RadioShack’s loss widens

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W8RMH

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Radio Shack's days were numbered after they went into the extremely competitive cell phone business alienating their longtime hobbyist customers and replacing their knowledgeable staff with uninformed high pressure phone sales staff.
 

dkf435

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Radio Shack is dead for me, not having parts for radios that they embargo the parts on is not a way to do business.
If there is ever one again I will never buy a Radio Shack scanner again and this is coming from someone that has several 2096, 96, 106, 197 and many earlier radios.

David Kb7uns
 

Paco-Jerte

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Re: RadioShack’s loss widens

Radio Shack is dead for me, not having parts for radios that they embargo the parts on is not a way to do business.
If there is ever one again I will never buy a Radio Shack scanner again and this is coming from someone that has several 2096, 96, 106, 197 and many earlier radios.

David Kb7uns

Maybe a fire sale when they go out of biz perhaps????? Pro-106 at $99.99 :D

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dmg1969

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RadioShack’s loss widens

Radio Shack's customer service is a joke. If your question isn't about a cell phone, the just-out-of-high school clerk doesn't have a clue. And, apparently, so are their products. an antenna I just bought in January (magnetic mount scanner) is already rusting pretty badly. I emailed their customer service about it and have not heard back. I am just going to take it to the store and return it for a new one and use it inside my office to improved my reception. I think RS will be a distant memory in a few years.


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MK

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Their CFO left for a good reason -- RadioShack is in a hopeless situation. The news story mentioned that the company has a $214 million debt payment due on August 1st. There will be more news forthcoming if RS misses this payment. The CFO probably left the company because the upcoming payment could not be negotiated and it will be missed next week.
 

TRNcommLLC

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I thought it was crazy when I went for a job openings several times at different stores in my area and was told I was over qualified back in the early 90's. WHAT? I have been playing with electronics since I was 7 or 8 got my ham ticket (thanks to RS) when I was 9 and got my first broadcast engineering job right out of technical high school for a AM/FM combo station.
Thant just blew me away. I think I knew more about what they sold then most of them did.
The RS catalog was my daily reading material.

In the 80's I spent most of my allowance buying kits and parts as RS.
Man that was fun! Oh and the free battery card was great.

I noticed lately they were bring back kits and more parts but it might have been too late for them to start over. :(
so sad.

I bought my daughter the 130 in 1 kit they are selling and we play with that during the weekends.
Brings back memories.

John
 

GB1952

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Not to late for them to get back into ham/sw and related item sales.this is what they were first known for
 

LIScanner101

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Not to late for them to get back into ham/sw and related item sales.this is what they were first known for

Yes it is. As I said, the buying demographic has changed. People are enamored with personal gadgets like smartphones and less so with ham radios and scanners, which are niche markets. They tried to jump on the cellphone bandwagon and got their arses kicked.
 

dmg1969

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I am in all out RS boycott mode now. I sent them an e-mail about the magnetic mount antenna (#20-032) that I bought just 6 months ago rusting and I have not heard back from them. Today, I called the store I bought it from and was told that I have to call corporate because it is beyond their 30 day return policy.

So, I call corporate and EVERY time I try to get to customer support/technical support, it disconnects me (I tried 4-5 times). Convenient, huh? So, I call back and decide to press 1 for Sales. Lo and behold, THAT goes through. So, I ask the girl who answered the phone and she claims that they are having trouble with "that line". She looks it up and says that there is only a 90 day manufacturer warranty. Apparently, Radio Shack will not stand behind their products any longer.

So, no matter how badly I need something they may have, I will go out of my way to buy it from someone else. What a crappy way to treat a customer. I am pissed.
 

abqscan

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Don't expect to see resistors and hobbyist components ever return.

Um, resistors and most of the parts are what never left the store. The company had a wonderful idea to create more wall space in the stores by hiding the parts in the parts drawers, but, as the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind. The company took the view of if someone actually wants this stuff, they will dig around for it and there is no longer a need to train the employees about parts.


The company never saw that hobbyist walked in to store for one thing, and left with five, but as they thin out the inventory even more, the one thing the hobbyist came in for is no longer available, thus the reason to walk into the store in the first place is gone. On top of it all, when employees do not get trained to be knowledgeable on every item in the store, sales drop and the company sees this as the area the store is located in doesn’t have a need for all of that inventory. This is why you see some items in some stores and not others, including scanners.


For a long time, the only saving grace the company has had is wireless because of how much the wireless carriers pay. This why everyone complains that the only thing the people in the store know about is wireless. DO NOT blame the people in the store for this because this is what they get trained on from day one and this is one of the items they get paid extra to sell. They don’t make a dime when they sell a $500 scanner, but do get paid when they sell a cell phone.
 

SCPD

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Time to Rename

Perhaps it's just time to rename the business to what it has really become.
PHONE SHACK....
 
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