I recently took my son on a "GameStop run" to sell our super old PS4. He's 7 and never been to a store with video games before. So we jumped in the car and arrived at the store about 30 min north of Seattle just as the sun was setting. In the window were two kids in Taekwondo uniforms. Both were super nice to a younger kid and immediately let him play and gave him pro tips on how to do slide turns. We then sold the console for $50 and he immediately wanted to use the money to buy a giant Eevee squishmallow that was next to the checkout line. What can you do? :) Now he tells me the story as "remember that time we bought my Eevee and those karate kids gave me a quarter".
Having real places is still awesome. I know the finances don't really scale, but shoutout to Lynnwood GameStop for keeping it real out there.
And RIP RadioShack. You always had a hard drive when we needed one to reinstall windows during a lan party. holds up a glass
Had a similar experience going to a GameStop with my son to fix a gift card that wasn't working online.
Store was great and the young men who worked there were
- polite
- helpful
- persistent in calling HQ store help line to get the card working
I even asked them if there was a way I could give feedback on the store and mention them specifically. They said "Given how the company is doing, that would be great but it won't matter but thank you."
Which prompted another thought:
Retail was a great first job for kids in high school. It taught you customer service, sales, responsibility etc. Barrier to entry was also low in case you came from a lower socioeconomic tier and were looking to gain experience for your resume etc.
Feels like we lost a lot by killing off physical locations on multiple fronts.
There are many retail places that I know that are just unable to keep up with ever increasing rent. There is only so much a retailer can do with the prices of their products before they lose customers. Losing customers only worsens the pressure on paying rent.
Consumers say they lament the loss of brick and mortar stores, yet their actions of only buying online shows that isn't really that big of a loss to them. It's such a weird situation for a retailer. I don't envy their situation.
Even before "online" was an option, folks were fleeing high prices in high rent districts for cheaper goods on the outskirts. Heck, I remember folks banding together to get in on bulk buys decades ago, when that was neither convenient nor quick. High rent will kill retail in an area no matter what; if online also gets you faster and easier, then who would choose anything else?
There was a local camera shop in my town, this was back in the 1980s. I went in to look at some cameras and the salesman mentioned how they were having problems because people would come in and look at the cameras and get advice and then go order them from 47th Street Photo or Adorama or one of the other big mail-order places that advertised in photography magazines.
I purchased my telescope and mount from a "local" store. It was >30 miles away in the metroplex, but it was a physical store with human employees. I went in with an idea of what I wanted to buy, but the person there asked me a whole slew of questions to ensure I was going to be happy with the purchase. They then also knew that my selected scope and selected mount would need an additional adapter plate that I would not have known about if I bought the items online. When I went to pick it up, they opened the boxes with me and helped me assemble the whole thing with a quick walk through on operating the mount. The only thing missing from this white glove service were the literal white gloves.
A year later, I wanted to buy a scope as a guide scope, and they had sadly closed. Telescopes are clearly a niche market, and even though it was a proper store the market just wasn't there to sustain the rent. There are plenty of places to go online to get similar advice, but nothing online can replace the experience of having someone right there showing something to you.
Sadly, the longer the internet exists, the less I'm liking it. It is soulless and just sucks the soul out of humanity more than it adds.
I remember that from the 1970s, too. I think photo gear might have been a unique case because the market was big enough to support those huge mailorder shops in NYC, and most items were expensive enough that the markup of buying at a local shop really hurt. As a young, cash-strapped, photography enthusiast, I felt guilty about buying all my major gear online, but I could bring myself to purchase only small accessories from the (really nice) people at the local camera shop.
What it suggest to me is that delivery fees are too cheap. Amazon subsidizing shipping to the point customers expect same-day as an option on something as insignificant than it was just a simple button click. No other thought given to the actual cost. Where going to the store probably means putting on clothes, driving somewhere, dealing with other humans, before driving back. The original online purchase meant possibly saving taxes, but now everyone collects taxes so no savings there. If there was a tipping point of being able to save brick&mortar, COVID pushed it over to the non-recoverable side.
On a per-customer basis the cost of last-mile shipping is just the cost of the truck driving from the prior delivery to your house. That's probably less than the cost of you driving to a store and back.
Conveniently ignoring the cost from the distro warehouse to the neighborhood and the return leg back to the warehouse. sure, it can be split amongst deliveries on the route, but it is not free
Retail does not need to employ the fleet of drivers going door to door with those packages. The drivers need paid, they need fuel, the trucks need maintenance. Those externalities are made way more clear when someone has to get themselves to a store to pick up the item instead.
But as already pointed out, one driver in a truck can cover multiple houses and so is a lot more efficient for the world than everybody driving their car to the store. (maybe, but you have not tried to counter this argument)
Which is possibly the bigger deal. Every time I shop at a specialty provider I end up frustrated by their lack of clarity around shipping costs - many will actually force you to go through the entire order process before giving you a shipping estimate, complete with collecting contact information.
Makes it very tedious to price-shop.
I will actually go out of my way to search for some suppliers on Amazon, eBay, Walmart, even Tictok before dealing with buying directly, just so I can rule them out if they're gonna pull a "$10 + $60 s&h" trick.
And... Again, this isn't new; pretty sure Ronco was doing this on TV before the Web.
And the old 10 CDs for $0.01 requiring a minimum full price purchase of some sort of subscription that is difficult to cancel has been around long before modern SaaS platforms.
The old "which long distance carrier do you want?" with an "I don't care" response resulted in you receiving the most expensive long distance plan from a company called "I Don't Care".
Just because scams/shaddy practices existed in the days of yore does not make them any more acceptable today.
Which is why companies that tell you what you'll pay up-front (Amazon, eBay) have made life hard for "traditional" sellers. Your sheep are tired of being fleeced.
What I find wild is at least at my walmart they pay the employees to shop for customers for their delivery service. Like how can that be cost effective? Walmart used to be a leader in tech in the 90s now it's applying ancient techniques to modern problems.
Tax crap. An empty rental lot can be used to offset taxes from a more profitable location of the same owner - you just use virtual or real expenses such as mortgage payments.
The ultra rich are, once again, externalizing costs to society (because a run-down mall is a blight that takes down the value of everything around it) while taking and gobbling their profits.
The other alternative is that instead of niche specialty dealerships, you got national or even international chains moving in, that sell cheap-ass clothes from Bangladesh or other sweatshops in masses.
The landlords do not care what type of tenants are renting (for the most part). They just rent to a new retail customer that thinks they can survive. I'm sure there's a 6 degrees to Spirit Halloween to compete with Bacon.
I have the fondest teenage memories waiting for Halo midnight releases.
For Halo 3 we had LAN parties in the back of pick-up trucks after rushing down to GameCrazy (Hollywood Video's game store chain which was attached on the side) after middle school in Canyon Park.
Halo Reach was the Lynnwood GameStop after a friend begged his parents to let him stay out late that night.
So many friends and memories. I miss those energetic meet-ups!
Sad to see that the last two in Orlando are dead now too.
I miss Radio Shack, particularly when they were a bit more "component based". As a general electronics store, they were almost always strictly worse than any of the big box stores, but if you needed something like a resistor or individual LEDs, it was great to be able to be able to drive over there and find something. I live in NYC now, and fortunately we still have Micro Center which is still fun, though I do worry that it might go the way of Fry's Electronics soon enough.
I understand it, it's really hard to compete with Amazon in today's environment, and I'm not judging anyone for using Amazon instead of buying from a store, I buy online too, and fundamentally these are for-profit businesses and I don't feel any obligation to give them charity.
Still, seeing Radio Shack and Fry's dying does make me a little sad. When I first moved to Dallas, one of my favorite things to do on the weekend was go to Fry's, look around the store, and buy a cheap DVD of some anime that I hadn't heard of.
I remember a story I heard about Microcenter. It was started in my hometown (Columbus, OH) by a Radio Shack store manager. When PCs were coming out, the store manager kept putting those PCs up at the front of the store. The district manager would come back and make him put it in the back. This went on for a bit until the store manager quit, took his best sales guy, and opened up Microcenter at the mall next door, selling PCs. They eventually took over the entire mall, before moving to another part of town, and then expanding to other towns. By the time Radio Shack figured out where things were going, things were too late.
I didn't know this years later, watching Young Sheldon ... that Incredible Universe was Tandy's attempt to get into the consumer electronics when Radio Shack's profit started falling, and that Tandy has a whole (very profitable) leather company. My SCA friends tend to know a lot more about Tandy Leather than they do about Radio Shack.
Fry's Electronics closed here in the west part of Phoenix, several years ago. Their shelves were starting to get bare and were selling things from consignment. It took a while for them to die, and I finally found out why: they were having trouble getting credit to buy inventory.
> Fry's Electronics closed here in the west part of Phoenix, several years ago. Their shelves were starting to get bare and were selling things from consignment. It took a while for them to die, and I finally found out why: they were having trouble getting credit to buy inventory.
I was going to do some of my 2019 Christmas shopping at the one and only Fry's in the Chicago area, but I walked inside and it looked like a bomb had gone off. Nothing was organized, lots of empty shelves, the cafe was closed, and I got a serious case of the heebie-jeebies and hightailed it out of there.
Google Street View shows it as it was in August 2019. As far as I know, the building is empty now.
And then there was TigerDirect, but that's a separate rant. I used to have three major computer shops within driving distance, but it's down to one now with MicroCenter.
> the store manager kept putting those PCs up at the front of the store. The district manager would come back and make him put it in the back
It's interesting and sad that RadioShack somehow managed to succeed and fail at least twice in computing, first in the 8-bit microcomputer era and second in the Tandy PC era. It seems like they failed in the build-your-own-cheap-PC era as well.
> Fry's Electronics closed here in the west part of Phoenix, several years ago. Their shelves were starting to get bare and were selling things from consignment. It took a while for them to die, and I finally found out why: they were having trouble getting credit to buy inventory.
In 2019, I was in San Jose for a business trip, and I was excited that there was a Fry's Electronics within walking distance of my hotel, so after work one day I walked over to it.
It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. I went in there, and it was almost completely empty. Very few workers, most of the shelves had absolutely nothing on them, there were barely any workers. The walls that usually had a bunch of TVs were completely bare, they managed to still have a full shelf of PlayStation Classics, and like one little basket of USB cables.
I genuinely thought they might have forgotten to lock the front door after closing, and that I was accidentally trespassing, but nope: there was a person behind the register and I was able to buy a flash drive.
Yeah that's what I figured, but it was really really weird when I was there. It is so odd to go to a giant decorated store in a nearly empty state. I don't think Backrooms was really a meme at that point, but that's the sort of vibe it gave me.
> I live in NYC now, and fortunately we still have Micro Center which is still fun, though I do worry that it might go the way of Fry's Electronics soon enough.
When Fry's died during (not because of) the pandemic, basically half the comments on articles were "oh no, what about Micro Center?" to which the immediate response was invariably "they're all completely packed" (partially due to the pandemic meaning everyone wanted better computer gear for WFH). During the height of the GPU shortage, it was often said that your best chance of getting a GPU was going to the nearest Micro Center. On all of my more recent trips, Micro Center has seemed to do pretty strong business.
Somehow, Micro Center does seem to have found a strong niche that makes it survive as a brick-and-mortar store in an increasingly online store (hell, Micro Center's website is pretty notorious for looking like a 90's webstore). Part of that is probably knowledgeable salespeople (something Fry's was known for lacking). And I think there's also a savvy psychological rationale behind its expansion policy--its stores always come across as just a bit too small, and its locations too few, but the flip side is that you don't have cavernous spaces you need to fill (like Fry's did).
The Microcenter near me always seems busy. There's always a steady flow of kids(I see more girls than boys interestingly) with a cart full of PC parts and a fat grin.
I always check there first when I need some kit. I much rather drive over and get what I need same-day. Routers, adapters, deoxit, solder, PC parts, generic flash drives in bins at the checkout like they're candy.
Their electronics section leaves something to be desired, but where else can I just grab a Pi zero w to-go for 10 bucks or some random sensor I've been meaning to play with to add on to whatever I was already buying. I cant even be mad at the markup because it's so valuable to have same-day.
That and the old-school sticker from the salesmen for commission means they tend to actually be nerds looking to help and I'm always happy to slap the sticker on whatever I'm buying to give them a piece.
If you have a Microcenter in your neighborhood, give them some business. I can only describe the feeling like you're a kid walking into Toys R Us again.
Can confirm. Finally got the GPU for my new PC in 2020 by (first) showing up at Microcenter on days when deliveries were expected, then eventually joining a discord where people posted daily updates when stock actually showed up (once I got tired of driving a half hour there and back a few times).
In the end, a helpful discord member was already at the store, purchased a GPU for me, and held it until I could get there and buy it off him. Due to the shortage there was no risk of him stuck holding the "bag" but it was a huge favor from my end. Wasn't scalping but I still threw in an extra $20 just for helping out.
> I live in NYC now, and fortunately we still have Micro Center which is still fun, though I do worry that it might go the way of Fry's Electronics soon enough.
Thank god for Micro Center. Bought a cheap first Gen Threadripper and a board for it, turns out the board needed a firmware update to get the CPU working. Called the Flushing Micro Center, asked if they could help me and They said "Sure thing! bring the CPU and board over, no cooler needed." Dropped it off and they called me back in three hours, board was ready. Amazon can't do that.
I also love spending a bit of time walking the aisles and always stop by the clearance table to scrounge for cheap fun stuff.
Yeah. I rarely, if ever, buy electronics components on Amazon. It's almost exclusively Mouser for me.
It has the added advantage that I can export the order lists as XML, to keep a little bit of an inventory. I think every electronics hobbyist knows how you tend to very quickly forget what components that you have on hand, from the lowest resistor to entire FPGA dev boards.
The good news is Microcenter seems to have found a niche that keeps them relevant. My local branch is always packed with people trying out new mechanical keyboards, buying new computer cases or monitors, and buying hobby electronics kits.
Hopefully tapping into the gamer & hobbyist markets keeps them afloat.
Sometimes you just want a resistor, but when you buy online, you generally have to buy them by the thousand, and then find a place to store the other 999 of them in your house somewhere. There is definitely room for local stores because the cost to ship something very small has a high floor.
> I live in NYC now, and fortunately we still have Micro Center which is still fun, though I do worry that it might go the way of Fry's Electronics soon enough.
There are actually five in the metro area: Brooklyn, Queens, NJ, LI, and Yonkers. I live in biking distance of the Brooklyn store and drive past (stop at) the Yonkers one pretty frequently and find they’re both usually quite busy, so hopefully they’ll stick around.
I make a point of trying to buy from them because I value having a place nearby that employs actual purchasing staff so I don’t have to sort through junk and counterfeit products, and because I like having a place where I can deal in person, have things same day, return without shipping etc.
I have only been to the one in Brooklyn, and yeah usually there's a fair number of people in there.
It's kind of a pain in the ass for me to get there from my house by train, and I don't have a car, but I always make a point to visit there when I'm in the area (usually because I need to go to Lowes and/or Harbor Freight).
I agree that it's nice to not have to worry about counterfeits, and it's nice to be able to buy a microcontroller or a Raspberry Pi or something without have to wait for shipping.
> I understand it, it's really hard to compete with Amazon in today's environment, and I'm not judging anyone for using Amazon instead of buying from a store
I am. :-)
> I buy online too, and fundamentally these are for-profit businesses and I don't feel any obligation to give them charity.
You can also judge people for prioritizing profit over all else.
Even from a purely utilitarian-calculus perspective, it's a bit strange to me when people say "I wish we had X" but then "but I understand people need to make money". Like, if you wish you had X, then X has utility to you. Now, it may be that the amount you would pay for X is less than what was needed for X to survive, but that's not necessarily implied by the mere fact that X has to make money.
And that's leaving out all the other positive and negative utilities that come from these various choices. Like living in a town where you can go to a place and have interactions with people, or even just browse unfamiliar and interesting products, instead of just a big warehouse.
There isn't any reason not to judge people for doing things that you think make the world worse.
I didn't mind paying a bit more for stuff at Fry's because it was directly available and I liked walking around the store, but I certainly had no plans of buying a product I wasn't already going to buy just to patronize Fry's. These stores, while I do like them, are not charities. I don't want to needlessly give them money for stuff if I don't want it. I am not going to directly donate to them either.
I agree that the experience does have some amount of value if I am reminiscing about these things, but fundamentally what gives me (and I suspect most people) the most value is simply lower prices, and I think these things are at odds.
Big fun stores like Fry's have overhead, and they have to pay for that overhead somehow, meaning that it is rolled into the prices. Amazon is more boring, leading to lower prices.
My point is essentially that there are enormous higher-order effects that are totally ignored by just focusing on the price of individual consumer transactions, and many of those higher-order effects are detrimental to our society.
Isn't this kind of a privileged perspective though? Not so much saying that something is lost, but judging people for shopping on Amazon (which you said in an earlier comment).
It's easy to say something like "there's more to life than prices!!!!!" when you're a yuppie software person on Hacker News making six figures with full benefits, but a large percentage (most?) of the population isn't as fortunate. Something being five percent cheaper can be a meaningful difference to those people, and I certainly cannot blame someone in that situation for prioritizing their finances over some nebulous completely undefined and arbitrary "greater good" that you seem to be hinting at.
Now, I am one of those software people who (generally) makes plenty of money, so you could reasonably judge me for shopping on Amazon and focusing primarily on prices. I don't know what to tell you; even if I make plenty of money, it's not infinite money, I still have to prioritize how it's spent, and again I just don't feel the need to try and optimize for some undefined greater good.
You're right, and when I say "judging people" I don't mean buying on Amazon instantly means I think you're irredeemably evil, I just mean it's a negative factor in my overall judgment. It can be mitigated by other things, in particular whether the person thinks critically about their Amazon purchases, and whether they take other mitigating action (e.g., voting for government policies that would punish Amazon and similar monopolistic businesses).
What I'm talking about is at least slightly less nebulous than what you describe. My claim is something like "The more that people buy from Amazon today, the lower the expected quality of your own life in 25 years." It's similar to other negative externalities like climate change. I'm not saying someone is satan incarnate for driving their gas car to work. But the less they realize that there are problems with that and the less they take action where possible to mitigate them, the more dubious I'll be about them.
(Incidentally, I'm not "one of those software people who makes plenty of money". I make in the mid five figures with no benefits, so I'm not arguing from quite as privileged a perspective as the one you mention. But my position is still more privileged than many, many other people who can't order from Amazon at all because, for instance, they have no credit card or fixed address. And those people are also harmed by the growth of Amazon as it gradually reduces their options for buying things in person.)
What distinguishes how Amazon treats their employees from any other logistics/retail employer?
Union busting? Piss bottles? Intrusive tracking with zero tolerance for shortfalls? Poor safety? Low pay?
That's rampant everywhere.
There are exceptions, but they make the rule and the exceptions only apply to direct employees so you have to dig, take time, do research, verify certifications/audits, spend more money, and wait longer, to truly avoid abusive companies.
Shopping at unionized Costco doesn't count for shit. That gallon of ketchup you bought was made by someone pissing in a bottle on a dangerous production line.
Please note: I'm not saying it's right. It is not right.
What I'm saying is that people SEEM to be saying "Amazon sucks brah <they clap their hands together like they're knocking dust off> I don't use 'em" and then they're shopping at Target, where the distribution centers and stores are filled with poorly-paid workers pissing in bottles in between safety stand downs because an unsupervised and poorly-trained worker died crushed between a manlift and a wall: https://www.sungazette.com/uncategorized/2024/11/muncy-targe...
If anyone wants to compete in the smug olympics, I'm the unholy lovechild of Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps when it comes to only buying union-made/public benefit corporation/domestic/local products.
Simultaneously, I recognize that not everyone makes as much as I do so Walmart or Amazon may be their only option.
I’m always amused about people criticizing Amazon’s labor practices since they are hiring people directly and based in the US and don’t share the same concern about labor conditions in China where all of manufacturing happens and where RadioShack got its products
So exactly how buying from Radio Shack better than Amazon as far as labor practices downstream from their supply chain?
How many people working in China would find it a dream to work in an Amazon warehouse? I know about Amazon practices second hand from my step son who has both worked in an Amazon warehouse and as a driver.
There have been plenty of stories about small towns having labor shortages and having to increase wages to compete against Amazon warehouse pay because people would rather work there than at a fast food store, daycare, etc.
Exactly what problem is being “fixed” by being concerned about Amazon workers and not mentioning the Chinese workers? Amazon pays its warehouse workers and drivers $20+ an hour. Radio Shack paid minimum wage + a 1-3% commission and a $5 spiff for signing customers up for a needless warranty. I mentioned earlier that I worked at RS back in the day.
> We've seen most retail stores fail to convert from a physical to mixed physical+online format.
For a while, people were sure Barnes and Noble was doomed, but recently they've done a big turnaround, even opening new stores. Anecdotally, the ones I've been to in recent years do seem nicer and more attractive than previously. Maybe there's a lesson in how they were able to stay alive.
B&N hired James Daunt, former CEO of UK's successful Waterstones book stores. He de-corporatised the company, ripping out central control and management-by-metrics and giving managers and talented staff in each store the chance to build a more personal and local experience.
It helps that books have become Veblen lifestyle collectibles for (mostly) younger women, and there are entire subcultures on social media dedicated to promoting the lifestyle.
If anyone is curious, there are definitely a few stores left with the RadioShack brand, though most if not all of them are independent of any centralized organization: https://www.radioshack.com/locations
I've finally lived long enough to both remember when Radio Shack was mocked as low-quality, staffed by teens who knew nothing... and now to watch that same company given a hagiography.
"It was the place to go if you needed..." sounds a lot better than, "It was often the only game in town, and woeful at that," I guess. I still remember them trying to sell Monster cables for amounts of money that were downright comical.
RatShack was the finest purveyor of overpriced electronic components and electronic repair tools and supplies, electronics learning kits, Tandy computers, RC cars, and ham/CB radio gear. As a kid, it was the only such electronics shop withing bicycling distance, although was located in a ugly shopping mall that no one went to pre-internet. An Australian holding company later bought the mall and refurbished it with exterior-facing shops so that it became both a shopping mall and a very long strip mall on the same property.
They were always terrible, but I have fond pre-teen memories of saving up my allowance to buy components off the pegboard in the back and then failing to make anything that worked with them.
The only things worthwhile to get at RadioShack were electronics project components, breadboards, soldering equipment, circuit board etching stuff and so on. Once they threw that stuff under the bus in order to sell cell phones and $9 toys, the place went downhill fast.
I have fond memories of the manager letting me play with the computers for hours. Our Radio Shack was in the mall and I'd drop in and start writing programs on the TRS-80 display models while my parents were shopping.
The manager not only didn't kick me out (like the manager of the bookstore always did if I looked at a book for more than five minutes), he'd come over and teach me some things when he wasn't busy.
That sounds like a great example of the difference between people who love their job and see it as an opportunity to meet interesting people, and someone who hates their job and just grudgingly draws a paycheck.
Weird to see my home county pop up on HN. As soon as I saw RadioShack + Maryland I immediately pictured exactly where this was on rt 4. I have a distinct memory of going to this very store to buy a PS2 internet adapter and an ethernet cable back in the early 2000s. It was also my go to for anything electronics related.
It was always nice to visit back home (including this year) and see that this store was still around. It will certainly be missed :(
I second this sentiment. It is sorta bizarre, there is not really a tech scene in the area except for a few niche roles in support of Pax River Naval Base (I'm also operating my SaaS down here https://weatherthetrip.com/download :peace_sign:). I remember visiting this store back in the 2000's and was surprised when I saw it still in business a few months back.
They will be missed. I still have my multimeter, solder, and alarm clock from there. I wish home hardware stores had a component cabinet like RS did, always good for an impulse buy project. Still remember a few that I did out of make magazine with their parts.
When I was young I would go to the electronics store and give them a whole list of components I needed for a project. 2 resistors of 5 cents each, some capacitors, etc. The guys would spend 20 minutes scurrying up all the stuff, coming back to say they didn't have 220 ohm, would 2x 100 ohm do? Stuff like that. They spend half an hour on me for a total bill of 10 bucks. I don't know how that was sustainable then but it sure as hell isn't now.
Now I just buy components in bulk. Need a resistor? I just buy 100 of them. Though I don't really tend to use individual components so much anymore. ESP modules can replace a lot and they cost peanuts. If I need something complex I just design a PCB and send it to a PCB manufacturer in China and get 10 of them.
We still have an independent shop like this here in my city in Spain but another one closed up shop during the pandemic. I don't know how long this one will continue. It's a pain. But on the other hand they often don't have what I need so I tend to order online a lot too. But for tools it's nice to look at them in real life before buying them, or to be able to go there if I need something right now.
I'm within months of my 60's, have been a developer since 1984, and Radio Shack is where it started. My family moved when I was 1/2 way through high school, of course in the Summer. So I had no network of friends, and wandered into a Radio Shack with the ubiquitous TRS-80 on display. Over the course of the summer, the 1 employee there and I became friends enough to where he'd boot up the BASIC interpreter, and let me type in programs.
That was my start. Went on to consume as much info as I could; lots of it from BYTE magazine, took all the programming classes I was allowed in my final 2 years of high school, continued to get a CS degree, and have been programming ever since.
My only retail job ever was at Radioshack back in 2009, I lasted about 2 months before landing an office IT job..
It was barely a shell of its former self then.. the only training I remember was being told to upsell batteries with every transaction..
I didn't make it long enough to be trained on selling cell phone plans which was the only way to make commission...
I don't understand the mindset of someone willing to be sold a cellphone plan during a random radioshack visit enough to work with them =p
Black Friday was during my short time there, I wasnt overly familiar with our inventory or locations of things, and fielding questions like "What gift should I get my grandson?"
I was anxious pretty much every minute that I worked there.
May I never experience retail again.
Oh yeah, it was awful by then. At my store you made essentially minimum wage plus a sort of commission for addons/upsales (as long as they were over a certain percentage of your total sales) and flat bonuses for new cell contracts, phone/accessory sales.
Theoretically it could add up to a passable paycheck for retail, but they had it set up so that only a few senior staff ever got enough hours/good shifts where you could conceivably hit the addon percentages needed to qualify for commissions. So the only way to make any money was to sell cell plans, phones, and accessories. The whole store was totally focused on hawking cell plans.
Then we had to go to monthly meetings an hour out of town on our own dime. That's where they talked at us about the company and how cool and great it was. Such a shitty place to work. IIRC there was a dedicated web forum called "RadioShackSucks" or something like that where staff complained to each other.
Also anecdotal, but it seems that RadioShack in that era was a particularly awful place to work. I applied around that time (might have been that exact year, or else it was 07-08). I was weeded out by the online personality test. My dad was friends with the store manager and he said "your son doesn't really have what we're looking for". Mind you, this would have been my 3rd or 4th retail job by that point, and I had references. I knew they did commission sales, and I had no experience in that, but I also wasn't the kind of person to upsell crap the customer didn't need. I'm glad I didn't get the job.
My first job was also at RadioShack but back in 1995. We were all focused on batteries, adapters and consumer electronics. and cell phones were starting to be a big deal as carriers started subsidizing phones.
I remember the "Battery Club" you could get one free battery a month I think. They gave you a little card and would punch a hole in it for every battery you got. My dad would stop in every month to get his free battery. I don't recall if any purchase was required but I don't think so.
In the 1960's, my brother and I would walk about three miles (over Red Mountain in Birmingham AL) to the closest Radio Shack. We would each get a free battery using our cards and usually we didn't buy anything. Eventually we became pretty good customers.
It wasn't; at least for me as a teenager in the 80's. Could have been a per-store policy, but the one in the Lockport suburb of Chicago and the one in the Winter Garden suburb of Orlando didn't.
2009 is around the last time that I remember going into a Radio Shack, with the intention of buying a Nintendo DS and a game. I watched the guy go to the back to get a baggie containing the system, manual, accessories, etc, and stuff it into the box. He went back looking for the game (which was similarly absent from the case, along with the manual), came out empty handed.
"Well, couldn't find the game. So just the system?"
"Umm...no. I'll just buy the system down the street, since I'm going to have to go there to buy a game anyhow."
I have great memories of buying electronic components, kits to work on with my grandfather, and such. They were pretty sad by the end though. No decent kits, no little drawers of components.
It's too bad that Radio Shack misunderstood the threat posed by Amazon. To get a bit ahead of myself, Best Buy did NOT misunderstand the threat, and they're still around. Anyway, Radio Shack went all-in on impulse buys. They focused on putting stores in shopping malls near entrances/exits, and filled their store window with silly gadgets like plasma balls and robots. They also tried to become a cellphone store, for some reason. Best Buy survived by picking the worst locations. In industrial parks, near highways, land nobody else wanted. They properly realized that Amazon's weakness was their two-day shipping. If you need something right now, you're willing to drive 30min-1hr to get it.
A closer competitor to Radio Shack was Fry's Electronics, which also located their stores on non-prime real estate, but their infamously bad customer service [1], embezzlement losses, and poor inventory choices doomed them.
[1] - shout out to the Fry's employee at the Freemont location who got in a huffy fit when I decided that the price for an oscilloscope probe was too high, and tried to argue with me and say he couldn't remove the item when I wouldn't insert my card to pay for it. Really A+ attitude there bud.
Yup. Impressive in the world where raspberry pis and arduinos and 3D printing are crazy popular they abandoned their roots in favor of cordless telephones and TV. Horrible strategic decisions for a decade will do that…
> She said that since she didn’t go through training, Edward’s father said she couldn’t officially be a repair tech. But through the years, she honed her skills.
> Before he passed away, she said he was incredibly impressed with her growth.
> “Last year, (Michael King) informed me, ‘I can’t give you the title because you didn’t go to college, but you do a heck of a good job repairing things and fixing it and taking care of people,’” Henning said.
All that hard work and nothing but a verbal compliment, no wonder no one in retail cares anymore.
There's something of a parallel history for Radioshack up here in Canada.
Radioshack's were everywhere once upon a time. As things became less repairable and less repaired, the components racks gradually shrank and the stores pivoted to selling a variety of other electronic junk: video games, cell phones, toys, etc.. Their prices were consistently higher than the competition and what they stocked was frequently of low quality.
In the early 2000's the Canadian franchises were bought out, and re-branded as "The Source". I asked a store manager why they'd turned their back on such a well recognized brand for "The Source", and he told me that the Radioshack brand was indeed well known, but associated with junk and high prices. I couldn't argue with that. They kept selling the same stuff at the same prices and quickly earned the same reputation Radioshack had. By this point the components racks were long gone and they were no longer even a good place to find adapters, cables, etc.. Somehow, "The Source" stores continued to persist.
Last year, they closed a significant chunk of their stores and re-branded again as "Best Buy Express". I haven't bothered to go into one since this happened but, if they're selling Best Buy's stock at Best Buy prices, it should be a distinct improvement despite the loss of identity.
Back when Radioshack re-branded to "The Source" I felt like some piece of my childhood had been lost, but Radioshack had already ceased to be Radioshack by that point, in Canada at least. "The Source" was always one of the stores you just walked past. I doubt anyone will miss them.
I remember fondly the talks I had with strangers about their hobbies and learning about technology while I was employed there. I remember seeing this specific stores sales numbers and thinking to myself that their daily sales were close to our monthly. Our store closed shortly after.
So sad. They had a huge chance to be the center of the "maker world", but instead they had some terrible leadership that was trying to make the small chains compete with Best Buy.
If the chain simply focused on it's hobbyist roots, got into 3d printing, and tried to be a physical store for something like Adafruit, partnered with like Mark Rober or something, maybe pick up some other esoteric hobbies, they'd be thriving.
Lots of memories from my own childhood and my kids'. My dad took me on my first visit to a Detroit-area store in the mid-60's. Used to love just walking around and checking out the shelves. Sort of a Fry's vibe but there was one in nearly every decent-sized town. The oldest piece of running tech currently in my house is a 20 year-old Realistic 4-port gigabit switch that connects my office machines to the router in the family room :).
It should be possible without too much searching to find the Onion headline "Radio Shack CEO Admits He Has No Idea What the Hell His Business Model Is."
Interesting that it should have lasted so long in Maryland, and that the last store should be in Prince Frederick (a town I never heard of). It seems to me that thirty years ago I spent a lot of time at a Wheaton, Maryland, Radio Shack
The truest form of hacking was when you could fuck with public utilities using parts you got at Radio Shack. I wish I still had my DTMF dialer, it was so cool. Maybe kids today are buying parts to build GSM base stations. Maybe they'll bring back pirate radio, once all the analog radio bands have been replaced with digital. I just hope they get to experience that thrill and wonder at the power that hidden knowledge brings.
The last one in my area shut down in 2014/2015. I stopped by and bought several large shopping bags worth of components, all for around $75. Now, I don't think there's anywhere locally to buy electronic components, except for industrial capacitors and things like that at trade supply shops.
Yes, Radio Shack was often the only place you could find the odd resistor, vacuum tube (for an audiophile-grade amp, what else?), or coax signal splitter. But they always asked for your phone number on checkout -- why? It's not like they ever called you or anything (thankfully).
In NYC, even if you walk in to a restaurant with open tables, they'll often insist on taking your number before you can be seated. It goes through a platform called Resy.
And then (at least around here) they often make you scan a QR code in order to see the menu. It's often not a direct link to the menu, but rather a third party site or a link shortener that tracks traffic for marketing data.
Oh shit - I never thought about the privacy ramifications about the death of paper menus.
I get that it's more eco friendly, and that it allows each dish to have more space for a photo and detailed description; but I hate the experience of staring at my phone to try to pick a meal.
The local Hobbytowns had an aisle of RadioShack branded components- really basic stuff you might use for an elementary school science fair. Of course one of the stores closed last year, and the other is 90% R/C cars, so even that couldn't last.
A number of years ago, maybe six or seven, I was staying at a cabin in the middle of nowhere northern Minnesota. Well over an hours drive away from any major town or retailer.
My intentions were to work from the cabin for the week in peace and quiet. Have some nice secluded time to relax. The rub was that the WiFi password simply didn't work. The owner of the cabin was being no help, said the password on the note was correct and I could otherwise plug my laptop in to Ethernet directly. My MacBook had no Ethernet port.
In the small nearby town there was a RadioShack, and inside I find a single make of USB Ethernet adapter. I buy it, and take it back to the cabin. It doesn't work with my MacBook. Activity lights don't come on. I don't know if it was a driver issue or what. It came with a CD, but that's no help on a relatively recent MacBook.
I needed to get work done, and in pure frustration end up resetting the firmware on the wireless router using the button on the back and reconfiguring it with their hard wired Xbox One's built in browser. This infuriated the owner of the cabin as it knocked out their temperature and water sensors, which I ended up setting back up for them. I was however able to get work done. Probably not what I should have done but it worked.
On my way out of town, I swung back by the RadioShack to return the Ethernet adapter. I explain to the guy behind the counter that it had not worked with my MacBook and the guy proceeds to argue with me that it's Mac compatible and accuses me of buying it, using it, and returning it. I have to argue with the guy for what seemed like several minutes, and recounted him the story of resetting the WiFi. I've never had such a hostile return process in all my life.
Anyway, that's the last time I ever visited a RadioShack.
- The first thing the great Internet consumed in the 90's (and earlier, really) was technical occupations and hobbies - people affiliated with those were likely amongst the first to spend a lot of time online and want to do things online like buy stuff.
- Anything small and where part numbers matter greatly is going to have advantages when sold and bought online. You'll be able to type in a part number and get a straight answer on cost and availability. This can also happen if a store has a good customer service representative but that stopped being a thing somewhere between 9/11 and the GFC of 2008 - also around the time Walmart had to raise it's starting wage to $10/hr. just to get people in the door.
- Less people are repairing electronics and less electronics are repairable. The way consumer electronics are built are different now than say in the 80's or 90's - components are often surface mount and often things are just a CPU/MCU+RAM+flash on a board with a bit of surrounding surface mount stuff.
- A lot of what used to be consumer electronics exists on everyone's smartphones. No more clock radios, walkmans, boomboxes, tape decks, VCRs, DVD/CD players, landline phones, etc. I would bet Bluetooth speakers have essentially replaced home stereos for many. One thing Radio Shack did sell was media and all forms of converter cables for home electronics and there just isn't a great need for that anymore with how everyone interacts with media now. Desktop PCs are niche now, non-gamer non-business laptops are disposable. Many just use their ISP router for WiFi. Home assistant stuff had to take on a friendlier, non-hacker image to gain acceptance.
> A lot of what used to be consumer electronics exists on everyone's smartphones. No more clock radios, walkmans, boomboxes, tape decks, VCRs, DVD/CD players, landline phones, etc. I would bet Bluetooth speakers have essentially replaced home stereos for many.
I still seem to use a lot of electronics: bluetooth and wired speakers, headphones and earphones, power strips and adapters, USB cables and gadgets, SSD enclosures, phone accessories, game systems, all sorts of computers, tablet/e-reader, monitors for computing/gaming/video, musical instruments and amplifiers, functional and decorative lighting, chargers for everything, networking/WiFi stuff, automatic cookers, etc. RadioShack and Fry's used to sell those things.
It's a shame that the maker/DIY electronics revival turned out to have limited appeal, because I'd like to visit a store that had Raspberry Pi and other microcontroller boards, components for real-world interfaces and robotics, 3D printers and supplies, etc.
In addition to the electronics components aisles at Fry's, I miss their PC component section. And their convenient return policy. I'm surprised that there aren't more shops for PC customization. I also wish there were a shop where you could put together your own custom mechanical keyboard, picking out switches, keycaps, etc.
I was under the impression that RadioShack went bankrupt a few years back? Were the existing stores just "squatting" on the name?
Sometimes these kinds of things escape my notice, but I recall RadioShack because the minute I heard they were shutting down, I hopped in the car to get to the one nearest me and loaded up two shopping bags of electronics components, switches, banana jacks, oddball high-wattage resistors, etc. Because it's RadioShack, even at 75% off the prices were only "meh" but it's all stuff I was more or less guaranteed to use eventually in projects or repairs.
Speaking of, I really hate buying one-off components from Amazon. I needed a panel-mount BNC jack the other day and literally the best option was $7 for 10 of them. So effectively I paid $7 for one (which is way too much) and now I have 9 that will be sold for pennies at my estate sale a few decades from now.
And now the tariffs are basically going to shut down my usage of AliExpress for bulk orders of cheap components, I'm pretty sure I'm just going to end up dropping electronics as a hobby altogether in the long run.
> I hopped in the car to get to the one nearest me and loaded up two shopping bags of electronics components, switches, banana jacks, oddball high-wattage resistors, etc.
The real bargains were the component cabinets themselves. Those big commercial chest of drawers retail for thousands of dollars. My co-worker bought the entire aisle of drawers after they were empty of components for I think a hundred bucks. Organized his entire basement shop into them.
> She said that since she didn’t go through training, Edward’s father said she couldn’t officially be a repair tech. But through the years, she honed her skills.
> Before he passed away, she said he was incredibly impressed with her growth.
> “Last year, (Michael King) informed me, ‘I can’t give you the title because you didn’t go to college, but you do a heck of a good job repairing things and fixing it and taking care of people,’” Henning said.
Maybe the writers ended the piece like they did because they wanted the "good job repairing things and fixing it and taking care of people" note.
But I also heard echoes of systemic sexism or classism.
And also, really, someone being snubbed by Radio Shack, of all things?
Radio Shack was where kids, and anyone else without credentials, could go and get the Forrest Mims electronics book, and some tools and parts, and... just do things.
Classist gatekeeping by affluent Stanford bros at Google is one thing, because they've always been in an echo chamber. But a Radio Shack franchise should've known better.
I recently took my son on a "GameStop run" to sell our super old PS4. He's 7 and never been to a store with video games before. So we jumped in the car and arrived at the store about 30 min north of Seattle just as the sun was setting. In the window were two kids in Taekwondo uniforms. Both were super nice to a younger kid and immediately let him play and gave him pro tips on how to do slide turns. We then sold the console for $50 and he immediately wanted to use the money to buy a giant Eevee squishmallow that was next to the checkout line. What can you do? :) Now he tells me the story as "remember that time we bought my Eevee and those karate kids gave me a quarter".
Having real places is still awesome. I know the finances don't really scale, but shoutout to Lynnwood GameStop for keeping it real out there.
And RIP RadioShack. You always had a hard drive when we needed one to reinstall windows during a lan party. holds up a glass
Had a similar experience going to a GameStop with my son to fix a gift card that wasn't working online.
Store was great and the young men who worked there were
- polite
- helpful
- persistent in calling HQ store help line to get the card working
I even asked them if there was a way I could give feedback on the store and mention them specifically. They said "Given how the company is doing, that would be great but it won't matter but thank you."
Which prompted another thought:
Retail was a great first job for kids in high school. It taught you customer service, sales, responsibility etc. Barrier to entry was also low in case you came from a lower socioeconomic tier and were looking to gain experience for your resume etc.
Feels like we lost a lot by killing off physical locations on multiple fronts.
There are many retail places that I know that are just unable to keep up with ever increasing rent. There is only so much a retailer can do with the prices of their products before they lose customers. Losing customers only worsens the pressure on paying rent.
Consumers say they lament the loss of brick and mortar stores, yet their actions of only buying online shows that isn't really that big of a loss to them. It's such a weird situation for a retailer. I don't envy their situation.
Even before "online" was an option, folks were fleeing high prices in high rent districts for cheaper goods on the outskirts. Heck, I remember folks banding together to get in on bulk buys decades ago, when that was neither convenient nor quick. High rent will kill retail in an area no matter what; if online also gets you faster and easier, then who would choose anything else?
There was a local camera shop in my town, this was back in the 1980s. I went in to look at some cameras and the salesman mentioned how they were having problems because people would come in and look at the cameras and get advice and then go order them from 47th Street Photo or Adorama or one of the other big mail-order places that advertised in photography magazines.
Not a new phenomenon.
I purchased my telescope and mount from a "local" store. It was >30 miles away in the metroplex, but it was a physical store with human employees. I went in with an idea of what I wanted to buy, but the person there asked me a whole slew of questions to ensure I was going to be happy with the purchase. They then also knew that my selected scope and selected mount would need an additional adapter plate that I would not have known about if I bought the items online. When I went to pick it up, they opened the boxes with me and helped me assemble the whole thing with a quick walk through on operating the mount. The only thing missing from this white glove service were the literal white gloves.
A year later, I wanted to buy a scope as a guide scope, and they had sadly closed. Telescopes are clearly a niche market, and even though it was a proper store the market just wasn't there to sustain the rent. There are plenty of places to go online to get similar advice, but nothing online can replace the experience of having someone right there showing something to you.
Sadly, the longer the internet exists, the less I'm liking it. It is soulless and just sucks the soul out of humanity more than it adds.
I remember that from the 1970s, too. I think photo gear might have been a unique case because the market was big enough to support those huge mailorder shops in NYC, and most items were expensive enough that the markup of buying at a local shop really hurt. As a young, cash-strapped, photography enthusiast, I felt guilty about buying all my major gear online, but I could bring myself to purchase only small accessories from the (really nice) people at the local camera shop.
What it suggest to me is that delivery fees are too cheap. Amazon subsidizing shipping to the point customers expect same-day as an option on something as insignificant than it was just a simple button click. No other thought given to the actual cost. Where going to the store probably means putting on clothes, driving somewhere, dealing with other humans, before driving back. The original online purchase meant possibly saving taxes, but now everyone collects taxes so no savings there. If there was a tipping point of being able to save brick&mortar, COVID pushed it over to the non-recoverable side.
On a per-customer basis the cost of last-mile shipping is just the cost of the truck driving from the prior delivery to your house. That's probably less than the cost of you driving to a store and back.
Conveniently ignoring the cost from the distro warehouse to the neighborhood and the return leg back to the warehouse. sure, it can be split amongst deliveries on the route, but it is not free
Retail is just a warehouse you walk into: they pay the same costs
Retail does not need to employ the fleet of drivers going door to door with those packages. The drivers need paid, they need fuel, the trucks need maintenance. Those externalities are made way more clear when someone has to get themselves to a store to pick up the item instead.
But as already pointed out, one driver in a truck can cover multiple houses and so is a lot more efficient for the world than everybody driving their car to the store. (maybe, but you have not tried to counter this argument)
> Amazon subsidizing shipping
Do they still do this?
Do, did, does it matter. The sheeple are now hooked on the free shipping, and are now too addicted for how it happened to matter.
It matters. If it's not subsidized, it's not actually free, it's just baked into the price, and a large player like Walmart might be able to compete.
Which is possibly the bigger deal. Every time I shop at a specialty provider I end up frustrated by their lack of clarity around shipping costs - many will actually force you to go through the entire order process before giving you a shipping estimate, complete with collecting contact information.
Makes it very tedious to price-shop.
I will actually go out of my way to search for some suppliers on Amazon, eBay, Walmart, even Tictok before dealing with buying directly, just so I can rule them out if they're gonna pull a "$10 + $60 s&h" trick.
And... Again, this isn't new; pretty sure Ronco was doing this on TV before the Web.
And the old 10 CDs for $0.01 requiring a minimum full price purchase of some sort of subscription that is difficult to cancel has been around long before modern SaaS platforms.
The old "which long distance carrier do you want?" with an "I don't care" response resulted in you receiving the most expensive long distance plan from a company called "I Don't Care".
Just because scams/shaddy practices existed in the days of yore does not make them any more acceptable today.
Which is why companies that tell you what you'll pay up-front (Amazon, eBay) have made life hard for "traditional" sellers. Your sheep are tired of being fleeced.
What I find wild is at least at my walmart they pay the employees to shop for customers for their delivery service. Like how can that be cost effective? Walmart used to be a leader in tech in the 90s now it's applying ancient techniques to modern problems.
If retail is dying, how can rents keep going up?
Tax crap. An empty rental lot can be used to offset taxes from a more profitable location of the same owner - you just use virtual or real expenses such as mortgage payments.
The ultra rich are, once again, externalizing costs to society (because a run-down mall is a blight that takes down the value of everything around it) while taking and gobbling their profits.
The other alternative is that instead of niche specialty dealerships, you got national or even international chains moving in, that sell cheap-ass clothes from Bangladesh or other sweatshops in masses.
Retail is not dieing. Spetiality retail is dieing though.
Specialty retail is what I generally buy from brick and mortar as it's almost always cheaper in-store compared to what I find online.
IF you can find the store at all maybe. Your city might not even have one store depending on the specialty.
The landlords do not care what type of tenants are renting (for the most part). They just rent to a new retail customer that thinks they can survive. I'm sure there's a 6 degrees to Spirit Halloween to compete with Bacon.
I have the fondest teenage memories waiting for Halo midnight releases.
For Halo 3 we had LAN parties in the back of pick-up trucks after rushing down to GameCrazy (Hollywood Video's game store chain which was attached on the side) after middle school in Canyon Park.
Halo Reach was the Lynnwood GameStop after a friend begged his parents to let him stay out late that night.
So many friends and memories. I miss those energetic meet-ups!
Sad to see that the last two in Orlando are dead now too.
I miss Radio Shack, particularly when they were a bit more "component based". As a general electronics store, they were almost always strictly worse than any of the big box stores, but if you needed something like a resistor or individual LEDs, it was great to be able to be able to drive over there and find something. I live in NYC now, and fortunately we still have Micro Center which is still fun, though I do worry that it might go the way of Fry's Electronics soon enough.
I understand it, it's really hard to compete with Amazon in today's environment, and I'm not judging anyone for using Amazon instead of buying from a store, I buy online too, and fundamentally these are for-profit businesses and I don't feel any obligation to give them charity.
Still, seeing Radio Shack and Fry's dying does make me a little sad. When I first moved to Dallas, one of my favorite things to do on the weekend was go to Fry's, look around the store, and buy a cheap DVD of some anime that I hadn't heard of.
I remember a story I heard about Microcenter. It was started in my hometown (Columbus, OH) by a Radio Shack store manager. When PCs were coming out, the store manager kept putting those PCs up at the front of the store. The district manager would come back and make him put it in the back. This went on for a bit until the store manager quit, took his best sales guy, and opened up Microcenter at the mall next door, selling PCs. They eventually took over the entire mall, before moving to another part of town, and then expanding to other towns. By the time Radio Shack figured out where things were going, things were too late.
I didn't know this years later, watching Young Sheldon ... that Incredible Universe was Tandy's attempt to get into the consumer electronics when Radio Shack's profit started falling, and that Tandy has a whole (very profitable) leather company. My SCA friends tend to know a lot more about Tandy Leather than they do about Radio Shack.
Fry's Electronics closed here in the west part of Phoenix, several years ago. Their shelves were starting to get bare and were selling things from consignment. It took a while for them to die, and I finally found out why: they were having trouble getting credit to buy inventory.
> Fry's Electronics closed here in the west part of Phoenix, several years ago. Their shelves were starting to get bare and were selling things from consignment. It took a while for them to die, and I finally found out why: they were having trouble getting credit to buy inventory.
I was going to do some of my 2019 Christmas shopping at the one and only Fry's in the Chicago area, but I walked inside and it looked like a bomb had gone off. Nothing was organized, lots of empty shelves, the cafe was closed, and I got a serious case of the heebie-jeebies and hightailed it out of there.
Google Street View shows it as it was in August 2019. As far as I know, the building is empty now.
And then there was TigerDirect, but that's a separate rant. I used to have three major computer shops within driving distance, but it's down to one now with MicroCenter.
> the store manager kept putting those PCs up at the front of the store. The district manager would come back and make him put it in the back
It's interesting and sad that RadioShack somehow managed to succeed and fail at least twice in computing, first in the 8-bit microcomputer era and second in the Tandy PC era. It seems like they failed in the build-your-own-cheap-PC era as well.
> Fry's Electronics closed here in the west part of Phoenix, several years ago. Their shelves were starting to get bare and were selling things from consignment. It took a while for them to die, and I finally found out why: they were having trouble getting credit to buy inventory.
In 2019, I was in San Jose for a business trip, and I was excited that there was a Fry's Electronics within walking distance of my hotel, so after work one day I walked over to it.
It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. I went in there, and it was almost completely empty. Very few workers, most of the shelves had absolutely nothing on them, there were barely any workers. The walls that usually had a bunch of TVs were completely bare, they managed to still have a full shelf of PlayStation Classics, and like one little basket of USB cables.
I genuinely thought they might have forgotten to lock the front door after closing, and that I was accidentally trespassing, but nope: there was a person behind the register and I was able to buy a flash drive.
For what I can only assume are obscure financial reasons, Fry's kept their stores open for like a year after they'd effectively gone out of business.
Yeah that's what I figured, but it was really really weird when I was there. It is so odd to go to a giant decorated store in a nearly empty state. I don't think Backrooms was really a meme at that point, but that's the sort of vibe it gave me.
> I live in NYC now, and fortunately we still have Micro Center which is still fun, though I do worry that it might go the way of Fry's Electronics soon enough.
When Fry's died during (not because of) the pandemic, basically half the comments on articles were "oh no, what about Micro Center?" to which the immediate response was invariably "they're all completely packed" (partially due to the pandemic meaning everyone wanted better computer gear for WFH). During the height of the GPU shortage, it was often said that your best chance of getting a GPU was going to the nearest Micro Center. On all of my more recent trips, Micro Center has seemed to do pretty strong business.
Somehow, Micro Center does seem to have found a strong niche that makes it survive as a brick-and-mortar store in an increasingly online store (hell, Micro Center's website is pretty notorious for looking like a 90's webstore). Part of that is probably knowledgeable salespeople (something Fry's was known for lacking). And I think there's also a savvy psychological rationale behind its expansion policy--its stores always come across as just a bit too small, and its locations too few, but the flip side is that you don't have cavernous spaces you need to fill (like Fry's did).
The Microcenter near me always seems busy. There's always a steady flow of kids(I see more girls than boys interestingly) with a cart full of PC parts and a fat grin.
I always check there first when I need some kit. I much rather drive over and get what I need same-day. Routers, adapters, deoxit, solder, PC parts, generic flash drives in bins at the checkout like they're candy.
Their electronics section leaves something to be desired, but where else can I just grab a Pi zero w to-go for 10 bucks or some random sensor I've been meaning to play with to add on to whatever I was already buying. I cant even be mad at the markup because it's so valuable to have same-day.
That and the old-school sticker from the salesmen for commission means they tend to actually be nerds looking to help and I'm always happy to slap the sticker on whatever I'm buying to give them a piece.
If you have a Microcenter in your neighborhood, give them some business. I can only describe the feeling like you're a kid walking into Toys R Us again.
Can confirm. Finally got the GPU for my new PC in 2020 by (first) showing up at Microcenter on days when deliveries were expected, then eventually joining a discord where people posted daily updates when stock actually showed up (once I got tired of driving a half hour there and back a few times).
In the end, a helpful discord member was already at the store, purchased a GPU for me, and held it until I could get there and buy it off him. Due to the shortage there was no risk of him stuck holding the "bag" but it was a huge favor from my end. Wasn't scalping but I still threw in an extra $20 just for helping out.
> I live in NYC now, and fortunately we still have Micro Center which is still fun, though I do worry that it might go the way of Fry's Electronics soon enough.
Thank god for Micro Center. Bought a cheap first Gen Threadripper and a board for it, turns out the board needed a firmware update to get the CPU working. Called the Flushing Micro Center, asked if they could help me and They said "Sure thing! bring the CPU and board over, no cooler needed." Dropped it off and they called me back in three hours, board was ready. Amazon can't do that.
I also love spending a bit of time walking the aisles and always stop by the clearance table to scrounge for cheap fun stuff.
Its not just Amazon. Amazon's electronics catalog isn't even that great compared online retailers like Mouser, DigiKey and NewEgg for PC parts.
Yeah. I rarely, if ever, buy electronics components on Amazon. It's almost exclusively Mouser for me.
It has the added advantage that I can export the order lists as XML, to keep a little bit of an inventory. I think every electronics hobbyist knows how you tend to very quickly forget what components that you have on hand, from the lowest resistor to entire FPGA dev boards.
The good news is Microcenter seems to have found a niche that keeps them relevant. My local branch is always packed with people trying out new mechanical keyboards, buying new computer cases or monitors, and buying hobby electronics kits.
Hopefully tapping into the gamer & hobbyist markets keeps them afloat.
Sometimes you just want a resistor, but when you buy online, you generally have to buy them by the thousand, and then find a place to store the other 999 of them in your house somewhere. There is definitely room for local stores because the cost to ship something very small has a high floor.
I buy single components (usually two or three, to have spares for soldering etc.) that cost a few cents on Mouser all the time?
> I live in NYC now, and fortunately we still have Micro Center which is still fun, though I do worry that it might go the way of Fry's Electronics soon enough.
There are actually five in the metro area: Brooklyn, Queens, NJ, LI, and Yonkers. I live in biking distance of the Brooklyn store and drive past (stop at) the Yonkers one pretty frequently and find they’re both usually quite busy, so hopefully they’ll stick around.
I make a point of trying to buy from them because I value having a place nearby that employs actual purchasing staff so I don’t have to sort through junk and counterfeit products, and because I like having a place where I can deal in person, have things same day, return without shipping etc.
I have only been to the one in Brooklyn, and yeah usually there's a fair number of people in there.
It's kind of a pain in the ass for me to get there from my house by train, and I don't have a car, but I always make a point to visit there when I'm in the area (usually because I need to go to Lowes and/or Harbor Freight).
I agree that it's nice to not have to worry about counterfeits, and it's nice to be able to buy a microcontroller or a Raspberry Pi or something without have to wait for shipping.
> I understand it, it's really hard to compete with Amazon in today's environment, and I'm not judging anyone for using Amazon instead of buying from a store
I am. :-)
> I buy online too, and fundamentally these are for-profit businesses and I don't feel any obligation to give them charity.
You can also judge people for prioritizing profit over all else.
Even from a purely utilitarian-calculus perspective, it's a bit strange to me when people say "I wish we had X" but then "but I understand people need to make money". Like, if you wish you had X, then X has utility to you. Now, it may be that the amount you would pay for X is less than what was needed for X to survive, but that's not necessarily implied by the mere fact that X has to make money.
And that's leaving out all the other positive and negative utilities that come from these various choices. Like living in a town where you can go to a place and have interactions with people, or even just browse unfamiliar and interesting products, instead of just a big warehouse.
There isn't any reason not to judge people for doing things that you think make the world worse.
I'm not 100% sure what you're getting at.
I didn't mind paying a bit more for stuff at Fry's because it was directly available and I liked walking around the store, but I certainly had no plans of buying a product I wasn't already going to buy just to patronize Fry's. These stores, while I do like them, are not charities. I don't want to needlessly give them money for stuff if I don't want it. I am not going to directly donate to them either.
I agree that the experience does have some amount of value if I am reminiscing about these things, but fundamentally what gives me (and I suspect most people) the most value is simply lower prices, and I think these things are at odds.
Big fun stores like Fry's have overhead, and they have to pay for that overhead somehow, meaning that it is rolled into the prices. Amazon is more boring, leading to lower prices.
My point is essentially that there are enormous higher-order effects that are totally ignored by just focusing on the price of individual consumer transactions, and many of those higher-order effects are detrimental to our society.
Isn't this kind of a privileged perspective though? Not so much saying that something is lost, but judging people for shopping on Amazon (which you said in an earlier comment).
It's easy to say something like "there's more to life than prices!!!!!" when you're a yuppie software person on Hacker News making six figures with full benefits, but a large percentage (most?) of the population isn't as fortunate. Something being five percent cheaper can be a meaningful difference to those people, and I certainly cannot blame someone in that situation for prioritizing their finances over some nebulous completely undefined and arbitrary "greater good" that you seem to be hinting at.
Now, I am one of those software people who (generally) makes plenty of money, so you could reasonably judge me for shopping on Amazon and focusing primarily on prices. I don't know what to tell you; even if I make plenty of money, it's not infinite money, I still have to prioritize how it's spent, and again I just don't feel the need to try and optimize for some undefined greater good.
You're right, and when I say "judging people" I don't mean buying on Amazon instantly means I think you're irredeemably evil, I just mean it's a negative factor in my overall judgment. It can be mitigated by other things, in particular whether the person thinks critically about their Amazon purchases, and whether they take other mitigating action (e.g., voting for government policies that would punish Amazon and similar monopolistic businesses).
What I'm talking about is at least slightly less nebulous than what you describe. My claim is something like "The more that people buy from Amazon today, the lower the expected quality of your own life in 25 years." It's similar to other negative externalities like climate change. I'm not saying someone is satan incarnate for driving their gas car to work. But the less they realize that there are problems with that and the less they take action where possible to mitigate them, the more dubious I'll be about them.
(Incidentally, I'm not "one of those software people who makes plenty of money". I make in the mid five figures with no benefits, so I'm not arguing from quite as privileged a perspective as the one you mention. But my position is still more privileged than many, many other people who can't order from Amazon at all because, for instance, they have no credit card or fixed address. And those people are also harmed by the growth of Amazon as it gradually reduces their options for buying things in person.)
> I'm not judging anyone for using Amazon instead of buying from a store
Given Amazon's labor practices, maybe you should be.
What distinguishes how Amazon treats their employees from any other logistics/retail employer?
Union busting? Piss bottles? Intrusive tracking with zero tolerance for shortfalls? Poor safety? Low pay?
That's rampant everywhere.
There are exceptions, but they make the rule and the exceptions only apply to direct employees so you have to dig, take time, do research, verify certifications/audits, spend more money, and wait longer, to truly avoid abusive companies.
Shopping at unionized Costco doesn't count for shit. That gallon of ketchup you bought was made by someone pissing in a bottle on a dangerous production line.
Please note: I'm not saying it's right. It is not right.
What I'm saying is that people SEEM to be saying "Amazon sucks brah <they clap their hands together like they're knocking dust off> I don't use 'em" and then they're shopping at Target, where the distribution centers and stores are filled with poorly-paid workers pissing in bottles in between safety stand downs because an unsupervised and poorly-trained worker died crushed between a manlift and a wall: https://www.sungazette.com/uncategorized/2024/11/muncy-targe...
If anyone wants to compete in the smug olympics, I'm the unholy lovechild of Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps when it comes to only buying union-made/public benefit corporation/domestic/local products.
Simultaneously, I recognize that not everyone makes as much as I do so Walmart or Amazon may be their only option.
I’m always amused about people criticizing Amazon’s labor practices since they are hiring people directly and based in the US and don’t share the same concern about labor conditions in China where all of manufacturing happens and where RadioShack got its products
> and don’t share the same concern about labor conditions in China where all of manufacturing happens and where RadioShack got its products
[Citation needed]
We can care about both things.
So exactly how buying from Radio Shack better than Amazon as far as labor practices downstream from their supply chain?
How many people working in China would find it a dream to work in an Amazon warehouse? I know about Amazon practices second hand from my step son who has both worked in an Amazon warehouse and as a driver.
There have been plenty of stories about small towns having labor shortages and having to increase wages to compete against Amazon warehouse pay because people would rather work there than at a fast food store, daycare, etc.
So because we can't fix every problem, let's do nothing instead. Got it.
Exactly what problem is being “fixed” by being concerned about Amazon workers and not mentioning the Chinese workers? Amazon pays its warehouse workers and drivers $20+ an hour. Radio Shack paid minimum wage + a 1-3% commission and a $5 spiff for signing customers up for a needless warranty. I mentioned earlier that I worked at RS back in the day.
Here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43696747
That's where you didn't share the concern.
I mean, no not exactly.
Amazon is just one of the nails in the coffin, and if it didn't exist there are still 50 others holding it shut.
We've seen most retail stores fail to convert from a physical to mixed physical+online format.
The number of items a successful electronics store needs is huge. The small mall format wasn't going to work.
> We've seen most retail stores fail to convert from a physical to mixed physical+online format.
For a while, people were sure Barnes and Noble was doomed, but recently they've done a big turnaround, even opening new stores. Anecdotally, the ones I've been to in recent years do seem nicer and more attractive than previously. Maybe there's a lesson in how they were able to stay alive.
B&N hired James Daunt, former CEO of UK's successful Waterstones book stores. He de-corporatised the company, ripping out central control and management-by-metrics and giving managers and talented staff in each store the chance to build a more personal and local experience.
It helps that books have become Veblen lifestyle collectibles for (mostly) younger women, and there are entire subcultures on social media dedicated to promoting the lifestyle.
If anyone is curious, there are definitely a few stores left with the RadioShack brand, though most if not all of them are independent of any centralized organization: https://www.radioshack.com/locations
The ones I’ve seen sell mostly phones and toys now. They might have a very small selection of components in a corner.
Phones are radios, it’s right there in the name of the store.
There are also RadioShack stores in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua
https://www.radioshackla.com/guatemala/storepickup/
I've finally lived long enough to both remember when Radio Shack was mocked as low-quality, staffed by teens who knew nothing... and now to watch that same company given a hagiography.
"It was the place to go if you needed..." sounds a lot better than, "It was often the only game in town, and woeful at that," I guess. I still remember them trying to sell Monster cables for amounts of money that were downright comical.
RatShack was the finest purveyor of overpriced electronic components and electronic repair tools and supplies, electronics learning kits, Tandy computers, RC cars, and ham/CB radio gear. As a kid, it was the only such electronics shop withing bicycling distance, although was located in a ugly shopping mall that no one went to pre-internet. An Australian holding company later bought the mall and refurbished it with exterior-facing shops so that it became both a shopping mall and a very long strip mall on the same property.
They were always terrible, but I have fond pre-teen memories of saving up my allowance to buy components off the pegboard in the back and then failing to make anything that worked with them.
I also have fond memories of being young, but when I really stop and think about it, the key ingredient was *being young*.
I have plenty of unpleasant memories of being young. They don't involve RadioShack though.
The only things worthwhile to get at RadioShack were electronics project components, breadboards, soldering equipment, circuit board etching stuff and so on. Once they threw that stuff under the bus in order to sell cell phones and $9 toys, the place went downhill fast.
I have fond memories of the manager letting me play with the computers for hours. Our Radio Shack was in the mall and I'd drop in and start writing programs on the TRS-80 display models while my parents were shopping.
The manager not only didn't kick me out (like the manager of the bookstore always did if I looked at a book for more than five minutes), he'd come over and teach me some things when he wasn't busy.
That sounds like a great example of the difference between people who love their job and see it as an opportunity to meet interesting people, and someone who hates their job and just grudgingly draws a paycheck.
Those were the days
"You've got questions, we've got blank stares." 1994-1995 alumnus
I hated that an aux cable cost $30 (back when $30 was $50).
I also loved that I knew exactly where to go to get an aux cable, or any other random component I might need.
Weird to see my home county pop up on HN. As soon as I saw RadioShack + Maryland I immediately pictured exactly where this was on rt 4. I have a distinct memory of going to this very store to buy a PS2 internet adapter and an ethernet cable back in the early 2000s. It was also my go to for anything electronics related.
It was always nice to visit back home (including this year) and see that this store was still around. It will certainly be missed :(
> Weird to see my home county pop up on HN
I second this sentiment. It is sorta bizarre, there is not really a tech scene in the area except for a few niche roles in support of Pax River Naval Base (I'm also operating my SaaS down here https://weatherthetrip.com/download :peace_sign:). I remember visiting this store back in the 2000's and was surprised when I saw it still in business a few months back.
They will be missed. I still have my multimeter, solder, and alarm clock from there. I wish home hardware stores had a component cabinet like RS did, always good for an impulse buy project. Still remember a few that I did out of make magazine with their parts.
I smile whenever I see the RadioShack logo on my solder and soldering iron.
Yeah I can imagine.
When I was young I would go to the electronics store and give them a whole list of components I needed for a project. 2 resistors of 5 cents each, some capacitors, etc. The guys would spend 20 minutes scurrying up all the stuff, coming back to say they didn't have 220 ohm, would 2x 100 ohm do? Stuff like that. They spend half an hour on me for a total bill of 10 bucks. I don't know how that was sustainable then but it sure as hell isn't now.
Now I just buy components in bulk. Need a resistor? I just buy 100 of them. Though I don't really tend to use individual components so much anymore. ESP modules can replace a lot and they cost peanuts. If I need something complex I just design a PCB and send it to a PCB manufacturer in China and get 10 of them.
We still have an independent shop like this here in my city in Spain but another one closed up shop during the pandemic. I don't know how long this one will continue. It's a pain. But on the other hand they often don't have what I need so I tend to order online a lot too. But for tools it's nice to look at them in real life before buying them, or to be able to go there if I need something right now.
I'm within months of my 60's, have been a developer since 1984, and Radio Shack is where it started. My family moved when I was 1/2 way through high school, of course in the Summer. So I had no network of friends, and wandered into a Radio Shack with the ubiquitous TRS-80 on display. Over the course of the summer, the 1 employee there and I became friends enough to where he'd boot up the BASIC interpreter, and let me type in programs.
That was my start. Went on to consume as much info as I could; lots of it from BYTE magazine, took all the programming classes I was allowed in my final 2 years of high school, continued to get a CS degree, and have been programming ever since.
But RS was the genesis.
My only retail job ever was at Radioshack back in 2009, I lasted about 2 months before landing an office IT job..
It was barely a shell of its former self then.. the only training I remember was being told to upsell batteries with every transaction..
I didn't make it long enough to be trained on selling cell phone plans which was the only way to make commission...
I don't understand the mindset of someone willing to be sold a cellphone plan during a random radioshack visit enough to work with them =p
Black Friday was during my short time there, I wasnt overly familiar with our inventory or locations of things, and fielding questions like "What gift should I get my grandson?"
I was anxious pretty much every minute that I worked there. May I never experience retail again.
Oh yeah, it was awful by then. At my store you made essentially minimum wage plus a sort of commission for addons/upsales (as long as they were over a certain percentage of your total sales) and flat bonuses for new cell contracts, phone/accessory sales.
Theoretically it could add up to a passable paycheck for retail, but they had it set up so that only a few senior staff ever got enough hours/good shifts where you could conceivably hit the addon percentages needed to qualify for commissions. So the only way to make any money was to sell cell plans, phones, and accessories. The whole store was totally focused on hawking cell plans.
Then we had to go to monthly meetings an hour out of town on our own dime. That's where they talked at us about the company and how cool and great it was. Such a shitty place to work. IIRC there was a dedicated web forum called "RadioShackSucks" or something like that where staff complained to each other.
Also anecdotal, but it seems that RadioShack in that era was a particularly awful place to work. I applied around that time (might have been that exact year, or else it was 07-08). I was weeded out by the online personality test. My dad was friends with the store manager and he said "your son doesn't really have what we're looking for". Mind you, this would have been my 3rd or 4th retail job by that point, and I had references. I knew they did commission sales, and I had no experience in that, but I also wasn't the kind of person to upsell crap the customer didn't need. I'm glad I didn't get the job.
My first job was also at RadioShack but back in 1995. We were all focused on batteries, adapters and consumer electronics. and cell phones were starting to be a big deal as carriers started subsidizing phones.
I remember the "Battery Club" you could get one free battery a month I think. They gave you a little card and would punch a hole in it for every battery you got. My dad would stop in every month to get his free battery. I don't recall if any purchase was required but I don't think so.
In the 1960's, my brother and I would walk about three miles (over Red Mountain in Birmingham AL) to the closest Radio Shack. We would each get a free battery using our cards and usually we didn't buy anything. Eventually we became pretty good customers.
It wasn't; at least for me as a teenager in the 80's. Could have been a per-store policy, but the one in the Lockport suburb of Chicago and the one in the Winter Garden suburb of Orlando didn't.
2009 is around the last time that I remember going into a Radio Shack, with the intention of buying a Nintendo DS and a game. I watched the guy go to the back to get a baggie containing the system, manual, accessories, etc, and stuff it into the box. He went back looking for the game (which was similarly absent from the case, along with the manual), came out empty handed.
"Well, couldn't find the game. So just the system?"
"Umm...no. I'll just buy the system down the street, since I'm going to have to go there to buy a game anyhow."
I have great memories of buying electronic components, kits to work on with my grandfather, and such. They were pretty sad by the end though. No decent kits, no little drawers of components.
Does anyone have any recommendations for niche physical shops that are still open in the Bay Area that are Radio Shack esque, even if small?
If you mean components, I think jameco and anchor electronics are still open. Unfortunately Halted and Weird Stuff are gone.
Anchor is the only one left.
Fond memories rifling through HSC back in my Cisco days :(
American Science and Surplus .. I think … still exists in Chicago.
Urban Ore in Berkeley. It's a salvage shop with an electronics area. Scored some vintage Tek scopes there.
Oh! I have been there but I was only focused on house / remodeling type stuff, thanks for the recommendation!
There is also Electronics Plus in San Rafael. It is an old school electronics parts store, complete with the ability to sell you cable by the foot.
It's too bad that Radio Shack misunderstood the threat posed by Amazon. To get a bit ahead of myself, Best Buy did NOT misunderstand the threat, and they're still around. Anyway, Radio Shack went all-in on impulse buys. They focused on putting stores in shopping malls near entrances/exits, and filled their store window with silly gadgets like plasma balls and robots. They also tried to become a cellphone store, for some reason. Best Buy survived by picking the worst locations. In industrial parks, near highways, land nobody else wanted. They properly realized that Amazon's weakness was their two-day shipping. If you need something right now, you're willing to drive 30min-1hr to get it.
A closer competitor to Radio Shack was Fry's Electronics, which also located their stores on non-prime real estate, but their infamously bad customer service [1], embezzlement losses, and poor inventory choices doomed them.
[1] - shout out to the Fry's employee at the Freemont location who got in a huffy fit when I decided that the price for an oscilloscope probe was too high, and tried to argue with me and say he couldn't remove the item when I wouldn't insert my card to pay for it. Really A+ attitude there bud.
Yup. Impressive in the world where raspberry pis and arduinos and 3D printing are crazy popular they abandoned their roots in favor of cordless telephones and TV. Horrible strategic decisions for a decade will do that…
> She said that since she didn’t go through training, Edward’s father said she couldn’t officially be a repair tech. But through the years, she honed her skills.
> Before he passed away, she said he was incredibly impressed with her growth.
> “Last year, (Michael King) informed me, ‘I can’t give you the title because you didn’t go to college, but you do a heck of a good job repairing things and fixing it and taking care of people,’” Henning said.
All that hard work and nothing but a verbal compliment, no wonder no one in retail cares anymore.
There's something of a parallel history for Radioshack up here in Canada.
Radioshack's were everywhere once upon a time. As things became less repairable and less repaired, the components racks gradually shrank and the stores pivoted to selling a variety of other electronic junk: video games, cell phones, toys, etc.. Their prices were consistently higher than the competition and what they stocked was frequently of low quality.
In the early 2000's the Canadian franchises were bought out, and re-branded as "The Source". I asked a store manager why they'd turned their back on such a well recognized brand for "The Source", and he told me that the Radioshack brand was indeed well known, but associated with junk and high prices. I couldn't argue with that. They kept selling the same stuff at the same prices and quickly earned the same reputation Radioshack had. By this point the components racks were long gone and they were no longer even a good place to find adapters, cables, etc.. Somehow, "The Source" stores continued to persist.
Last year, they closed a significant chunk of their stores and re-branded again as "Best Buy Express". I haven't bothered to go into one since this happened but, if they're selling Best Buy's stock at Best Buy prices, it should be a distinct improvement despite the loss of identity.
Back when Radioshack re-branded to "The Source" I felt like some piece of my childhood had been lost, but Radioshack had already ceased to be Radioshack by that point, in Canada at least. "The Source" was always one of the stores you just walked past. I doubt anyone will miss them.
"The Last RadioShack In Maryland" is my new favorite Tom Waits song
Followed closely by "The Breadboard Has Been Drinking"
What’s he ProtoTyping in theeerreee? What the hell is he prototyping in there?
I remember fondly the talks I had with strangers about their hobbies and learning about technology while I was employed there. I remember seeing this specific stores sales numbers and thinking to myself that their daily sales were close to our monthly. Our store closed shortly after.
So sad. They had a huge chance to be the center of the "maker world", but instead they had some terrible leadership that was trying to make the small chains compete with Best Buy.
If the chain simply focused on it's hobbyist roots, got into 3d printing, and tried to be a physical store for something like Adafruit, partnered with like Mark Rober or something, maybe pick up some other esoteric hobbies, they'd be thriving.
Lots of memories from my own childhood and my kids'. My dad took me on my first visit to a Detroit-area store in the mid-60's. Used to love just walking around and checking out the shelves. Sort of a Fry's vibe but there was one in nearly every decent-sized town. The oldest piece of running tech currently in my house is a 20 year-old Realistic 4-port gigabit switch that connects my office machines to the router in the family room :).
It should be possible without too much searching to find the Onion headline "Radio Shack CEO Admits He Has No Idea What the Hell His Business Model Is."
Interesting that it should have lasted so long in Maryland, and that the last store should be in Prince Frederick (a town I never heard of). It seems to me that thirty years ago I spent a lot of time at a Wheaton, Maryland, Radio Shack
The truest form of hacking was when you could fuck with public utilities using parts you got at Radio Shack. I wish I still had my DTMF dialer, it was so cool. Maybe kids today are buying parts to build GSM base stations. Maybe they'll bring back pirate radio, once all the analog radio bands have been replaced with digital. I just hope they get to experience that thrill and wonder at the power that hidden knowledge brings.
The last one in my area shut down in 2014/2015. I stopped by and bought several large shopping bags worth of components, all for around $75. Now, I don't think there's anywhere locally to buy electronic components, except for industrial capacitors and things like that at trade supply shops.
Yes, Radio Shack was often the only place you could find the odd resistor, vacuum tube (for an audiophile-grade amp, what else?), or coax signal splitter. But they always asked for your phone number on checkout -- why? It's not like they ever called you or anything (thankfully).
Obviously so they could track your purchases. Thankfully, I learned a valuable lesson as a kid when my parents told them "None of your business."
Too bad this question has become so commonplace that few people seem to challenge it anymore.
In NYC, even if you walk in to a restaurant with open tables, they'll often insist on taking your number before you can be seated. It goes through a platform called Resy.
And then (at least around here) they often make you scan a QR code in order to see the menu. It's often not a direct link to the menu, but rather a third party site or a link shortener that tracks traffic for marketing data.
Oh shit - I never thought about the privacy ramifications about the death of paper menus.
I get that it's more eco friendly, and that it allows each dish to have more space for a photo and detailed description; but I hate the experience of staring at my phone to try to pick a meal.
Unless they're going to text me when my table is ready, I give them my first phone # that I grew up with.
It happened to me last week at a small Thai restaurant in Las Vegas.
Yes, but they asked even if you were paying with a credit card! I guess it was "separate systems."
The local Hobbytowns had an aisle of RadioShack branded components- really basic stuff you might use for an elementary school science fair. Of course one of the stores closed last year, and the other is 90% R/C cars, so even that couldn't last.
Good. If I can get there this weekend I can get my last free battery from the battery club.
A number of years ago, maybe six or seven, I was staying at a cabin in the middle of nowhere northern Minnesota. Well over an hours drive away from any major town or retailer.
My intentions were to work from the cabin for the week in peace and quiet. Have some nice secluded time to relax. The rub was that the WiFi password simply didn't work. The owner of the cabin was being no help, said the password on the note was correct and I could otherwise plug my laptop in to Ethernet directly. My MacBook had no Ethernet port.
In the small nearby town there was a RadioShack, and inside I find a single make of USB Ethernet adapter. I buy it, and take it back to the cabin. It doesn't work with my MacBook. Activity lights don't come on. I don't know if it was a driver issue or what. It came with a CD, but that's no help on a relatively recent MacBook.
I needed to get work done, and in pure frustration end up resetting the firmware on the wireless router using the button on the back and reconfiguring it with their hard wired Xbox One's built in browser. This infuriated the owner of the cabin as it knocked out their temperature and water sensors, which I ended up setting back up for them. I was however able to get work done. Probably not what I should have done but it worked.
On my way out of town, I swung back by the RadioShack to return the Ethernet adapter. I explain to the guy behind the counter that it had not worked with my MacBook and the guy proceeds to argue with me that it's Mac compatible and accuses me of buying it, using it, and returning it. I have to argue with the guy for what seemed like several minutes, and recounted him the story of resetting the WiFi. I've never had such a hostile return process in all my life.
Anyway, that's the last time I ever visited a RadioShack.
I found a RadioShack open in Mexico City last week, along with Sears and Woolworths. I thought they were all gone too.
What are the reasons for decline? Online commerce? Or shift in hacker culture?
- The first thing the great Internet consumed in the 90's (and earlier, really) was technical occupations and hobbies - people affiliated with those were likely amongst the first to spend a lot of time online and want to do things online like buy stuff.
- Anything small and where part numbers matter greatly is going to have advantages when sold and bought online. You'll be able to type in a part number and get a straight answer on cost and availability. This can also happen if a store has a good customer service representative but that stopped being a thing somewhere between 9/11 and the GFC of 2008 - also around the time Walmart had to raise it's starting wage to $10/hr. just to get people in the door.
- Less people are repairing electronics and less electronics are repairable. The way consumer electronics are built are different now than say in the 80's or 90's - components are often surface mount and often things are just a CPU/MCU+RAM+flash on a board with a bit of surrounding surface mount stuff.
- A lot of what used to be consumer electronics exists on everyone's smartphones. No more clock radios, walkmans, boomboxes, tape decks, VCRs, DVD/CD players, landline phones, etc. I would bet Bluetooth speakers have essentially replaced home stereos for many. One thing Radio Shack did sell was media and all forms of converter cables for home electronics and there just isn't a great need for that anymore with how everyone interacts with media now. Desktop PCs are niche now, non-gamer non-business laptops are disposable. Many just use their ISP router for WiFi. Home assistant stuff had to take on a friendlier, non-hacker image to gain acceptance.
> A lot of what used to be consumer electronics exists on everyone's smartphones. No more clock radios, walkmans, boomboxes, tape decks, VCRs, DVD/CD players, landline phones, etc. I would bet Bluetooth speakers have essentially replaced home stereos for many.
I still seem to use a lot of electronics: bluetooth and wired speakers, headphones and earphones, power strips and adapters, USB cables and gadgets, SSD enclosures, phone accessories, game systems, all sorts of computers, tablet/e-reader, monitors for computing/gaming/video, musical instruments and amplifiers, functional and decorative lighting, chargers for everything, networking/WiFi stuff, automatic cookers, etc. RadioShack and Fry's used to sell those things.
It's a shame that the maker/DIY electronics revival turned out to have limited appeal, because I'd like to visit a store that had Raspberry Pi and other microcontroller boards, components for real-world interfaces and robotics, 3D printers and supplies, etc.
In addition to the electronics components aisles at Fry's, I miss their PC component section. And their convenient return policy. I'm surprised that there aren't more shops for PC customization. I also wish there were a shop where you could put together your own custom mechanical keyboard, picking out switches, keycaps, etc.
Expensive mall based rents in general and large amounts of company debt.
Which falls apart when you have competitive online shopping.
Which falls apart further when you buy a giant bag of what you need online cheaper.
Selling one transistor for $1.99 when Aliexpress will sell you 100 for $1.02 is a big part of it.
I was under the impression that RadioShack went bankrupt a few years back? Were the existing stores just "squatting" on the name?
Sometimes these kinds of things escape my notice, but I recall RadioShack because the minute I heard they were shutting down, I hopped in the car to get to the one nearest me and loaded up two shopping bags of electronics components, switches, banana jacks, oddball high-wattage resistors, etc. Because it's RadioShack, even at 75% off the prices were only "meh" but it's all stuff I was more or less guaranteed to use eventually in projects or repairs.
Speaking of, I really hate buying one-off components from Amazon. I needed a panel-mount BNC jack the other day and literally the best option was $7 for 10 of them. So effectively I paid $7 for one (which is way too much) and now I have 9 that will be sold for pennies at my estate sale a few decades from now.
And now the tariffs are basically going to shut down my usage of AliExpress for bulk orders of cheap components, I'm pretty sure I'm just going to end up dropping electronics as a hobby altogether in the long run.
> I hopped in the car to get to the one nearest me and loaded up two shopping bags of electronics components, switches, banana jacks, oddball high-wattage resistors, etc.
The real bargains were the component cabinets themselves. Those big commercial chest of drawers retail for thousands of dollars. My co-worker bought the entire aisle of drawers after they were empty of components for I think a hundred bucks. Organized his entire basement shop into them.
I tried to get those too, but they were already marked as "sold" by the time I got there. :(
Bummer
RIP Tandy
> She said that since she didn’t go through training, Edward’s father said she couldn’t officially be a repair tech. But through the years, she honed her skills.
> Before he passed away, she said he was incredibly impressed with her growth.
> “Last year, (Michael King) informed me, ‘I can’t give you the title because you didn’t go to college, but you do a heck of a good job repairing things and fixing it and taking care of people,’” Henning said.
Maybe the writers ended the piece like they did because they wanted the "good job repairing things and fixing it and taking care of people" note.
But I also heard echoes of systemic sexism or classism.
And also, really, someone being snubbed by Radio Shack, of all things?
Radio Shack was where kids, and anyone else without credentials, could go and get the Forrest Mims electronics book, and some tools and parts, and... just do things.
Classist gatekeeping by affluent Stanford bros at Google is one thing, because they've always been in an echo chamber. But a Radio Shack franchise should've known better.
Nothing you mentioned shows evidence of sexism.
Forrest mims, now that's a blast from the past. I've gotta see if I still have that book