RadioShack in Talks with Sprint to Buy Store Leases

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Don’t be too surprised to see a Sprint store taking up residence where your local RadioShack used to be. According to reports from Bloomberg, Sprint Corp and RadioShack are in talks to have Sprint buy out RadioShack store leases in some locations.

The company posted its eleventh straight quarterly loss in December, while sales continued a decline that started in 2010. The Wall Street Journal said on Wednesday the bankruptcy filing could come as early as next month.
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Sounds like a good idea. Now every shopping mall in America will have 2 sprint stores instead of 1 sprint store and 1 radio shack.

In some locations, they might even be conveniently located right next to each other.
 
I went to a Radio Shack last Christmas Eve - what a damn joke. I wanted a an accessory for my wife's phone. I enter the store, no employees are in site.
After a minute, one comes up with a sheepish grin on her face. I asked if they had what I was looking for, she said no one made it. I then went to Walmart (which was crowded) - and had a big choice. (Not sure if she was smoking something or doing something else in the back room...)
Go back in time to the 80's - Radio Shack had knowledgeable employees and somehow seemed pretty cool. Those days are long gone.
Sprint? I hope they can find a way to stay. We need competition in the cell space.
Still, if you combine stank+stunk - it does not come out smelling better.
 
sir-gold said:
Sounds like a good idea. Now every shopping mall in America will have 2 sprint stores instead of 1 sprint store and 1 radio shack.

In some locations, they might even be conveniently located right next to each other.
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I guess you missed the word "some" instead of your reading "all" into the article.
 
Sprint has a horrible corporate store situation. They have these partners that they don't have enough control over who run stores that no normal person can tell are different from any other sprint store. They sometimes have criminal employees. In my town there is only 1 corporate sprint store there are many non corporate ones with highly variable phone selection and service. One of the stores near me pretty much only tries to sell iphones and galaxy phones, nothing else.

On top of that they have no sense to how spread out they are to service people. I have never been to a mall in the USA without a sprint store in it or within a couple blocks so I don't get why they need to do this?
 
rudy said:
Sprint has a horrible corporate store situation. They have these partners that they don't have enough control over who run stores that no normal person can tell are different from any other sprint store. They sometimes have criminal employees. In my town there is only 1 corporate sprint store there are many non corporate ones with highly variable phone selection and service. One of the stores near me pretty much only tries to sell iphones and galaxy phones, nothing else.

On top of that they have no sense to how spread out they are to service people. I have never been to a mall in the USA without a sprint store in it or within a couple blocks so I don't get why they need to do this?
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Because of the exact reasons you stated. Everyone else has 1700 to 2000+ corporate stores, while Sprint only has 1100. Most of those third party stores are either shady, or just focus on what sells instead of new services and devices. Everyone else has shady 3rd party stores, but at least a corporate store is at least close by.

Radio Shack has been trying to close 1100 stores, but their creditors won't let them close that many, probably because they still will have to deal with leases in a lot of them. If they can get out of the leases, they'll still go bankrupt but it will be a 11 instead of a liquidation. I guess we'll see next month which is rumored when they will announce their bankruptcy plan.
 
rudy said:
Sprint has a horrible corporate store situation. They have these partners that they don't have enough control over who run stores that no normal person can tell are different from any other sprint store. They sometimes have criminal employees. In my town there is only 1 corporate sprint store there are many non corporate ones with highly variable phone selection and service. One of the stores near me pretty much only tries to sell iphones and galaxy phones, nothing else.

On top of that they have no sense to how spread out they are to service people. I have never been to a mall in the USA without a sprint store in it or within a couple blocks so I don't get why they need to do this?
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Don't think that is different than an AT&T store to be honest. I have a Windows phone lumia 1520. Tried to go into a local AT&T store to get some accessories. 2/3rd of the store was iPhone stuff, the other 1/3 was a few galaxy models. Nothing else, I was told I needed to travel maybe 100 miles to find a larger storefront that might sell something for the windows phones. Which given the size of that storefront they would have had so much space for carrying other items. Phones were on either wall, back was a sales counter, 20 x 60 space in the middle was occupied by I want to say a single 5 x 10 table with tablets on it.
 
I worked for Radio Shack back in '04 and even then we couldn't figure out how the company was still in business. I've spent the last decade being astonished every time I see one of their stores with an Open sign on it. It looks like I won't be astonished much longer.
 
Worked for RadioShack Canada, their stores are now owned by Bell Canada (a telecommunications company). Sprint has plenty of cash ever since they got bought out by Softbank so this could get them more subscribers.
 
steakman1971 said:
I went to a Radio Shack last Christmas Eve - what a damn joke. I wanted a an accessory for my wife's phone. I enter the store, no employees are in site.
After a minute, one comes up with a sheepish grin on her face. I asked if they had what I was looking for, she said no one made it. I then went to Walmart (which was crowded) - and had a big choice. (Not sure if she was smoking something or doing something else in the back room...)
Go back in time to the 80's - Radio Shack had knowledgeable employees and somehow seemed pretty cool. Those days are long gone.
Sprint? I hope they can find a way to stay. We need competition in the cell space.
Still, if you combine stank+stunk - it does not come out smelling better.
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Radio shack isn't going to have knowledgeable employees, because we're all cheap MOFOs and we can get the stuff they sell for less online. And if you live in some markets, you've got Fry's, which has everything that Radio Shack has plus everything Best Buy has and then some. RS is going to go away and nothing they do is going to change that.
 
Brick and mortar electronics places are such an anachronism in this day and age, I'm amazed any of them stay open. 99% of the people going into them are just using them as a showroom for Amazon and NewEgg. Best Buy is probably next.
 
Cmdrmonkey said:
Brick and mortar electronics places are such an anachronism in this day and age, I'm amazed any of them stay open. 99% of the people going into them are just using them as a showroom for Amazon and NewEgg. Best Buy is probably next.
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Best Buy price matches most of the major online stores so there's no reason to showroom anymore. It won't save their dinosaur status but it's nice if you need something quick.
 
dark_reign said:
Best Buy price matches most of the major online stores so there's no reason to showroom anymore. It won't save their dinosaur status but it's nice if you need something quick.
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There's also very little that I'd buy at Best Buy that I'd even look for at Newegg. AFAIC, newegg = PC parts. I don't really buy anything else from them. Now if you'd said Fry's instead of BBY, then I'd agree, though Fry's often has in store deals that kill anything Newegg offers.
 
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