[TriLUG] Radio Shack: was Old Dog In Need of New Trick - Digital TV Recording

[Pete Soper]

On 02/11/2014 08:45 PM, David Burton wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 7:12 PM, Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com>wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 10 Feb 2014 11:53:10 -0500 Bill Farrow <bill at arrowsreach.com>
>> wrote:
>> ...
>>> Opening a retail store to sell electronics components in this area
>>> would be very risky financially. Sure, there is demand from the local
>>> makers and do-it-yourself-ers, but you would have to charge a lot more
>>> than the mail order places to cover rent and payroll. You would need
>>> to carry a large amount of stock, some of which won't turn over for
>>> very quickly at all.
>>>
>>> How would you structure this type of business to make it profitable ?
>> Big challenge. Not easy. For starters, you'd need to become nationwide
>> like All Electronics, via a descent website.
>
>
> I can't imagine that you could make a viable standalone retail B&M
> storefront business selling $1 parts which are widely available on-line for
> 1/2 the price or less. But it might work as a sideline to an existing
> business. That's really what Radio Shack does.
>
> It would be a "draw" to pull some customers into the store who wouldn't
> otherwise be there. It wouldn't make much money, directly, but it wouldn't
> take up much floor space, either. It would "share" the existing store
> personnel, and might boost other types of sales.
>
> It might work at a Batteries Plus, Intrex, Hobby Lobby, or Tom's
> Trains<http://www.tomstrainstation.com/>,
I've had a recurring thought for a couple years that if RS bites the 
dust somebody needs to have a business case ready to plop down on the 
owner's desk at Intrex. I think it could be a good fit, but strongly 
agree that this would just be a mechanism for getting folks in the door 
who tend to buy the bigger ticket items they sell. Batteries Plus people 
know virtually nothing about anything and don't seem to have any spare 
shelf space. Hobby Lobby is of course on the back side of the moon for 
most folks on this list unless their store locator is lying. And maybe 
the business case plopper-downer could be the purchasing agent/market 
analyst who does the leg work in return for some kind of 
salary/commission deal such that the cost in terms of expertise to get 
into this game could be minimized.

The basic problem, though, is that folks that go into Radio Shack to buy 
an LED very often want the RS sales person to hold their hand and 
explain the most basic facts. Scott (the guy that manages the Crossroads 
RS, who by the way is absolutely in tune with our desires but hamstrung 
by corporate stupidity, and alas, nearing retirement) knows this stuff 
and has hired kids interested in getting to know it too. I always spent 
a little extra time with those kids to be as friendly and encouraging as 
possible. There have been several situations where they showed genuine 
enthusiasm about some real or hypothetical application. I can't see the 
Intrex folks sharing the desire to learn how to keep somebody from 
buying a slow blow fuse that would allow them to destroy their VOM, let 
alone the Batteries Plus folks. But maybe the hobby train place would be 
a sweet spot? I almost went there once.

Based on talking with Scott, if it weren't for their cell phone business 
RS would have imploded long ago. Cell phones, of all things. But gosh, I 
just remembered that my daughter's Android phone came from that RS 
'cause I watched Scott expertly set up so many phones that a 
subconscious message must have gotten through. And that phone Christmas 
before last probably equals all the component purchases I've made in the 
same period. But I spend $100 at Digikey and Mouser for every $2 at RS. 
(After the umpteenth "UK only stock" episode with Newark I've given up 
on them.)

(For mail order check out Digikey's offer of USPS priority mail 
delivery, which is about half the cost of UPS ground and took just 48 
hours when I used it last week. I'm going to take a UPS vacation for a 
few orders to see if this is consistent.)

-Pete
> or perhaps even at an appliance store or hardware store, especially if the
> owner/franchisee happens to be an electronics buff, himself.
>
> If TechShopRDU<http://makezine.com/2013/04/16/techshop-raleigh-durham-to-close/>hadn't
> failed, that might have been a good match. Does FabLab have a
> permanent location or regular hours?
>
> Dave