*Radio Shack Store Closing Thread* All posts about Radio Shack closing go here.

[MOTOROLANUT]

WDTV.COM 5 News: RadioShack May be Near Bankruptcy

another RS link

 

[com501]

Radio Shack ended 10 years ago. No one turned out the lights.

 

[marksmith]

Have 3 Radio Shack store within 3 miles, soith of Baltimore. Only one carries scanners and I went there Tuesday. Its the only one of the three that is closing. They had the 396, and the pro-651 and 652 for 50% off, even though all the signs said 20-50% off.

Because of this, I hardly needed another scanner but picked up the 652 for about $180. Also bought all 3 of their 800mz antennas at 50%. The 652 is a nice scanner. Very good digital voice and quite sensitive.

Programmed in 10 local p25 or Motorola systems in the area and all did well. Had to enter some custom band plan (they call them tables) to get one to work but all now running flawlessly.

Going to stop by there again tomorrow to see if there are any other deals worth picking up. I don't think this store will be around another week. The other two are not closing but they pretty much only handle phones, batteries, some jacks, plugs, and cables. A few toys.

BCD536HP/HP2/996XT/PSR800/396XT/996T

 

[AC2OY]

What a shame over the years if I needed something hard to find Radio Shack usually had it.

 

[scosgt]

Have 3 Radio Shack store within 3 miles, soith of Baltimore. Only one carries scanners and I went there Tuesday. Its the only one of the three that is closing. They had the 396, and the pro-651 and 652 for 50% off, even though all the signs said 20-50% off.

Because of this, I hardly needed another scanner but picked up the 652 for about $180. Also bought all 3 of their 800mz antennas at 50%. The 652 is a nice scanner. Very good digital voice and quite sensitive.

Programmed in 10 local p25 or Motorola systems in the area and all did well. Had to enter some custom band plan (they call them tables) to get one to work but all now running flawlessly.

Going to stop by there again tomorrow to see if there are any other deals worth picking up. I don't think this store will be around another week. The other two are not closing but they pretty much only handle phones, batteries, some jacks, plugs, and cables. A few toys.

BCD536HP/HP2/996XT/PSR800/396XT/996T

So $200 for a new 396XT?

 

[SCPD]

Maybe not that cheap ....

So $200 for a new 396XT?

... but the shack clerk told me yesterday they will match any ad, online or another retailer. Just bring the ad in. You may be able to find a pretty good price on Amazon for one, and then print it out.

I ended up just buying $50 worth of AA and AAA batteries with my gift card yesterday.
Pretty sure that's the last time I'll be in a Radio Shack.
Adieu et bonne chance.

 

[marksmith]

YES. $200 for a new 396xt. I already have one so I didn't buy it even though I was tempted. Stopped by again today to pick up a few more low cost deals at entire store 50% off. They had sold all of the 652's but still had a 396xt and a 651. Both 50% off at $200.

BCD536HP/HP2/996XT/PSR800/396XT/996T

 

[Jimru]

Radio Shack ended 10 years ago. No one turned out the lights.

This is probably the most accurate and succinct sum up of the Rat Shack story in this whole thread!

 

[marksmith]

Was at 2 radio shack stores today.

One... 50% of everything in store. Manager said they are in the process of closing. Got a great deal on a scanner.

Second store in a more traveled mall. Store not closing. 25% off everything in store.

BCD536HP/HP2/996XT/PSR800/396XT/996T

 

[mancow]

Hmm guess I will stop by some stores but somehow I never seem to be in the right one at the right time.

 

[scosgt]

YES. $200 for a new 396xt. I already have one so I didn't buy it even though I was tempted. Stopped by again today to pick up a few more low cost deals at entire store 50% off. They had sold all of the 652's but still had a 396xt and a 651. Both 50% off at $200.

BCD536HP/HP2/996XT/PSR800/396XT/996T

I would buy a new 396XT for $200 in a heartbeat. My local store has one on the shelf for $399

 

[marksmith]

Thats why I did pick up the pro-652. I already have a 396xlt and like it a lot. I justified the 652 by saying I didn't have one already. A dubious justification since I barely need another scanner, but it ends up its a nice unit with a very hot receiver after playing with it for a couple days.

BCD536HP/HP2/996XT/PSR800/396XT/996T

 

[marksmith]

I would buy a new 396XT for $200 in a heartbeat. My local store has one on the shelf for $399

Its probably $300 right now as even the stores not closing are selling them and everything else in the store at 25% off right now.

BCD536HP/HP2/996XT/PSR800/396XT/996T

 

[UserTM]

I enjoyed reading your post. The one thing I would say is that the "catalog" store did not go away. The medium the catalog exists in changed

I agree, shopping sites are a lot like catalogs, and that's why catalog stores are failing to make it. Anything that could be brought through a catalog store could just as easily be purchased through any other on-line retailer selling the same thing

Very true. I guess being a product of when I grew up, an online catalog just doesn't hold the same appeal as a printed one held in the hands. I was more likely to browse a printed catalog and find something new that I wanted to purchase. With electronic catalogs, I'm more likely than not already searching for something specific or something to perform a specific function. When I want to find a specific item, an online catalog is hard to beat. When I want to just browse, a printed catalog is king. However, I'm becoming a dinosaur so... get off my lawn.

I still get a couple of catalogs from other places I do business with in the mail. buy I seldom look through them before tossing them the garbage.

Bottom line is if we the consumer don't start supporting the brick and mortar stores they will ALL go away.
Think about buying certain things without being able to see them in real life first because that's where we are heading.

Brick and Mortar stores are not going away completely. While some things like computers are well suited to on-line sales, other things are not, Take High definition or 3D TV sets for example, You can't experience the quality a high Def TV over a lower resolution PC monitor. The same is true of sound quality for home entertainment systems. Think of the booming base you often hear at Best Buy. Brick and Mortar stores also have an advantage when it comes to impulse sales. Example, when you buy a cell phone or Tablet from Best buy you are encouraged by store clerks to by screen protectors, cases, warranties or other accessories which have high margins that help make up for lower margins on the primary purchase. The same is also true when you get to the check out counter (candy and other impulse items). There will also always be those who just don't like to shop on-line for various reasons, or those that just need to run out quick and pick something up and don't have the time or desire to wait for it to be shipped. While on-line sales are reshaping the retail landscape, online stores and B&M stores will continue to co-exist side by side just like they do now. Think Amazon vs Barnes and Nobles. Books and DVD sales are well suited to on-line sales thus Amazon leveraged this to their advantage and became one of the world’s largest companies. However, Barnes and Nobles still makes it as a Brick and Mortar store, but in the process they ran all of the smaller niche book stores out of business. Any more lately, its less about what is sold and more about the store size and format. That's why Best Buy is so popular and Radio Shack isn't. That's also why so many people would prefer Fry's electronics over Best Buy. If radio shack would have moved away from their overly priced proprietary product lines and shifted to the big box store format and closed the smaller less profitable stores years ago, they could have turned out to be what Fry's Electronics is today. Instead, they tried to maintain themselves as a small neighborhood niche convenience store at a time when even ordinary convenience stores have been buying each other out and are closing their smaller and older stores in favor of larger ones with better locations and better product selections. This is because the ordinary convenience stores make money off the goodies they sell off the shelves in their stores, not the gasoline sales that brings people to their stores. Best Buy has also struggled through the years, but has learned to leverage high margin impulse sales of things like warranties and screen protectors to make up for the lower margins on computers or other things that bring people into their stores. Radio shack instead, just backed out of the category all together. In short, while Radio Shack was an early adopter on some of the bigger trends in technology, they lagged way behind on the bigger trends in the overall retail industry and that was their ultimate demise.

 

[UserTM]

Looks like we will be loosing one of the two radio shack stores in my immediate area. It's the one at the Mall I mentioned in my previous post. When I walked by it, it looked to be more than half empty so I stopped in and spoke with the lone clerk working in the store. I was told corporate isn't telling them anything, but they have had to ship things out of their store to other stores and they haven't been able to get any new or replacement inventory for their store.

 

[UserTM]

Radio Shacks poor store performance played a role in why I purchased my Uniden 996xt over the Radio Shack Pro 197, The RS pro-197 was being discontinued at that time. With the RS models being discontinued and the stores possibly going out of business I was afraid of not being able to get firmware updates in the future. Also after doing some Google searches I discovered replacement programming cables for the RS scanner were already difficult if not impossible to find back then. Even from Radio Shack itself.

 

[ecps92]

Maybe update your profile to indicate where you are, and we can figure out what mall

Looks like we will be loosing one of the two radio shack stores in my immediate area. It's the one at the Mall I mentioned in my previous post. When I walked by it, it looked to be more than half empty so I stopped in and spoke with the lone clerk working in the store. I was told corporate isn't telling them anything, but they have had to ship things out of their store to other stores and they haven't been able to get any new or replacement inventory for their store.

 

[gtaman]

Its sad to see a store that has been around for some time to be closed. I remeber when I had an outlet store down my road. It had everything and all the employees we knowledgable and friendly. That store closed in 2007. Im not going to lie but there are some stores that are booming, but i honeslty think Radioshack should revamp thier sales lists and traine thier employees more effectivly. They need to stop pushing the cellphone plans, cellphone accesories, cellphones and the "I hate my life" atttiude. Radioshack could honestly save themselves if they were to go back to the old days. They should go back to selling HI-FI equipment, all radios/scanners, remote control toys, a few selections of tvs, really cool gadgets, laptops, cables and maybe even some music equipment. That is what my outlet store had and it was always busy. Every Radioshack commercial i see is only for cellphones. I have never seen one for other products. Only in the 90s and early 2000s

This is just my 2 cents.

 

[marksmith]

I agree completely. They added competition to themselves by becoming a phone store. There are 10 phone stores in every mall. And you would probably go directly to the ATT, Verizon or whatever to do the phone thing anyhow. It was probably ok in rural areas where there are no other phone stores but in other areas it was a suicide decision.

I used to never go to a mall without stopping in to the Radio Shack. They had all sorts of goodies in electronics to look at. In rhe past decade, I hardly ever go there unless I need a special connector, speaker wire, or something else that could never support a store.

Now you have to go more than halfway into the store to get through the phone department, something thats now a commodity and doesn't differentiate them.

The only two in my immediate area that appear will ne surviving don't carry scanners or even know what they are. Losing the one that did carry scanners, a couple HF radios and some weather radios.

There is a niche out there that will not be filled if Radio Shack goes under. But I guess it can be filled online only at that point.

BCD536HP/HP2/996XT/PSR800/396XT/996T

 

[marcotor]

I recently found out the one across from my work was a clearance store. I stopped in to pick up a BNC connector for my old Pro 51 since the signs said clearance blowout. Went to another store in the area and they were having a sale as well but that location was closing the woman said its due to downsizing. The woman was really cheerful and helpful unlike other locations so I feed bad for her. Sure enough I went crazy buying a ton of radio stuff to get back into it all.

If it's Redlands Blvd. across from the Post Office, it might have helped if they were open past 6PM. I'm sure they had sales numbers that indicated being open later was not viable, but with a large percentage of potential customers out and about later in the evening, it might have helped them to open later in the morning than cutting their 2nd shift.

I stopped Radio Schacking a long time ago. It stinks for the 22 people in the company who really give a hoot, but most employees are there for a check and that's about it. Which, by the way, seems to be the norm. Try getting a 20 year old clerks face out of their phone long enough to ask a question, or take your lunch order.