The last time you were in a Radio Shack?

[Jesda]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/radios ... 2012-10-23

RadioShack Corp. RSH +2.30% on Tuesday reported a third-quarter loss of $47 million

"Overall, our business performed below expectations," interim CEO Dorvin Lively said.

A couple years ago I went in to buy wires and switches to modify a power seat in my '92 Seville. Was nice having a local shop that carried the parts I needed without having to go online. I didn't have to guess at how the switches felt, worked, or fit and seeing them in person gave me an idea of what I was getting into.

Two days ago I was shopping for head phones. Checked BB, WM, and RS. Radio Shack didn't have any on display for demonstration. The whole point of going into a small, personalized store is being able to get close to and sample the merchandise. I ended up reading reviews on head-fi.org and went with a pair of Koss headphones at Wal-Mart.

At least the clerk didn't try to sell me on batteries.

[dickie]

they won't be around much longer. the guys at the top are lining their pockets and cutting their losses as much as possible. their business model is extremely flawed from the ground up. instead of making changes where they're sorely needed, they just do what's necessary to stay afloat another year without addressing the real problems. i still have friends working across the street in corporate HQ and i hope they make it out unscathed.

[frapjap]

Tahst too bad. The help there (if its an older dude and not the young college guy) behind the counter is usually VERY good.
There aren't many places I can guy various transistors, resistors, conductors, terminals, etc on a Sunday afternoon at 2pm.

[s0m3th1ngAZ]

They've always had great service. I usually go there for networking stuff.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I thought Best Buy was looking at buying Radio Shack to boost their phone sales?

Radio Shack has been a joke for a long time. I remember, 10+ years ago, you could walk into a radio shack and talk electronics. And I don't mean "does it come with batteries". I mean "I need a 12k POT". Of course you didn't have to ASK for stuff, since it was logically arranged on the racks. Nobody tried to sell you a cellphone contract.

These days, the employees can barely tell an iPhone from a Galaxy S and that's only because they get trained on it. Ask about electronics components and their heads will explode. Unless it's batteries. Holy smeg will they try to sell you batteries. If you buy a damned toaster they'll try to sell you batteries for it.

They've always had great service. I usually go there for networking stuff.

I wonder if it's a regional issue for me then...
There's NO CUSTOMER SERVICE AT ALL in the Shack's around here. Not good or bad. Just mindless troglodytes after a sales commission.

[Jesda]

Of course you didn't have to ASK for stuff, since it was logically arranged on the racks. Nobody tried to sell you a cellphone contract.

"I need some three-position switches and 12-gauge wire for a project I'm working on"

'WHO IS YOUR CURRENT WIRELESS CARRIER HAVE YOU CONSIDERED UPGRADING ALSO DO YOU NEED BATTERIES EVERYONE NEEDS BATTERIES'

[Razi]

That pretty much sums up my experience there.

[alms24sebring]

I always hated it. They charged $30 for batteries. I do remember the XMods though, those were the only good things from there. Go out of business already

[Rev_D21]

The RS I used to shop at closed many years ago. My friends and I used to experiment with guitar electronics and RS was the place to go for that kind of s***. Over time it had less cool stuff and by the end it was all phones and radio controlled cars. Last time I was in a RS was back in May of this year to get a cig lighter male plug so I could wire in my rotator lights on my Frontier. They at least had what I needed and were nice about it. I'll be sad to see RS go, it's been a part of America for many years and I am sure getting tired of the bean counters running everything into the ground.

[dickie]

several years back when i worked at the local store, i'd bring in my guitar and work on replacing knobs and electrics in it right on the counter using the demo soldering iron. i made it my business to know the electronic parts drawers inside and out, and we did a lot of CB equipment sales (apparently we also used to do installation) because we were a freestanding location on the outskirts of the suburban/rural line. when i came in it was a transition period where cellphone sales were just starting to become our biggest margin item and we were being instructed to push ALL CUSTOMERS on new activations/upgrades. there really wasn't a market for that where we were but corporate didn't care.

I got to visit the Tandy Towers location for meetings before they closed them down.

from the store employee perspective, it actually wasn't bad at that point. i worked with guys who had been in RS retail for over a decade, knew everything there was to know, the community was small and everyone knew everyone else. it slowly started to get worse when new management took over and the electronics and accessories were just a background and we effectively became a cell phone kiosk. you can directly trace this shift to how badly the company is f*** now.

over those 2 years, they expanded a whole bunch of new locations trying to get market penetration. they wanted to be the ONLY place you went to get cell phone service. it was the buzzword that got thrown around in our memos from corporate the most. i highlighted every instance i found in one and the paper was literally checkerboarded yellow. they started ditching the old guys that knew their stuff and refused to play ball with the new harassment sales policies and replace them with dumb kids. managers were under so much pressure to perform because they could be demoted and replaced in a heartbeat if their numbers didn't meet the totally unreasonable expectations set by corporate.

we got a new manager from a New York store who couldn't wrap his head around the fact that things didn't work the same way in this relatively tiny Texas suburb. he pushed us to sell phones, then batteries and constantly talked "margins" and "spiffs" and we basically drove all of our loyal customers away. my day would be spent dusting shelves and driving the xmods around the store because there was nothing else to do, we had literally no foot traffic some days. corporate started holding weekly meetings offsite while the old location was demolished and the new location - stupid expensive riverfront real estate with equally ridiculous architecture built on it - was under construction. the CEO hadn't been outed for lying on his resume yet, and he was a slimy douchebag that talked about his multiple vacation homes, boats, RVs etc... in meetings constantly. it was pretty easy to see where s*** was going. and me, an hourly retail shmoe earning $250 a week could have saved it right there with 2 simple ideas: stop expansion and unnecessary spending and focus on the core business instead of pushing all this s*** on people that didn't need or want it.

[dre1507]

The last time I went to a Radio Shack, they didn't have a simple xbox 360 to VGA cable. It's funny how Walmart did, but Radio Shack didn't. I did notice that half of the store was covered in cell phones and accessories, though. Aside from the one guy talking to the rep. the store was a ghost town.

[dickie]

their strategy didn't really take the competition into account. the fact you can go into any box store and get a phone, or go to a freestanding carrier store or kiosk location and get better help completely torpedoed their plan to rely on phone sales as their primary source of revenue.

the fact that they scaled back their inventory of useful electronics items and their knowledge to support them was the nail in the coffin. you can still get some hard to find stuff like adaptors there, but since there's nobody knowledgeable there to help you if you have a question beyond "where's the cable section?" means most people will just buy from the internet and deal with shipping time.

[WDRacing]

I like RS, always have.

[dre1507]

I can somewhat remember the time when that shift you're talking about happened d!ck. When the RS down the street from me opened up, they had a little corner (next to the door) with all the phones and accessories. They also had more than adequate employees. Now the phone section is a lot bigger, there's only 2 employees in the store at any given time (due to lack of significant traffic), and the inventory seems to go in this order: phones --> accessories --> SD cards. I used to like visiting that RS before the change. I visit that plaza a lot and hardly anyone is ever seen stepping foot into the RS.

[Dattebayo]

Radio Shack is where all the visiting immigrants go to get a pay-per-use cellphone and no one knows what the hell a 555 timer or a electrolytic capacitor is.

At least when I was a kid, I could all kinds of assembly and rare electronic materials there. Now, it's a bunch of Chinese one-use tools, expensive HDMI cables and cheesy R/C vehicles around Christmastime. I miss when I could actually ask for knowledgeable help from a veteran and I wouldn't be served by a 15 year old who is constantly texting someone on his smartphone.

[WDRacing]

When I was a youngin we still had local "hobby shops". I always enjoyed going into those places. These days we're lucky if the people working there can replace the batteries in your key fob.

[300ZXttZMAN]

When I was little I loved getting remote controlled cars from radio shack. I remember they had this one in particular that my parents had got me, it was all time 4x4. I used to drive it through all kinds of things and make it climb over roots and stuff. Good times, good times.

[WDRacing]

it was all time 4x4.

You mean AWD

[300ZXttZMAN]

^ lol well it said 4x4. But if you want to get all technical then yes its AWD.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Tahst too bad. The help there (if its an older dude and not the young college guy) behind the counter is usually VERY good.
There aren't many places I can guy various transistors, resistors, conductors, terminals, etc on a Sunday afternoon at 2pm.

TRUTH!
Last time I went there I was purchasing some sort of adapter or electronic fitting of some kind (terminals maybe? Hell I don't know). I recall not really being able to find it anywhere, even online. I went in and a CLASSIC looking old man (WITH SUSPENDERS) was there and I knew I was set.
He wanted to know all about what I was doing, we had a great conversation, and he pieced together something that would work for me. I go to check out and the grand total was like $3.48 or some such nonsense.

I wish they had a tip jar. I'd much rather toss that guy a 20 spot than tip someone for pouring a coffee or opening a beer.

[gwoods]

all the comments are spot on.... I remember as a kid going there with my dad. He was a big O gauge/Lionel train guy and was always automating or modifying his trains. He would buy a blank circuit board and a bunch of little electonic parts and solder it all up and then one of his trains would make chug chug noises. It was 1982 and we had a Bell 1000 2nd phone line on our house he brought home a suitcase computer with a phone handset cradle modem on the weekends and our family had a Apple II C "personal computer" with 128k of ram on board!

now to answer your question,

About 3 years ago when I was the AV guy at church I needed a S Video (or VGA don't remember which) - RCA cable. I bought one at RS for something real near $30 that was not long enough. Ended up returning it and buying one from Ebay for like $3 it shipped from Hong Kong for free but was better quality.

Before that sometime in late 2005, I needed a 1/2 ohm 5 volt resistor for my Hemi Ram. I soldered it into the transmission line pressure wire that ran to the ECU and tricked the ECU into thinking the line pressure was always 40 psi lower then it actually was so it would spin the pump faster.

[Andarou]

You guys definitely seem to have very general statements, all being pretty similar. There are plenty of people in Radi o Shac k who know what they are talking about. I'm 27.. I manage a local store here in Florida.. consider me that "young college guy" ... I understand any type of frustration that certain people have for not finding "experts" at Radi o Shac k when they go; however, a majority of my staff and some of the surrounding stores have associates in each that can answer a question or talk on a subject relating to what we refer to as 'Tools and Parts drawers.' .. How to read a resistor.. what types of solder to use on which components.. what a pot is, etc.

Granted, I completely understand that this business will go under quite soon. I'm not trying to argue, only debate the topic. Fifteen years ago, you could be 40ish.. work at Radi o Shac k, and get a competitive salary. You could sell a desktop PC and make $100 commission.. all while talking all day about electronic hobbies, various tinkering toys and make a decent paycheck that could pay your bills. Roll forward 5..6..7.. years ago and remove all "spiffs" that would keep someone who had a family, mounting bills, and such and now they make minimum wage (no way around it) and minimal spiffs based primarily on wireless phone sales. Now those old timers leave and your left picking thru a large field of applications, 90% of which are 25 and under, minimal bills so their paycheck is used to spend on toys and beauty products.. so what do they care if they don't know the difference between an RG174 and RG6 coaxial cable? .. They make $7.65 an hour plus whatever their commission is on wireless phones.. anywhere from $7 to $16 extra, selling an average of 4-5 a week. Add in a corporate policy to follow a 30 step customer "path" that starts when they enter the store til they leave which comprises holy of 95% pushing product onto them and 5% actually solving what they came in for.. and what does that leave? A young associate making barely any wage paid to do a tedious and routinely performed underappreciated job that can never turn into a career because promotions are heavily based on performance metrics that involve only wireless sales on cell phones sold for much higher prices then even found at Wal-Mart.

If you knew a decent amount about electronics.. you know.. those old guys in suspenders you're talking about. Would you stay in a job that demanded forcing wireless phone sales on a customer that came in to buy a pack of glass fuses while making minimum wage? I think not. But, there's not many places you can find those fuses, resistors, switches, on the spot if you need it asap.

I guess I ended up making them look worse? All in the defense that not all of the young crowd fails to comprehend what the old timers have been doing all their life. So.. even though Radi o Shac k's stock is the same prize as a 2-liter of Pepsi, try not to blame it on the young crowd that works there now. Most of them are just a body that fills hours, but of the 17 stores in my district, I'd definitely say each store has 1-2 people who know what they're doing. Albeit retired and trying to keep busy..

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Albeit retired and trying to keep busy..

You definitely could have a point there. It seems like every time I went in, the knowledgeable old guys LOVED to talk about what I was getting into. Maybe they were just happy someone my age (at the time) was doing stuff like that as opposed to raping people and doing crack?

So how long have you been with Radioshack? In terms of its downfall, what came first, the chicken or the egg (the BS corporate policies or the attrition of the workforce)?

[C-Kwik]

I rarely venture into a radio shack anymore. Either I'm looking for a more consumer end product that just happens to be out of stock elsewhere or the real electronics components stores are closed. While they have some stuff I use, the selection can be a bit limiting compared to "real" electronics stores. They can be convenient for more common stuff though. But I'm usually not buying just the common stuff so its usually not my first choice.

[dickie]

hey andarou, how long have you worked for RS? what was your store number? there's a good chance i talked to you if you called the ROC for connectivity or wireless integration or any other probs with the POS POS systems.

in corporate we had our favorite stores, the ones that we'd hope they recorded our calls on because the manager/employees were so inept it took 30 minutes to get them to even FIND the piece of equipment we needed to troubleshoot. the worst seemed to be in the NY/NJ area.

one time a manager called us and thought he had the phone muted while he was talking to an employee. he told the kid that he should get checked after sleeping with this gutter trench that everybody in the store had plowed at one time. the manager ended the convo with "yeah bro you probably have AIDS."

when Katrina came in, we had stores that were supposed to be evacuated calling us complaining that the power or internet was out and they couldn't make phone sales. true story, one store called us to tell us we had to send someone out to pump 12" of water out of the back room.

there was a manager who called us looking for his "phone box" so he could fix his internet. he insisted he'd done that before when he called and knew what he was doing. he told us he had to get a ladder to access his modem, so we told him to get a ladder and let us know when he was ready. a couple minutes go by... i check on him and he hasn't gotten the ladder yet, so i asked him whether he was going to. he was like, "what do i need a ladder for?" i literally had to instruct him step-by-step how to open and set up the ladder and climb up to the shelf his modem was on for whatever reason. the guy was dense as f***. and he was a store manager.

ps, i drink beer on the regs with hal matrix.

[Epod]

I actually sent my wife to one a few weeks ago when she was in an unfamiliar city on business and her laptop charger died on a Sunday. Their web site let me find the nearest store, check its inventory to confirm they had an appropriate universal charger in stock, and listed its Sunday hours.

Other than that, though I've been worried about Radio Shack ever since I read this article:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/even-c ... in-b,2190/

[Razi]

Just making sure...
You know that The Onion writes satire right?

[PapaSmurf2k3]

That article was hilarious.

[King Ranzo]

The last time I was in there, I was there for some connectors. That's really all that store is useful for anymore other than...well batteries. Nobody really goes there for cellphones, like they promote so highly. And all of their other stuff is quite sub-par. Honestly, I'm not surprised that they're losing money. Nobody goes there anymore.

[Dattebayo]

Nobody goes there because no one is component savvy anymore. It says alot about the company when it is just middle-manning phones now compared to what they used to be for.

We are becoming dumber as a species as our tech gets more advanced. "Welcome to Radio Shack, I love you."