Is the end of Radio Shack the end of Whistler Scanneers?

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scosgt

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Radio Shack is clearly Whistlers biggest customer. With 4000 stores that was potentially 16,000+ scanners on the shelves. Of course, I don't know if RS ever paid Whistler for what they sold them.

Unless Whistler can find another large outlet, like Walmart, I don't see how they can stay in the scanner business. The GRE line was mostly for dedicated hobbyists, the RS line more for casual people. MANY MANY times more RS scanners on the street than GRE.

That being said, there is a glut of the new RS models out there, being sold for under $200. The market for the pre-800 models is just shot. All that excess inventory is going to wind up at overstock or someplace for pennies on the dollar. That model, in my opinion, is GONE. There is a market for the PSR-800 re-badged model, because it is a damn good scanner and does Phase 2. But who knows if they can go forward with that without Radio Shack to sell them.
 

Blackswan73

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Good post! Also, with all those RS/Whistler scanners clearanced out, will there be any firmware support, or even restoration firmware in case someone (as a few have already), flash their radios with the wrong firmware, and brick their radio. Something to consider when purchasing one of these bargains
 

Spitfire8520

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I'll put it like this, many RadioShack outlets sold Uniden scanners as well. Does this mean the end of RadioShack is the end of Uniden scanners? Likely not. The market will probably move in a direction a majority of consumers are moving towards already. That is basically selling their product online and getting it shipped to your doorstep.

If all else fails, there's still smaller stores out there that carry scanners in their inventory. They just won't be associated with a national brand like RadioShack.
 

sjgostovich

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Radio Shack is clearly Whistlers biggest customer. With 4000 stores that was potentially 16,000+ scanners on the shelves. Of course, I don't know if RS ever paid Whistler for what they sold them.

Unless Whistler can find another large outlet, like Walmart,

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Walmart sells the full line of Whistler scanners online already. I think Whistler was well aware of RS's situation and were wise not to saturate the RS stores with Whistler badged products. It's kind of a bummer about RS because the guy(s) who run our local one are going to be out of a job and they are nice people.
 

scosgt

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I think you miss my point. There is no comparison to having something sold in 4000 retail outlets. Over the years RS sold millions of scanners because someone walked and saw a new model and bought it, or asked if there was a way to listen to the police and was steered into a PRO something or other.

MOST of the scanners on the street from Whistler are branded Radio Shack. If RS goes away, most likely the brand goes away.

Being sold through Amazon or Walmart online is NOT the same as 4000 stocking retail locations. And RS was never a big source of Uniden scanners, in fact they kept the prices high in order to sell their own brand.

So what I am saying is, presuming the RS brand is dead, is there enough potential business out there for Whister to continue to make scanners? Even WITH RS there was not enough for GRE.

I think these things may quickly become collectors items.
 

WQPW689

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The whole brick and mortar retailer paradigm is in between a rock and a hard place.

If Whistler approaches enough online sellers, particularly Amazon, I see no particular reason they can't survive for the usual reasons (reviews, word of mouth, a coherent marketing strategy, etc.)
 
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Voyager

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There is little doubt that Rat Shack was a huge customer for Whistler. Heck, they even had their own line of re-badged scanners. But, as has been mentioned, there are also other outlets that will continue to sell their products.

Will the RS demise hurt Whistler? No doubt. It will also hurt Uniden to a lesser degree, as RS always sold the Uniden scanners at or near list, while they discounted the RS models, so they no doubt sold many more RS scanners.

But does this mean the end of Whistler? I seriously doubt it.
 

Spitfire8520

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My whole reasoning for bringing Uniden into the discussion is because Uniden obviously doesn't have a massive retail outlet presence for their scanners. They used to manufacture scanners for RadioShack, but no longer do so. Did losing the contract with RadioShack mean the end of Uniden Scanners? I think this particular answer is pretty obvious.

Yes, RadioShack is a major retailer of Whistler manufactured scanners and the loss means that they no longer have a guaranteed a profit from RS. The loss of RS also means that the Whistler WS1010/1025/1040/1065/1080 no longer competes directly with the Pro-649/650/651/652/668. The reason why many of the RS units outsold GRE/Whistler units is because RS often sold their product as scanners only with no accessories and probably close to what they were getting wholesale. Once the stock of RS units leave the market, people will only have Whistler or Uniden to choose from. Whistler can definitely turn more of a profit per unit if they are willing to wait out the RadioShack saturated market.
 

scosgt

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I was just in my local mall RS. 25-50% off, but all that was there was batteries and cables. All the actual merchandise was packed into large plastic bags for shipment to?

Someone will be having a fire sale on RS merchandise.
 

n5ims

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If only Whistler had other products that were sold in stores. They may be able to have those stores also sell their scanners. Wait, don't they sell some kind of detectors is many stores?
 

Voyager

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Actually, I think the use of detectors has been declining over the past decades. Same for CBs.
 

garys

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Ham Radio Outlet, as does The Ham Station. I'm sure there are other electronics stores as well. If Whistler was smart, they weren't shipping a lot of product to RS without getting paid first.
 

kruser

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I don't think RS stores really sold many scanners. The last 6 or 7 stores I went into , 1 or 2 only had a couple scanners on display and the clerks didn't even know what a scanner was.

Scanners used to be one of the hottest selling items at RS back in the good days when they actually sold radios (not cell phones) and electronics components.
It was not uncommon for a RS store to have 8 or more current models on display. Some stores would have an entire display case dedicated to scanner radios.

Most of them were GRE made radios but Uniden did make and rebadge a few as well.

Then cell phones were invented and RS decided to get into that market.

Before you knew it, the knowledgeable sales people were replaced by kids that barely knew what a battery was but sure knew what a cell phone was. The stores were revamped and entire sections of the stores were setup for just cell phones.
That era was the beginning of the end for RS.

Today you would be correct in that many RS stores don't have scanners in stock. It's been like that since they started concentrating on cell phone sales really.

I still know a few guys who were RS store managers back in the 70's and 80's. Most of those guys are knowledgeable people when it comes to electronics in general but the kids they hire today are not very bright.
At one point, RS would not hire a person that actually had an electronics background. They would get turned down and they would instead hire a kid that did not really know anything other than how to sell cell phones.
They did not want sales people that knew how to tell someone how to test a transistor. Instead they just wanted young kids that could run cash registers and knew the basics about cell phones.
 

wbswetnam

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I worked for a franchise RS store back in the mid-80s. In an average week we sold probably 4 to 8 scanners, and during the Christmas season we sold 10 or more a week. The '80s were the best time for scanner listening, I think... very little encryption back then.
 

tumegpc

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Whistler may feel the effects of Radio Shacks demise for a short while. Remember Whistler is basically just re badging GRE stock of scanners. It probably would have been a major blow to Whistler if this would have been a line of scanners that they manufactured from day one.
 

scosgt

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Whistler may feel the effects of Radio Shacks demise for a short while. Remember Whistler is basically just re badging GRE stock of scanners. It probably would have been a major blow to Whistler if this would have been a line of scanners that they manufactured from day one.

No, I believe they bought the name and intellectual property, but they are manufacturing the scanners, not changing the faceplate on old stock, if that is what you meant.
 

stingray327

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There is little doubt that Rat Shack was a huge customer for Whistler. Heck, they even had their own line of re-badged scanners. But, as has been mentioned, there are also other outlets that will continue to sell their products.

Will the RS demise hurt Whistler? No doubt. It will also hurt Uniden to a lesser degree, as RS always sold the Uniden scanners at or near list, while they discounted the RS models, so they no doubt sold many more RS scanners.

But does this mean the end of Whistler? I seriously doubt it.

But Radio Shack which were mostly GRE scanners that I got were great. But does RS sell any scanners that pick up Phase1 and Phase2 P-25?
 
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