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RadioShack has cleaned out its attic, and the treasures are now online to be bid on. As a lifetime tech geek I spend hours in RS stores as a kid, and many more perusing the catalogs. Hell, I still check eBay for vintage RS/Realistic stuff.
I guess the only thing closest to RadioShack for small things like switches and such would be Autozone now. Especially when you need a toggle switch for your potato lamp and don't want to wait 2-4 days for a delivery tractor trailer that might eat it in the ditch.
There are some good online outfits, RS type electronics is going to be mainly mail order from now on, it seems. Fry's for one (or if you live in a big city maybe they have a store you can get to).
Bigger items like TV, Car stereo, home stereo, Crutchfield is still my go-to outfit.
I fondly remember when Radio Shack was the place to buy stereo equipment, CB's and all sorts of electronic bits and you could even build your own computer.
The one near me closed at the end of April. I stocked up on little switches and battery boxes that I use in my model train hobby. I should have bought more because it is going to be a lousy day when I have to buy a $4 switch and then pay $5 to have it shipped.
The writing on the wall for RS was when they stripped half the merchandise out of the place and turned it into a cell phone store.
Sad to see them go. I imagine Sears can't be far behind.
Really? I thought the bad move was trying to pry their way into the cell phone market. What a catastrophe that was!
This, I remember the first time I worked for them it was all about trying to sell extra batteries and accessories, like it is at most stores. Applied at one a couple years ago and pushing the cell phones was the big make it or break it skill, they had a quota of the damn things they had to sell. If you didn't sell enough you got coached repeatedly until they just let you go. I ended up passing on the job, in this day and age where just about everyone already has a cell phone, not a wise move to put all your eggs in the cell phone sales of your store. About a year later that particular store closed down.
I can list 3 things from them that I think were better than any other
1) Pro 51 Scanner (20-308) -- I think this was such a good scanner because IT WASNT MADE BY TANDY!!!
2) GMRS 15 channel radio (19-903) - No other radio did as well as this one or sounded as good.......
3) A 40 channel AM realistic CB I had in the 80s (TRC 422A (21-1503)) - That thing got hot as hell BUT IT DIDNT EVER DRIFT!!!! (Best radio I ever had)
I even hooked a TV antenna up to it one night (MATCH SKY HIGH) and I was shooting skip around the world!! (I was @ my cousins house and didnt have my base antenna there so I used that antenna instead)
I worked there in the 90's and managed a store briefly. We were never pushed to sell cell phones until Sprint PCS (at the time came along). Even then they offered a $15 spiff on each one sold so we sold the hell out of them. Then they took the spiff away and put everyone on some sort of PIP when they stopped selling them.
The end for me came when they took the computers out of my store and told me to sell from the catalog and then counted my sales gains and losses against the prior year when there were computers there.
There were some products we sold that were rock solid. Unfortunately there were more that were complete garbage or grossly overpriced because "we source out to major manufacturers to build to our standards". Sure bud. Come to Radio Shack and spend $399 on the exact same 4 head VCR you can get at Best Buy for $199.
Anymore my memories of working there are that I watched the OJ trial and the Clarence Thomas case there while I worked. Well that and I could close a deal in the middle of the mall smoking a cigarette with the customer.
We wont even get into trying to sell computers at the time with Deskmate.
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