Miles]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

They've put all their eggs in the mobile basket. Basically, if it's not a cell phone or a tablet they really don't give a shit.

The computers were always very low margin for them; I think they carry them because they have too, but no one buys a PC unless it's on sale, which means they are often losing money on the computer unless they sell you services from the Geek Squad, who are usually just a bunch of potheads who couldn't hack it at even ITT or DeVry.

In fact, for the time I was there, almost all of the Geek Squad work involved them putting a CD in the computer that removed all of the bloatware and installed the necessary A/V software for them. They would type in the activation keys, and that was about it. They couldn't repair much of anything on a computer.

One dude got shitcanned because he used one of their VW Beetles to go out and **** on the company dime, which worked fine for him until he got wasted and wrapped it around a tree in the middle of the night.

I worked at Best Buy back in college just before Geek Squad. As you said there was no margin on PCs at all and the sales pressure was for warranties and overpriced cables to make up for that. I felt kind of bad upselling that stuff.

[mcaj22]

they did sell those Moog Concertmate synths in the 80s. Those things are awesome and can fetch a fair price on ebay.