RadioShack Messed Up Big Time

[mneary]

if you can offer me a new place to buy perf boards, i would definately be willing to leave radioshack in the dust.

If you can design what you want, and can wait a few weeks (months?), then Futurlec will cheerfully provide them.

 

[psecody]

I hate radioshack in general but the one thats in our town doesn't bug me like all the others do, its probably because I know the owner (only 2 people work there, him and his dad I believe) and he is a really neat guy that has a basic knowledge of electronics so he really can sit and talk about electronics to me and not be bsing me. They don't have much at ours but if they don't have it he tries his best to get it. While I was in there this week picking up some stuff for my power supply an older woman drove up and I expected the usual "I need a cell phone or internet or something related" but no she brought in an old weather radio that quit working and he sat down at his work bench and took it apart found the problem (which ended up being her antenna wires came loose, we had a good laugh at that) and he fixed it for her. Thats service I have come to respect, just the little things like taking the time to see if he could fix her radio. So I shop there whenever I need 2 or 3 parts and don't want to wait. Thats the only radioshack I support though. All the others I have been to are stocked an ran buy kids (I realize they need jobs too but jeez) They're clueless, if they try to ask me if they can help me I'll just start naming off parts and values till they give me that confused weird look, then I smile and reply "I'll get it myself". They just try too hard to help you but then when you take them up on their offer they really cant help you, thats what hacks me off they just bug me. The radioshack in my town the guy pretty much knows I know what I'm looking for and if I need help I'll ask, I like that, he's also one of the only radioshacks that I've been in that actually stocks a wide variety of components. The radioshacks in the malls in Texas don't even stock components anymore, they're just glorified phone stores, its sad. But I still like the radioshack in our town because the main fact that its small and family run, a much nicer atmosphere than any of the others I've been in.

Whew that was a long post, sorry but I'm against the way all the other radioshacks are going.

 

[picbits]

Where abouts in Northamptonshire do you live?

In Wellingborough my friend.

You'll know where that is but a lot of people in the UK have never heard of it (let alone our US buddies).

Sometimes easier to say I come from Silverstone originally - most people know where that is although they tend to think its a massive place because of the racetrack.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

In Wellingborough my friend.

You'll know where that is but a lot of people in the UK have never heard of it (let alone our US buddies).

I know it well!, my younger brother used to live at Wellingborough, on a new estate right next to the train station (he commuted into London). He's since moved to Biddenham near Bedford though (quite a few years back now).

 

[picbits]

I'm over the other side on a 14 year old estate near the Sainsburys as you go in to Wellingborough - small world eh !

 

[CanonMan75]

The reasons are pretty simple (and obvious), the continuous fall in prices of ready made equipment means it's getting less and less viable to make your own. This has resulted in a huge drop in demand for components, which means that there's not enough custom to run a high street shop selling components.

I'll second that. I had experience of this from 'the other side of the counter', I worked for Maplin for a fairly miserable 16 months!

 

[HiTech]

Before I used to mess around with bulbs, switches and buzzers but buying the Forrst Mimms books from Tandy taught me about the really exciting components like transistors, capacitors ect.

Aah yes! I remember those books.... I thoight they were a bit pricey considering their simplicity, but they were handy and fun to read. Every now and then I'll pull one off the bookshelf and thumb through it ... a trip down nostalgia lane.
No one has mentioned the line from Lafayette Electronics. They produced some nice stuff way back. During my teen days, Mom would drop me off at the electronics store while she went grocery shopping nearby. I'd pace up and down the Calectro aisles dreaming of owning many of those parts and wishing for a high-end Lafayette stereo receiver or guitar amp. Then I'd step into the hi-fi listening room and cr@p my drawers with envy as a financially broke kid in dire need to go home with a McIntosh amp, JBL speakers, Thorens turntable and a Revox tape deck. It was a challenge just saving the money to buy a few electronic parts at a weekly allowance of 25¢ !!!! And believe you me, what I bought, I made sure it got put to good use!

 

[Hero999]

just saving the money to buy a few electronic parts at a weekly allowance of 25¢ !!!! And believe you me, what I bought, I made sure it got put to good use!

Tandy were very expensive too, £1.00 for two red LEDs when Maplin were charging 7p for one, 79p for one crappy small signal transistor when Maplin were flogging them for 5p a piece!

In Wellingborough my friend.

You'll know where that is but a lot of people in the UK have never heard of it (let alone our US buddies).

Sometimes easier to say I come from Silverstone originally - most people know where that is although they tend to think its a massive place because of the racetrack.

I've heard or Silverstone and I know it's near Towcester but I wouldn't know how to get to it; I do know how to get to Wellingborough though.

I know it well!, my younger brother used to live at Wellingborough, on a new estate right next to the train station (he commuted into London).

That's quite a trek!

He's since moved to Biddenham near Bedford though (quite a few years back now).

I live in Bromham - just over a mile down the road!

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I live in Bromham - just over a mile down the road!

Not far away then, particularly as Peter lives at the West side of Biddenham, actually on the edge of the golf course - so he gets golf balls cracking his tiles and windows!

 

[picbits]

Tandy were very expensive too, £1.00 for two red LEDs when Maplin were charging 7p for one, 79p for one crappy small signal transistor when Maplin were flogging them for 5p a piece!

I popped in to Maplin not so long ago and there were a couple of guys behind the counter humming and haaing about what on earth they had in front of them. It was a couple of 4.7 ohm 5 watt resistors (or something) - they didn't have a clue what they were so I looked them up in their catalogue for them so I could get served

Then after the third attempt they managed to find me some 470R resistors at the extortionate price of 13p per resistor I normally pay around 1p per resistor for the equivalent.

The old Tandy ones were not far off that price - I remember them at 79p for a pack of 5 which works out at 15.8p per resistor and that was 16 years ago

 

[JohnH]

Aah yes! I remember those books.... I thoight they were a bit pricey considering their simplicity, but they were handy and fun to read. Every now and then I'll pull one off the bookshelf and thumb through it ... a trip down nostalgia lane.

How about those RS Transistor and Tube substitution handbooks.....

 

[Nicksan]

Radio Shack has turned into just another greedy, make money at any cost criminal capitalist venture. I dont shop there anymore and I hope they go bankrupt.

 

[Dr.EM]

I am working in Maplins at the moment. We certainly don't sell many components now, but it is easy to see why. I can't be very cost effective, primarily because of the staff time taken up by it. Someone could buy just £2 worth of parts and it may take 5 minutes of staff time; it isn't good from a business point of view. We are probably the only UK place to sell individual resistors, hence the large margin on them. If you buy 100 (normal minimum quantity) then the price drops to a more reasonable amount (though as far as I can tell someone would have to count them all off ). Same with cable, full reels are half price, otherwise you are paying us to cut it essentially, and cutting 33 metres or whatever can take some time (we don't have a machine to do it). We sell mainly items on promotion, which changes every 4 weeks; it never includes components.

As a side note I spotted some components in the drawers out the back. They had been removed from the catalogue and website a long time ago so weren't going to be noticed by any customers. They were ECF10N16 and ECF10P16 lateral mosfets. I got 9 of each (the entire stock) for 88p total (usual £5 or more each)! No other stores are meant to have any but you can try asking for AY54 and AY56 order codes if your feeling lucky

 

[mechie]

Craplin

Tandy (RadioShack) went first but were not alone!

I am working in Maplins at the moment.

As a side note I spotted some components in the drawers out the back. They had been removed from the catalogue and website a long time ago so weren't going to be noticed by any customers. They were ECF10N16 and ECF10P16 lateral mosfets. I got 9 of each (the entire stock) for 88p total (usual £5 or more each)! No other stores are meant to have any but you can try asking for AY54 and AY56 order codes if your feeling lucky

I once followed Maplin's advice of 'phoning the local branch to check availability of stock lines prior to driving out, I gave the guy in the shop an order code and he disappeared for a couple of minutes, returning to tell me that this component isn't stocked (!) - I had to explain that this was their stock code, not a manufacturer's part number.
I think Maplin started to slip when they went big, the little shop in Westcliffe-on-Sea used to be great, the staff were all electronics geeks (I went there to see the ETI 4600 when it was launched) - now it seems that some of the staff are way out of their depth looking for a 'C' cell.
---- present company excepted ! ----

 

[Hero999]

Maplin's were at their peek about 10 years ago. Their 1997 catalogue even contained surface mount components and soldering tools but it's never been as good since.

Selling individual resistors sounds silly to me, I don't see why they can't sell them in packs of five or even ten and I wouldn't mind a similar thing happing to the cheaper ICs and transistors. If a product is so inexpensive that most of its cost is having to pay the staff to handle it then it seems pretty silly to sell them individually. I wouldn't be happy if they had a minimum order quantity of 100 but 10 seems alright to me, I'd rather pay 50p for 10 BC549s (which is still expensive) than 20p for one.

I like to keep a good stock of most commonly used components and very rarely buy just one of anything, unless it's really expensive my normal minimim order quantity is around two or three.

 

[Souper man]

I bought 560 assorted resistors for 13$ at my "local and friendly radioshack!" It was a total ripoff, but seeing it was my lucky day, I was low on resistors and found a 20$ on the sidewalk! hooray...

 

[moody07747]

Is it just me, or did RadioShack totally drop the ball on their own business by moving out of providing anything other than tacky Christmas gifts? I know this has come up before on this site, but I just can't believe what a compromise going to RadioShack is.

For those of you in the U.S. who can't imagine anything worse than RadioShack, there is. Canada's RadioShack is now called "The Source," and it's getting worse on a daily basis. I'm not knocking either businesses' products exactly, it's more their choice in direction.

Why would a company with decades as a trusted name completely turn their back on a customer base that only time and good service can build? Yeah, maybe someone up top figured out that it wasn't cost effective to use store shelf space to be selling fairly specific ICs to a relatively small market, but I still feel like they completely missed an opportunity there. I mean, they were ideally positioned to move that kind of inventory into a RadioShack e-store.

In the end, it's not a big deal for me, because there are hundreds of other e-stores where I can get what I want. My point is what seems to me such an apparent marketing blooper on RadioShack's part. Just goes to show that even Goliath can make mistakes.

The Radio shacks around my area are slowly dropping out of business.
I see another store close each month and stock up on the electronic bits they have on sale...if any.

The stores near me are IEI and radioshack.
IEI has some crazy high prices so I have to stick with the shack which still has some high prices but its lower than IEI and lower than getting parts online and having to pay shipping fees.

But I still do most of my orders online...to allelectronics mostly.

Radioshack = cheap, overpriced toys + expensive cell phones.

 

[atari7202]

listening to you all makes me sad about how are economy with electronic stores are now going with eltronic toys and not any IC's and what not, where has that market gone .......

 

[1Steveo]

I was at Radio Shack looking for a new Meter , They only had a display and I was wanting to look at the manual. The clerk said he will be right back. So I waited but he never came back. So I walked over to the cell phones. A new clerk came over, I think he got a little pissed when I ask him if I can see the manual for the meter!

 

[Speakerguy]

How about Fry's? I think they are regional but we have several here in Texas. Everything from refridgerators to microwaves to home theater big screens and car audio to computer equipment (build your own type - power supplies, mobo's cases) and even an electronics section. You can go pick up a Fluke oscilloscope there, it's right on the shelf for demo purposes. I personally think it's pretty cool, but only big cities get them as they're huge and need all the other crap to support the smaller electronics section.