RadioShack will be taking a leaf out of Microsoft’s book (remember that Bing thing?) by renaming itself to simply “The Shack” in the hopes that it will reach out to consumers to help them understand that the store isn’t just a nuts-and-bolts (batteries-and-parts, anyone?) place for the electronic era. They want people to know that they’re competing with those larger retail stores in selling computers, LCD televisions, and more, and I suppose they think “The Shack” will cause droves of people to suddenly forsake BestBuy and Wal-Mart’s offerings of the common consumer electronics. In a way I couldn’t rewrite better, a RadioShack veteran customer writes his feelings on the subject at hand and stresses that “you can change your look, even your name, but you are still just what you are–and people notice.”
A place to pay $30 for a 6 foot cat 5 cable. A place to buy a 3 foot usb cable for $40. Or a place to pay %20-30 more for a TV that is %30 off.
Radio shack was and still is a ripoff to go to. They make you pay extremely high amounts of money for things that are not even rare.
I think this sums up about everything there is to know about radio shack.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/even_ceo_cant_figure_out_how
Too true. About a year or so ago I needed a USB to serial converter and since there was a Radio Shack near by I popped in to see if they had one. well, they had one… and wanted $60 for it. Needless to say I laughed at them and left. The few times I’ve been in there since then, everything was still overpriced–come on, $50 for a $15 pair of headphones? They’ll go the way of Circuit City if they keep this up, I’m surprised they haven’t done so yet.
And at times they have had the $39.99 Logitech USB headset for $19.99.
Funny you should mention Circuit City… IIRC, they bought up all of the Canadian Radio Shack stores and renamed them to “The Source.”
Sounds like it’d be a good name for a bar or a pub.
Or a horror short story.
I surely can’t be the only one who gets “Love Shack” playing in his head when he reads “The Shack”, can I?
Not until you said that. Damn the power of suggestion!
A horror story….or a porno. Or maybe both?
Edited 2009-08-07 01:41 UTC
Every time I walk by a radio shack there is never anyone in there. Maybe its just my location and the other more populated areas are picking up the slack.
‘The Shack’ gets a good deal of business in my area but mostly because of the emphasis on wireless phones and accessories and other little sparkly things you can adhere to or dangle off of your wireless phone.
“The Shack” as a store name is stupid, IMO. On par with the renaming of Kentucky Fried Chicken to “KFC.” How lazy can people be that they can’t say three entire words???
If Radio Shack really wants to compete with WalMart – Best Buy – Sears, etc. on larger-dollar consumer items, they need to have MUCH larger stores in order to provide a decent selection.
And for those who actually need traditional “radio shack” parts (transistors, resistors, shrink tubes, soldering irons) or the modern comparables (hard drives, monitors, RAM, Molex pins), Radio Shack has a miserable selection and sky-high prices.
Kentucky Fried Chicken changed their name because “fried” became the trendy thing to flip out over for health reasons. Kinda like how trans fats were a few years ago, and how corn syrup seems to be now.
KFC kept most of the name recognition they had, and stopped people from saying fried. Yeah, everyone knew it was still fried food, but, without “fried” as part of the name, it seemed a little less bad.
You’re totally right about the Radio Shack comments though.
KFC changed their name since the Commonwealth of Kentucky trademarked the word Kentucky in 1990.
As far as the Radio Shack, I see this as another Tech America, Computer City, Incredible Universe death spiral. They make Best Buy’s prices look good.
They’re suffering from economies of scale, and electronics that are made to be replaced rather than repaired. A RS is, what, a small store with 2-3 employees there all the time? A Best Buy will swallow 10 Radio Shacks & have room left over to snack on an Apple Store.
Shame, too. RS used to be a great place to go, not just for electronic parts but for original computers that were actually quite good. (Yes, I owned a TRS-80 Color Computer 3 with OS-9 Level II, and liked it!) Now…
Between Best Buy and the internet, they’re doomed.
10 years ago, Radio Shack was one of the few place to go for parts. Now, they mostly sell phones and RC cars.
I was able to get a large 2’x6′ lighted sign from a closed Radio Shack. Just something to remember a by-gone era.
That sounds like the Radio Shack that I recall, except it was more like twenty-five years ago.
…back in the early 90s when I was in college for about a year. I primarily sold computers – when I started the 486SX-25 was the “mainstream” level of hardware. Even back then, I couldn’t really for the life of me understand how the place stayed in business – Tandy computers were mostly crap, and computers were their primary money maker (next to wiring/cables/etc. and crap – that is and always was the real cash cow).
There were a few models that were ok, mostly the “business class” stuff that none of the stores really stocked. They even sold a 486DX-50 (not DX2) that was pretty nice for its day. But the majority of what was on the floor in the stores was utter crap. I think I sold about 20 or so Tandy “Sensations” in my day, which if I remember correctly was a 486SX-25 which came with what can only be describe as the most dysfunctional CD-ROM drive ever designed by monkey. They were relatively expensive, but they were the only machines we sold at the time with “multimedia” so they sold pretty well. I had 16 of them returned for various reasons before I left – and they docked me for the commissions on each of them (bastards).
Right before I left the merger/buyout/selloff/whatever with AST happened and we started selling a lot of their “beige box” models – which were still shitty but dramatically cheaper than Tandy branded hardware – and that was basically that for their computer line…
Anyway, as far as I can tell its all been downhill since then – and they were pretty far down the hill even back then. They average IQ of the staff has definitely dropped – not that it was all that high, but at least back then you usually had 1 guy at each store that wasn’t a complete idiot.
I can only speculate, but my guess as to how they stay in business is the “oh shit, I need a weird wire/plug/component and I don’t want to wait for mail order” crowd. And they seem to have parred back the inventory of that type of stuff from what I can tell – most of the “hobbyist” electronic components seem to be gone. Now its just ridiculously overpriced low-oxygen-gold-tipped-24k-double-shielded stupidity. I’d like to hate them even more for it, but everyone does this silliness now – eventually I hope consumers get a clue…
Anyway, “The Shack” is just dumb – it doesn’t really say anything meaningful about the place. I have some what I think are some more appropriate names they should consider. How about “The Exploitation Station”? Or maybe “The Cable Jacket Fraud Racket?
Or my personal favorite – “ShadyShack”.
hi guys just wanted to say that i think everybody in here is a mother f–ker
It’s just a cheap way to get some publicity. Doing something ridiculous because people quit paying attention to them. Very much like North Korea.
Yeah, but I doubt they will be able to get Bill Clinton into their stores
For me, Radio Shack was for years the place to go to get those parts you could not find anywhere else. When I needed a mix of different gauge cables and wiring they had it. When I needed those obscure audio adapters, they add them. When I needed x, y, or z part to do something custom with anything electronics, they were the place to go…years back
But when they had some genius think they could become a regular electronics a la Best Buy, I stopped going.
Sadly, today it is probably best known as the place you can go where that nice, though slightly overweight young man will change out the battery in your hearing aid.
When Radio Shack was a respected business.
I recall seeing short-wave radios for sale, transmitter, receivers as well as transceivers.
Over the last 20-25 years, Radio Shack & Tandy abandoned the business model that made them successful. This was partly due to the decline of HAM Radio and Amature Radio as a whole.
As an amature radio enthuisiast, I had to find other shops to fill my radio needs for parts, antenna wire & parts, etc.
When they moved to the business model of, “me too,” and sold common electronic devices & gadgets they seemed to lose their niche.
Is Radio Shack price competetive? Absolutely not. Even if they became so, I believe the damage has been done and they will soon go the way of so many other bsinesses.
Their current efforts seem to be centering on cell phone sales. And even those prices aren’t that competetive.
Radio Shack needs to stick to the business they know best which is selling electronic parts. They need to stay out of the consumer electronics retail business because they obviously can’t compete with Best Buy, Walmart, etc….just look at their prices. They have the parts business all to themselves and that’s how they made their name. If they would focus on their core business, the business that made them who they are, they’d be much more successful.
Edited 2009-08-11 12:17 UTC