Radio Shack Closing Its Doors after 96 Years This Memorial Day Weekend

Killahurtz said:
people quit doing things themselves , or lost the ability , or got lazy...I knew the end was near when they became glorified cell phone stores a decade ago
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I would say it is a mixture of many things. Things used to be much easier to work on, at the same time it was cheaper to fix than buy new. Over time things become harder to work on, and also become cheaper in cost meaning that it is cheaper to just replace them. In 1980 a 19 inch tv would cost you about $600. Minimum Wage was $3.10 at that point in time. That is 193.5 hours or 4.8 weeks at 40 hours a week of work to by that TV. If it broke you would be more willing to spend the $50 or so to buy some part to fix it vs another $600 for a new tv. By comparison most people are probably buying tvs for $200 - $300. Minimum wage is $7.25 so now you are at 27.5 - 41.3 hours so less than 1 week at 40 hours a week to buy that TV. By the time that TV starts to have issues, sure you could pay $50 - $100 for a part, or for a little extra you can now buy a much better TV than what you had before. back in the 70s and 80s. There wasn't anything that extreme between one year to the next. We have much more technological advances now every few years that makes keeping your old stuff pointless. Sure you could keep a freezer or fridge for 40+ years, or you buy a new one that will use less power and pay for itself in a few years, while probably doing a much better job of keeping your stuff at the right temp. You could keep your old tube tv alive, or you go buy a cheap 4K tv that will be better and larger. In a way it is the same as cars, with old cars you could just about climb into the engine compartment when working on them. Now you need special equipment and tools to be able to do just about anything. Can't think of which car it was now but to change the battery required removing the front driver side tire, then the entire wheel well to get to the battery housing. So over time the need for people to fix things goes away as the cost to have them fixed by others or to replace them gets cheaper and the ability to fix things on your own gets harder and harder as things get smaller and smaller, along with getting more complex in their nature.

travisty said:
It's not people being lazy or losing the ability. It's just easier to order online the exact thing you need for cheaper than you'd pay at radio shack. Add to it t was hit or miss whether radioshack would have the item/s in stock
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it became easier to order online as it is easier for a national or world wide reseller to be able to have everything in stock as somebody somewhere will want it vs a store front that has to make their choices based on what most people will buy. if Radio shack can only sell 30 widgets through the entire USA they have no reason to stock them as they don't know where to have them ready for people to buy. An online store however can hold 30 of the widgets knowing that somebody will buy them and be able to get all 30 customers to their site to sell to them.
 
I remember Radio Shack's slogan at one time was "If you've got questions, we've got answers" but in reality it was more like "If you've got questions, well, so do we". :LOL:
 
The Trash-80 & TI-99.

Became obsolete (flashback to the Twilight Zone episode) in the mid-90s, they just managed to hold on a lot longer than Circuit City. Not sure how with that niche market but they did. RIP.
 
My first job out of high school was working for Radio Shack in 1987 in the Fort Worth area. I was a very good at sales which I was noticed in the district when I sold 10 Tandy 1000 Ex computers to an oil guy that was buying them as gifts for his kids and family... that sale was about $8,500. My sale figures were always above average. I sold several old school satellite dishes (about 8' in diamater) for $2k a pop. Many cell phones for $800 - $1,500 a piece.. plenty of tandy color computers (64k) and such. At 19 they offered to make me a store manager, but I left to sell cell phones on my own (buy used equipment and make $250-$300 per line activation). I was making bank in 89-90 doing that, and went back to school to pursue an IT degree shortly after.

Lots of memories, and stories from those days. Our district manager looked just like Jay Leno. One of my regular big ticket customers I later found out was arrested for being a meth cook.. wondered why I had not seen him in while lol. Another guy I spent about 3 hours in the store with I sold walkie talkies and several big ticket items to.. ordered a satellite dish for him and called and left several messages for him to pick it up. I saw the news where he was arrested and I ended up having to testify twice in court (original conviction then appeal), that I sold the walkie talkies to him as they were used to communicate with his wife as she looked out when he was breaking in a house to kill someone.

Ahh yes, there were times when I'd be in the store by myself, and a couple of guys would come in.. One would distract me (or another employee) by taking me to the back of the store and asking me how to hook up his VCR, as the other loaded up a stack of VCR's and ran out the door. Another coworker was robbed at gun point when he was alone in the store. One time I was opening, and a guy came in bought a small ticket item and as I opened the drawer, reached over the counter and grabbed all the cash..

Other than that, it was pretty easy going selling stuff to normal people lol. I always hated asking people for their name and address as often they would complain about it, but it was manditory to ask and capture names and addresses as they sold that info.. Back in those days, we did not even have POS systems, and we had to enter all the sales tickets manually into a Tandy 2000 (not too IBM compatible X86 which did not sell, so they repurposed them in the stores). Manual inventory counts were also a pain in the butt and had to we had to account for theft which came directly out the managers pay in which we would get lectured to be on the look out.

The 80's were the glory days of Tandy and it all went slowly downhill after that.. Surprised they made it all the way to 2017 honestly... very mismanaged since the 90's and poorly leveraged the name brand to adapt to the changing online market place / competition.
 
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End of an era.

Thanks for the wonderful TRS-80 model III and 4 for introducing me to the magical world of computers.

RIP Radio Shack.
 
Radioshack kept trying to hold onto a retail front, like many companies too slow to adapt to a large e-commerce based economy. Instead of pivoting to stronger online presence and tailoring to speciality items they moved to ways they could prop up their store fronts with jazz like cell phone sales etc. That compounded with slowly alienating their original base, electronics specialty products and services sorta just helped push their consumer base away from them.

Easy to see in hindsight but wonder how much was just becuase business end up downplaying the importance of taking ques from enthusiasts. Enthusiasts tend to be terrible customers(want too much for not always paying for it) but good way to tell where the hobbyist or general consumer will go eventually.
 
TechLarry said:
Another was Heathkit, though I doubt Heathkit would have survived in this "Do it for me" civilization we live in today anyway.
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My Dad built a Heathkit 26" color TV and a cassette tape deck back in the very early 70s. TV took about 2-3 months to build.
 
Checked out the nostalgia item auction. It figures that the one-and-only CoCo 3 is already going for over $160. Lots of Model 100 and 102 portables unbid though, and even a TRS-80 Micro Color Computer (not an actual CoCo). I'll admit I was looking for CoCo ROMs and a cartridge expansion. A reasonably priced CoCo 3. Maybe some OS9 Level 1 or 2 disks with a disk controller and disk drive... One can dream...
 
First job was radio shack in the 90's. Even then it had started to lose its image as a reliable electronics store. Most of the prices and kits sat in the back collecting dust with the store endlessly promoting either dish or direct tv services. Then it moved to cell service plans and raised their prices on electronics. By the time they got back to being a hobby store and a retailer of electronics most of their stuff was over priced. He'll going back in their for their massive clearance sales even a basic wire stripper was $45!!! WTF? It's hard to imagine how they sold anything in the last few years. I bought a couple of things that were left over, still over priced but not insane.

Their soldering iron was my first and I still have it. The damn thing still works and the tips are still good. It's sad to see them go but they had terrible business decisions being made by people who were blind.
 
radioshack-jason.png
 
My first video game came from Radio Shack, Pong with the light gun. That would be during the 70's, when I was a kid.
 
They problem with Radioshack they didn't evolve with the times they could up converted their stores offering less cheap cables ect.... but PC gaming merchandise the problem with that people wouldn't pay a premium. Just seems like they kept offering less and less desirable stuff later on. I remember when they were packed with RC cars and Tandy computers with Space Quest II playing. After I got done with a Contra marathon in the nearby store.

Customer service was top notch though for the most part.

Most Radio Shack stores were very small some were bigger most of them were dinky.
 
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It's sad to see them go, but for the price I just paid for their safes+desk+display and a rather gigantic table that I'm going to be using for projects, I love to see them go. I think they could have cornered the impatient DIY market again with Arduino and Raspberry PI modules, screens, DIY kits (for those), and all of the goodies I have to order from China. Not to mention their drawers of electronics parts went from general hobbyist to 75% mostly used for cars type pieces. This made them far more undesirable to me, as well as their silly prices. 100 LEDs for $8 does not compute when I can get 1000 for $10 from China. Near the end I could see they were headed for doom as their store felt like it was things thrown together into a rather undesirable mixture. They couldn't decide if they wanted cellphones, RC cars/toys, drones, audio, hobbyist things, or car related parts. So in the end they failed on every front because none of them was done particularly well. I would metaphorically compare it with the phrase, "Jack of all trades, master of none."
 
RadioShack tried to focus on other markets and lost their core customers.

I'm a bit sad to see RadioShack go. Even though they got more expensive over time, at least their store brand solder, solder irons, fuses, and etc were all quality material (generally made in Taiwan and not China).
 
Killahurtz said:
people quit doing things themselves , or lost the ability , or got lazy...I knew the end was near when they became glorified cell phone stores a decade ago
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+1. I haven't walked into a Radioshack with knowledgeable staff for years, it's pretty disappointing.
 
Sad to see them go. I used to get my weird audio connectors, wires and batteries there. Loved browsing around.
 
I definitely miss what RS once was. The many times I went in to pick up some components for a project, use the tube tester, check out the latest receivers or speakers, pickup a new mike for my CB, play with the newest TRS-80 computers... Used to love going in there. Sadly, the only reason I've gone into one recently was to pick up some over-priced but very high quality AA batteries. The green (heavy duty) and gold (alkaline) Enercells were some of the best batteries I've ever used. One really sad memory I have was when I walked into a RS at a local mall and everyone was standing around staring at the TVs on display. I looked at the screens and saw nothing but white plumes of smoke against a clear blue sky. Asked what was going on - they said the space shuttle just blew up. I stood there, with many others, for about an hour just staring at the screen, hoping they would find survivors. Finally left the store completely forgetting what I had originally walked in there for.

rezerekted said:
My Dad built a Heathkit 26" color TV and a cassette tape deck back in the very early 70s. TV took about 2-3 months to build.
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My first DVM was a Heathkit kit. I think I paid $99 for it back in '78 or '79. Built it over a weekend using a Radio Shack soldering iron. Got lots of use out of that thing. Wanted something a bit smaller with more features so I finally retired it a few years ago, still functional. Passed it on to Good Will during a recent clean out along with a bucket full of RS ICs and other project components for projects I never got around to. Hopefully they made it into the GW outlet and found a good home.

RIP Radio Shack. Though in the end you were just a shadow of your former self, in your heyday you were a great place to visit.
 
swetmore said:
My first job out of high school was working for Radio Shack in 1987 in the Fort Worth area. I was a very good at sales which I was noticed in the district when I sold 10 Tandy 1000 Ex computers to an oil guy that was buying them as gifts for his kids and family... that sale was about $8,500. My sale figures were always above average. I sold several old school satellite dishes (about 8' in diamater) for $2k a pop. Many cell phones for $800 - $1,500 a piece.. plenty of tandy color computers (64k) and such. At 19 they offered to make me a store manager, but I left to sell cell phones on my own (buy used equipment and make $250-$300 per line activation). I was making bank in 89-90 doing that, and went back to school to pursue an IT degree shortly after.

Lots of memories, and stories from those days. Our district manager looked just like Jay Leno. One of my regular big ticket customers I later found out was arrested for being a meth cook.. wondered why I had not seen him in while lol. Another guy I spent about 3 hours in the store with I sold walkie talkies and several big ticket items to.. ordered a satellite dish for him and called and left several messages for him to pick it up. I saw the news where he was arrested and I ended up having to testify twice in court (original conviction then appeal), that I sold the walkie talkies to him as they were used to communicate with his wife as she looked out when he was breaking in a house to kill someone.

Ahh yes, there were times when I'd be in the store by myself, and a couple of guys would come in.. One would distract me (or another employee) by taking me to the back of the store and asking me how to hook up his VCR, as the other loaded up a stack of VCR's and ran out the door. Another coworker was robbed at gun point when he was alone in the store. One time I was opening, and a guy came in bought a small ticket item and as I opened the drawer, reached over the counter and grabbed all the cash..

Other than that, it was pretty easy going selling stuff to normal people lol. I always hated asking people for their name and address as often they would complain about it, but it was manditory to ask and capture names and addresses as they sold that info.. Back in those days, we did not even have POS systems, and we had to enter all the sales tickets manually into a Tandy 2000 (not too IBM compatible X86 which did not sell, so they repurposed them in the stores). Manual inventory counts were also a pain in the butt and had to we had to account for theft which came directly out the managers pay in which we would get lectured to be on the look out.

The 80's were the glory days of Tandy and it all went slowly downhill after that.. Surprised they made it all the way to 2017 honestly... very mismanaged since the 90's and poorly leveraged the name brand to adapt to the changing online market place / competition.
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You must have worked in a sweet store to make sales like that. Every time I made a big sale it seemed they wrote a check which almost always bounced. I was savvy and would try to make a copy of their drivers license but corporate didn't seem to want the copies or care, they just turned it over to crime/collections/loss prevention whatever. Some people had obviously fake IDs... I mean BAD, like the kind I wanted when I was 16 to buy at flea markets that you couldn't even buy beer with. I would usually tell those people to get lost, but then they would just go to another crappy store up the street. If it was over $100 I would probably take the check on the off chance that it would clear.... $100+ single ticket sales were few and far between. But when the check would bounce, my "commission" would just get subtracted out of a future paycheck.

I was never physically threatened or "robbed" but plenty of stuff walked out of the store. Only so much 1 guy working by himself can do with a store full of people looking for just the right battery or fuse.

A buddy of mine worked at a store up the street, and while we didn't have CCTV camers (why? why not? Tandy was SO CHEAP) they would point a camcorder at the door and hit record when they left. he got a really nice tape of a stolen car blasting through the glass wall and guys in skimasks running and stealing everything that wasn't nailed down.

I forgot about those old POS Tandy 2000's (literally, the point of sale systems). OMG when those things locked up and you had to reboot in the middle of the day, you could be down for an hour+ and have to hand write sales tickets. UGH

As far as the "can I have your telephone number" to get names and addresses into the computer... you're right we were yelled at by the DM if we didn't hit like 98% or something. If a customer didn't offer it we would make shit up. Even my managers had like 10 different bogus names and addresses he used all the time.

Did you have to take all of those mandatory "electronic certfication tests" ? Like basic electrical, what fuses and resistors did, how to hook up VCR's, how to sell Tandy 1000's, how to use DESKMATE (a bad Tandy ripoff of Windows 2.x) etc etc?

Only money I made was pocketing $5 and $10 here and there to solder in cordless phone or electric razor batteries. If I sold a VCR I'd go to their house at lunch and hook it up for $10 sometimes. I installed a car stereo in the parking lot for $20 once... LOL.

edit - oh I forgot about the TSP extended warranties. I think in 3 years I might have sold 5 total. Who wants to buy a $29 warranty on a $50 item? So dumb. They only time it made sense to buy one was with camcorders, since those always broke or got dropped etc. I think I sold 3 camcorders in my entire career there, and I know 2 of those checks bounced.
 
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