[TriLUG] [more and more OT]: Hobby Parts for Electronics

Stephen Hoffman srhoffman at hofftech.net
Thu Apr 15 11:03:09 EDT 2004


     The reason RadioShack's selection of small electronics and parts has
dwindled over the years is actually simple, MONEY.  As a former
employee (by no means a disgruntled one), I have seen what the markup
on consumer electronics is there.  From a business standpoint,
RadioShack would love nothing more then to wipe out all the parts in
the store taking up valuable shelf space and sell nothing but
cellphones and satellites (the highest profit margin).  Not that
parts don't have an extremely high margin, the SPST momentary switch
someone mentioned retailed for around 2.00 but I assure you it cost
no more then $.10 and probably even closer to $.05.  Not a bad
return, the only thing is you have to sell dozens of them to get the
same return as one cigarette lighter adapter for a cellphone (Retail
$29.99, warehouse $5).  And cellphones; they had a store cost of
maybe $30 and retail for say $99, but the kickback from the provider
(verizon, sprint, alltell) is $200 for every customer they sign, PLUS
they get a percentage of your monthly bill from the provider until
you cancel.  So just one cellphone costs $30 to RS, but they
instantly produce $300 in revenue and a profit of say $250 after you
pay the bills plus you get a few pennys each month from it.
     Sadly, I occasionally neglected a parts customer to make the
cellphone sale (we were commission based), even if I knew right where
the part was, but you were the "ask too many questions" type.
     Matt, don't be fooled, you can still get the 6.5536 MHz crystal, but
no salesman making $5.15/hour is going to drop everything he is doing
to look it up in the commercial catalog for 4.99 (of which he only
gets 6% of).  Don't quote me on this, but I believe you can even
still get mercury switches from said catalog (just raises a bunch of
eyebrows when you do).
     So when Jim calls it "Radio Shaft", I have to agree with
him...somewhere down the line, you're gonna get it from them.

My $.02

Steve




More information about the TriLUG mailing list