Place: Taco John's
Lunch: Three tacos, small Super Ole (no tomato, no guac), Pepsi
Mumbling Wimpy Counter Guy: "Mumblemumblemumblemumble"
Me: "Three hard shells, small Super Ole no tomato no guac, and a medium drink."
Mumbling Wimpy Counter Guy: "Mumblemumblemumblemumble?"
Me: "For here."
Mumbling Wimpy Counter Guy: "$10.02."
Me: "It's Taco Tuesday."
Mumbling Wimpy Counter Guy: "Mumblemumblemumblemumble $8.43."
**sigh**
So it looks like the end has finally come for Radio Shack. The NYSE suspending trading of its shares and are reportedly planning on delisting them. Sprint is supposedly going to take about half their stores, then the rest will close if Radio Shack can't find a buyer (Amazon is said to be interested in some of those. Yes, actual Amazon retail stores are probably coming.)
(UPDATE: The bankruptcy is official. The brand WILL likely carry in an a far more limited capacity. Under the initial plan, Sprint will operate most remaining stores as co-branded outlets. Franchise stores will continue.)
No one is surprised, I'm sure. Most products people would think to go to Radio Shack for are obsolete. Who's buying resistors rooftop antennas, scanners, or CPU parts anymore. We're streaming everything on tablets and handsets. Tablets and handsets you cannot just build or repair yourself.
I probably haven't set foot in a Radio Shack in ten-fifteen years. But before that, there was one literally a block from my house, and getting a replacement CPU fan or a new antenna simply involved walking up the street and picking it up. That's what Radio Shack was at its best...the neighborhood electronic doohickey store. And for some, the general electronics store. Radios, stereos, largely their own brand ("Realistic"). To this day I have a police scanner and an atomic clock on my desk that came from that store up the street.
The weirdest Radio Shack thing I ever remember buying was a pair of outboard tweeters designed to enhance your traditional speakers. My best friend in high school and I had them duct-taped to the rear shelves of our cars (his Monza and my Super Beetle). Actually, our cars were also equipped with Realistic CB radios and Radio Shack antennas. Chicks dug us. NOT.
Today, I'd just research and order that stuff online, and that same Radio Shack, while still stocked with the gadgets, is more interested in selling mobile phone service. From what I hear, they aren't very good at it. Stock tends to be lean on the most desirable phone models. And unlike the old days, they have direct competition next door. In the case of my old store (yes, it's still there), there's a couple of dedicated cell phone stores within eye's reach of their front door, and those stores are far better at getting you the handset you want than Radio Shack is. Even within the old neighborhood, there's competition now.
Radio Shack (or then parent company Tandy Corporation, a company specializing in leather goods who acquired the chain in 1962) tried to grow outside the traditional neighborhood store format a couple of times in the eighties and nineties. They acquired Computer City, sort of a CompUSA-type big box computer chain, in 1991. They sold the chain to CompUSA in 1998. (CompUSA itself folded in 2012.) They also acquired, and eventually folded, the Video Concepts chain, a mall slot television and computer store.
Then there was Incredible Universe.
There was never, and never again will be, anything quite like Incredible Universe. This was a Tandy concept from the ground up. It was their answer to big box retail competition. The buildings were massive at 185,000 square-feet (though about half the space was used for warehousing inventory). The entrance led to a central rotunda with a stage. It was like a mall center court. They had live DJ's, at least initially. They even held events. The departments surrounded it like mall shop slots and in fact were run like individual stores. There was a camera store, a big music (CD/record) store, a software store, an electronics accessory store (essentially the doohickey section of a Radio Shack), and a central corridor that led to the big space where televisions, stereos, computers, and appliances were sold. It was a destination, an attraction, a place you wanted to go and check stuff out.
It was big and bold and...ultimately...an incredible failure. They lasted less than five years with seventeen locations, the last finishing liquidation in 1997. A few of the buildings became Fry's Electronics. They are operated as a shell of their former glory.
But I digress. We're talking about Radio Shack in 2015.
While I didn't see Radio Shack lasting long-term, I still expected them to outlast Sears, K-Mart, and BlackBerry. How those brands continue to exist baffles me.
So long, Radio Shack.
I'll think of you whenever I'm in immediate need of a fifty-cent amplifier fuse.
