RadioShack dying, Amazon buying?!

[thewayne]

RadioShack is not just on Death's door, they're opening it and stepping in briskly. The New York Stock Exchange has delisted them, their stock was trading at 24 CENTS per share the other day, and they can't some up with $50,000,000 to stave off the inevitable.

This makes me very sad. Radio Shack was a major part of my childhood. I bought a lot of stuff from them: even if most of their consumer electronics were crap, they were one of the few places where you could easily buy individual electronic components. In fact, I went to our local store last night to buy a new audio cable for my car (I have to replace it once or twice a year, it shorts out and makes it had to listen to podcasts).

In fact, I bought my first computer from RadioShack in the early '80s: a TRS-80 Model 100. It was one of the first portable computers ever made, it was powered by 4xAA batteries that would power it for ages, had an 8 line by 40 character display, and 24k of non-volatile memory. You could hook up two different kinds of disk drives (both 3.5" and 5.25"), an external monitor, optical bar code reader, cassette tape recorder if you didn't have the disk drive, etc. Built-in BASIC programming language, built-in text editor, etc. Amazingly capable computer: not only do I still have it, but it still works. I power it on occasionally for amusement. It also had a fantastic keyboard.

Even though this computer is 30+ years old, it's very popular among marine researchers: you can put it in a 2 lb Ziploc and take it out on a boat.

Here's a lamentation from Wired:
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/dear-radioshack-adored-love-wired/

And here's the Wired article saying that Amazon might buy them:
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/amazon-radioshack/

This would be a good move for Amazon. They'd get A LOT of stores for very cheap, they're spread around major cities and have presences in many smaller ones, like here. It lets them show off their own line of Kindle electronics and would provide space for drop-shipping items. I would certainly use a drop-ship and drive two miles from work to the nearest RS/Amazon store if it saved money and got my stuff to me quicker.

But apparently the Amazon/RS talks are for a limited number of stores, not the whole chain. Sprint is also in talks to acquire the stores, so I expect they'll end up busting up the chain and selling it off piece by piece.

Comments

[cp.livejournal.com]

I find this very sad as well, Radio Shack having been a memorable part of my own life. It was the place to go when I needed anything in the way of electrical components, cables, etc. I guess its decline and eventual dissolution is inevitable, but no less melancholy.

I hadn't heard that Amazon was in talks to take over all or part of the chain, an idea I find very interesting. And ironic, since I'm sure Amazon has had no small part in the downfall of places like the Shack. It definitely makes sense that Amazon would want a brick-and-mortar presence to showcase their products and services, though. Heck, if Microsoft can copy Apple in that regard, why not Amazon too?

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I think Amazon wants it more for the drop-ship part of its internet commerce side, but I think they'd be foolish to not push the Amazon Showroom aspect. You can buy Kindle products almost anywhere, including Staples and Walmart, but you can't really see the entire Kindle ecosystem in one place.

BTW, news came out that Staples is trying to buy OfficeMax. It'll be interesting to see if it goes through as OfficeMax bought out Office Depot last year or the year before. Staples will have over 70% of the office supply market if somehow the merger is approved.

[cp.livejournal.com]

Yes, I saw that about Staples and OfficeMaxDepot yesterday! It does seem like that would be treading awfully close to a monopoly, but I guess it can be argued that most anything the office stores carry can also be gotten elsewhere, online if not locally. Still, it definitely would seem to cut into competition.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

The basic truth is that the FTC and SEC doesn't give a rat's ass about monopolies any more. We have two big cell phone companies, two slightly smaller ones, then a whole bunch of insignificant ones. We have two big cable TV companies. Two big satellite TV companies. They seem to think that a duopoly is good enough, and it isn't. We pay the highest fees and get the poorest service for cell phone service, cable TV, and internet service, and it's all because there's no competition.

[cp.livejournal.com]

Cable's a pretty weird industry--and I oughta know, it's where I've spent most of the past 15 years of my career! As you said, it's consolidated down to a handful of major players, but even so there's hardly any competition to speak of because most consumers only have one choice in their area. The big guys have largely been careful about arranging their territories and carving up geographic areas to remain the only game in town, and then I have no doubt they all conspire to set their prices anyway. I wouldn't have cable if I had to pay for it, that's for sure. It does make for a nice perk of employment, though. :)

[silveradept]

That's not good. I needed a Radio Shack for an electronics project I undertook and they had all the parts I needed to make it work out correctly. I always think of them as a component shop, though, so I suppose that's why they're going under.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Not enough people making component kits these days, and their attempts at being a consumer electronics store never took off and eventually was eaten by Amazon and Best Buy. They never evolved, and now sadly it looks like they're dead.

You can get components online, but it was always nice being able to walk in and get some LEDs and solder.

[silveradept]

That's just it - with the Maker movement taking off, there's a lot more kit-building going on and the like. The Shack should be thriving, but somehow they aren't.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

It's their drift from hobbyist to consumer electronics that did them in. They're not popular among Makers because their prices are on the high side and as a rule they don't have anyone working there who knows anything about electronics. So the Makers take their orders online so they can get exactly what they want and chat with people who know the field.

It was a lost opportunity. They thought they could withstand Best Buy/Amazon/The Internet and they couldn't.

[silveradept]

Ah, so they were bad at what they did and charged more than everyone else. Then their survival would have mostly been predicated on being the only thing in town that could do that sort of thing. Once that stopped, I suppose this was inevitable.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

That's what it boils down to. They made a series of mistakes judging the market direction and compounded that with a poor strategy as to how the stores would work and did almost nothing to embrace the internet, and today they filed for Chapter 11.

I read that Sprint is looking at buying space in stores, not unlike Samsung having a presence in Best Buy stores. I'd heard that Microsoft was also going to buy space in Best Buy, but I haven't seen any.

Still, RS is closing stores as fast as they can, I have a feeling it's going to be a liquidation.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

Yet, their Canadian stores demonstrated the shift can work, handled well, on that very basis - you won't find the sheer range of Digikey in any physical store, but there's clearly much to be said for a place that'll sell you plenty of useful widgets with no lead time, just down the road.

By the same token, Maplin in the UK's managed to navigate their way very well from electronics hobbyist emporium to.. sort of what RS was. Lots of geegaws too, nowadays, but also plenty of actual components.

It seems to come down to more an inept upper management tier. Certainly, the horror stories I've read on Hacker News and Reddit suggest it's been a godawful place to work for the last 20 years. Not that Amazon's much improvement, from what I've read, if you're in the warehouses. (Shades of Metropolis..)

All rather sad. I was once a regular at one of their stores, back in the 80s, when Mum would drop me off and I'd play on their TRS-80. They got to have someone showing off their tech in real use, and I got to have a bit of programming fun. Win/win!