RadioShack in Talks to Sell Half Its Stores to Sprint, Shutter the Rest | Hacker News Reader

RadioShack in Talks to Sell Half Its Stores to Sprint, Shutter the Rest

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This is disappointing, especially since our local RadioShack has recently added a ton of great hobbyist electronics: They carry RaspberryPi starter kits, 4 models of Arduino, Beaglebones, about 8 kinds of shields, tons of robot kits, littleBits, and the usual drawers of random parts. I picked up an Arduino-compatible camera board for $12 on clearance.

I have no idea how big the local market for cool, modern electronics stuff might be. And I'll be sad if it disappears. But it would be nice if somebody could make a business out of this.

But it you haven't checked out your local RadioShark in the last few years, it might be worth a look.

They tried to catch the home hobbyist movement again -- they really did. I remember being excited about Arduinos showing up and guaranteed component stock.

Then I needed some parts on short notice. Their supply was present but incomplete enough to be frustrating, and when I asked one of the employees about their inventory, I got "I'm sorry; I'm not sure. You're likely to know more about that than I do." I really appreciate the employee being up front with me instead of jerking me around, but it's disappointing that Radio Shack couldn't (or wouldn't) commit to having at least one employee educated in the hobbyist electronics section.

Now, I pay a monthly fee at a hackerspace and have better access to component stock and knowledge than I expect any brick and mortar store to provide.

The community finds a way.

In fairness, people who buy this stuff generally know what they're doing... I'd be happy with a full parts bin that's organized sensibly.

Could not hacker/makerspaces sell this inventory as non-profits? And use the funds to help fund themselves?

Calling Steve Wozniak and AdaFruit: Why don't you get together and buy the other half of RadioShack stores and turn them into Maker spaces?

They could continue to sell cables, batteries and universal remotes to consumers to help pay the bills while creating a place to learn and buy supplies for tinkerers, robot clubs, hobbyists etc.

I'm sure there's a business model that could work at some level, but RS is in such a big hole that they probably have to kill it and start over anyway.

One of the earlier HN articles mentioned how RS had an electronics repair biz at one point (maybe they still do). That seems like a good starting point, then cater to hard core hobbyists which would be the core of whatever clientele RS still has. It's just not a big enough business for a public company.

Personally I think it's a good idea. 50% of Radio Shack locations will be up for rent soon, so all you budding entrepreneurs out there, go find some seed money and open your hobbyist/enthusiast/maker supply store. Do electronics repair, repairing phone glass, all that kind of thing, then try to reconnect with the core market of people who love electronics. Make it like the neighborhood bike shop that all the cyclists come to to hang out at. That's how Radio Shack started out.

Agreed, it's not like RS has any value other than it's store space. I'd probably ditch whatever procurement process they had for getting their tech anyways as I'm sure it's highly inefficient, lacking in product people want, and rife with corruption. Also the people that work at RS are next to worthless (IMHO in terms of helping build towards the vision jones1818 outlines, not worthless as people) for doing anything but trying to sell you a phone. There are of course exceptions to this but I agree with yesiamyourdad that you'd be better off starting from square one.

How about just turning their store in to iPhone/iPad/iPod repair outlets? Replacing screens and selling bling would probably bring them more business than most of the RS stores I've seen in the last few years have.

Around here in DFW, at least, those places are a dime a dozen.

same here, except they're generally busy. on a per sq ft basis, they might even be more profitable than RS.

The ones I have seen are definitely low-overhead. They also seem to be pretty transient and skeevy, though that may be more a reflection of the typical owner than the nature of the business.

This is somewhat tragic, because you can actually buy a wide variety of electronics components at RS which you can't get locally anywhere else. Sure, the internet is better in many ways, but it is a loss.

This comes up every time a Radio Shack article is posted, and the consensus has been that even Radio Shack isn't a reliable supplier of electronic components anymore.

And modern electronics shops now are packed with dedicated hobbyists.... small but loyal clientele. Radio Shack has always overreached.

Do you happen to live near that one radioshack in san francisco that is actually well stocked? None of the others are. Most of the time you're better off going to a Fry's to find electronics components.

Have you ever lived outside Silicon Valley and looked for electronic parts? If you're in a small town in most places in the US, RadioShack is quite possibly the ONLY place you will be able to find a resistor, potentiometer, or even a fuse or soldering equipment half the time. The other places you may have luck are WalMart or Sears.

In a few small towns I've spent a lot of time in, there's joint Ace Hardware-Radio shack stores which are pretty useful.

It ain't no Fry's (and even Fry's is pretty crappy compared to dedicated component stores), but it's better than nothing.

This used to be the case, but last few times I checked it out, not so much.

Check out octopart, sparkfun, adafruit, and so on. Much more fun these days.

It's just a different era. If you have 3 days, you buy that stuff online. If you're mid project and need something "today" Radioshack is often the best or only bet. It's like they have to have a huge inventory for the 10 people that care though.

Worse, they haven't found that niche to pay the bills.

The real loss is radio shack extended distribution of these into settings like smalltown strip malls.

I live in an area that can be characterized as a giant suburb of 1 million+ people with no big city around it. There's one store in the industrial park with components and they've been around for decades, altho their ownership has changed hands a couple of times.

Real cities should have it better - I remember being in minneapolis and needing some bits for work and finding in the yellow pages a giant electronics store a few blocks from my worksite (downtown somewhere.) I was in a pinch in Cincinnati too and also found a local supplier.

These kinds of businesses are generally counter service, not self service retail.

A lot of people whine about paying $2 for five resistors because the same $2 gets you 200 at mouser. But you'll pay at least $5 for shipping and have to wait.

Sprint is 80% owned by SoftBank, who also owns controlling interest in Alibaba. Amazon, Alibaba's largest competitor, has been recently talking about getting into physical retail space. It's possible Alibaba is thinking the same thing.

I feel that Alibaba is more of a competitor to Ebay. The quality of goods are similarly low.

Amazon is more of a "get it in 1-2 days (when we guarantee it)" and "We'll make sure you get your money back, anytime".

At least those have been my experiences.

Turning the existing RS network into a non-denominational PackStation-type setup seems like a good idea.

Radio Shack in Canada ended up in a similar situation. In 2005, they sold to Circuit City and opened as a rebranded store called "The Source" (after a brief legal dispute about the Radio Shack name).

When Circuit City went bankrupt in 2009, they sold the chain to Bell Canada (our version of Sprint or Verizon).

And in a similar vein in Canada, Black's, a photofinisher and photography related goods vendor could not adapt to the digital world. The chain was sold to Telus (a competitor to Bell).

It seems to be a common trend for bankrupt chains' leases in Canada to get bought up for the instant network of stores.

Is this a rare phenomenon in the US?

Kind of sad, I remember the TRS80 Model 1, a friend worked on the OS. They Apple and Commodore had the first real personal computers. The Model 1 actually had a real operating system with multiple process support (though not really exposed to the user). Irrelevant today as a business.

Sprint doesn't need more retail outlets. They need more cell sites.

If you can't get a signal on a Sprint phone, drive up to a Sprint store. They have mini cell sites so their demos work.

They give away their mini cell sites now for home use.

Bummer but I am guessing this will not be the only brick and mortar store to close now that most things can be bought online.

Where will I buy resistors on a Sunday afternoon! :(

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