Radio shack not only sold electronics such as toys, radios, etc, but this was the only place you could get parts like led lights, diodes, computer chips and other things internal to most electronics. A real techs dream store
@@alexhajnal107 Radioshack really focused on the "Everyone is close" idea, with at one point 95% of the US Population lived within 5 miles of a RadioShack. Being at 5000 stores
A large problem is corporate culture. "We made 6 million last year in profit and we made 5 million in profit this year" "so youre telling me we lost 1 million" "no that's not it" "great let me sell off the profitable part of the business to.make up that 1 million loss" "wait no"
Then you add to that the P.E.F. mindset of "Buy company, sell off what we can to generate a spreadsheet of amazing numbers for a quarter. SELL, SELL, SELL! And do it as fast as possible. Then brag to clients how your firm turned a 20% profit from a declining company. Sucker more people into becoming clients, rinse a freakin repeat!"
Not only that, they sold a manufacturing division which is much more steady due to making parts for other flagship companies. That would be like TSMC selling their plants for short term gain, completely boneheaded.
Radio Shack. During liquidation they did not want to sell their customer list and fought that they had an agreement with customers to protect their privacy. The courts ruled that in bankruptcy all contracts were up to court decisions. The customer list was determined to have a monetary value so it was ordered to be sold. Remember this when companies say they don't sell your information. Customer lists are assets and subject to sale in bankruptcy. This was the biggest event during Radio Shack bankruptcy and is now a case study.
@@spicytuna62 was just watching that clip on a BTTF3 binge. Was just thinking of the movie series after getting off the Simpsons ride, the original had more of a narrarive
When I was a kid in the 90s, while my mom would go into the supermarket two doors down, I would wander Radio Shack. Man, I loved that store. The staff were also surprisingly accepting of a kid hanging out in there. They could recognize that spark I had for electronics and computers and didn't want to mess it up.
@@Look_What_You_Did I dunno about that, at least where I lived. I wasn't a practically rambunctious kid but I was frequently told to leave stores if I wasn't with my parents or there to buy something. No one really wants to babysit kids in their store.
Yeah I did the same thing. My mom would be at Luckys and I would go over to Radio Shack. I was that annoying kid constantly asking questions and never buying anything.
@@Kylefassbinderful Depended who was staffing and or managing the stores at that time. The older store staff would usually be pretty tolerant especially if you showed an interest in their products even if you were just browsing and learning things. Many times those guys would be happy to give you information. The younger store staff often times didn't want to be bothered with kids...
I used to depend on Radio Shack for a lot of my model railroad electronics. I could buy resistors, LED's, small lamps, terminal strips, solder, wire, and hardware. I grieve the loss of those stores.
Having a electronics parts house, I had a lot of model railroad customers. They would create some amazingly impressive layouts. One customer invited me over to his house which was basically a train station with trains and dioramas throughout the house. Good times!
Indeed. My maternal grandfather had a 4 x 8 HO scale layout in the basement of our former home, and I imagine he went to Radio Shack quite often. As a novice model railroader myself, I've noticed that there's a trend toward making model railroad layouts easier to set up and run, though more experienced modelers (such as some of my fellow model railroad club members) would likely make use of the items you mentioned above.
I was a sales associate at Radio Shack during the cellphone push - and boy was it a push. We were pressured into trying to get people, who just wanted some damn parts, to buy cellphones. It was a very stupid business decision on Radio Shack's part.
@@amandathemystic1828 I lived in a pretty bare area forty mins from a small town. Worked at the gas station near the interstate and when people asked for the nearest Starbucks...the guys LOST it. Nearest was in a different state.
Circuit City and RadioShack are/were "tech" retail companies that IRONICALLY couldn't adapt to the changes of Technology. As sad as it is, they deserved to go under for not adapting to TECHNOLOGY, the things THEY WERE SELLING.
It’s mostly just giant corporate companies that get too big, breed incompetence, men in suits that don’t even understand the market they are in charge of. Once they start making lots of money, they get complacent and fall asleep at the wheel, and over a few years markets totally turn around, and it’s like the frog in the heating water metaphor. They don’t notice until it’s too late. Almost every CEO at every company is extremely incompetence and tone deaf.
Radio Shack was the nerd store. Needed a weird adapter, diode, resister, capacitor? Radio Shack had it. Needed an RCA splitter? Got it. Even almost up the the very end (2008?) I could go to the local Radio Shack and find the cables I needed to connect my 8mm camcorder to my computer to digitize my old vacation footage...dang I miss them, but Best Buy and Amazon have pretty much taken over that space.
Tandy corp. wanted to make all the money off of more expensive items and got rid of most of things like switches and diodes. Also most of their stores lost money because of this. Got rid of the people who knew about things opting to hire Min. wage people instead.
I needed a tantalum capacitor. Radio shack employee said they did not stock it at the store, but could order it for me. I said ok, and while the employee was ordering it, I once again told him to make sure it was a TANTALUM capacitor, and he assured me it would be. After maybe a week or 2, my order came in, and guess what it was? ELECTROLYTIC radial, not tantalum. So, not only did the Radio Shack store **NOT** have it, but they also wasted my time too.
As someone who was on the ground floor towards the end, ima explain it in my own words. They focused too hard on 3rd party phone retailing, selling other companies phones, made up close to 75% of sales. They removed all the components drawers and put more sd cards and phone cases. Their core customer went to internet long before the end but they werent helping the cause
I was working for them when they dropped Verizon and forced us to sell At&t. The only way we made money was selling cell phones and add ons. Cellphone case, car adapter, headphone set and if you could. Extended warranty that included battery replacement. They were done once Verizon knew they didn't need us anymore and had their own store in the mall.
We had one near my house when I was a kid in the 2000s. I would later pick up electronics repair myself, would've been nice to have. Thankfully local hardware stores have at least the basics.
Except people miss Radio Shack and recall it fondly in many cases. I doubt Facebook or Amazon would stir up many emotions if they closed. They don't have the personal interaction and advice.
I worked there in the 2000’s… I can tell you the day it lost track. The stopped paying us commission on our sales and made all of us managers hourly employees. No one cared anymore after that. Our district lost half its managers in one paycheck.
From memory I think when RS tried to sling cell phones and put loose hardware on the back burner they started to lose the plot. That and they sold uncompetitive home electronics. WGAF about a AM-FM/cassette boombox with a built in 3" B&W TV in 2002?
It was before 2000. I left in 95 and they had already started to decline. The decision to abandon their own brands and start relabeling pioneer products for example, was the real start of the end. People noticed, so they could buy the name brand for 30-50% less somewhere else. Same with computers, they should have kept Tandy in house but instead started selling Compaq etc. We made 7% commission and within 12 months (94), in store sales dropped over 50%. The only thing we actually sold were speakers, scanners and bag phones. Parts were still OK but that accounted for such a small part of overall sales.
Yep since CEOs rarely ever are held accountable for their actions they get hired by a company, squeeze as much money as they can either by dubious or outright illegal means then dip when they go down, run away with all the money then start up with another company and pretend nothing ever happened
The "Battery a month" thing was cool. My uncle worked in the mall and did that. Every month he got a free battery for his TV remote. And if you ever had a remote in the 80's, you pretty much needed to replace the battery every month. Luckily his only needed one AA. But, it also had four buttons. PWR/VOL+/VOL-/ and CHAN +. You could only change the channel up. missed the one you wanted, back around again. Thankfully it only had 13 channels.
Worked there from 96 to 98. Surprised no mention that every single sale we made, we were required to ask the customer for their name, address, phone number, etc. That would never fly today and I still remember people yelling at me for asking. That was my first and last retail job. :)
@@davidkuhlman8004 This is what stores learned to do to keep people from yelling at them. Instead of asking for personal info up front, you ask if they want the store card and only ask the personal info if they say yes.
"that would never fly today" it does, it flies around like moths with a light bulb. Go to a microcenter, go to a harbor freight, go to a target, they're all always asking "do you have an account with us?" for the exact same reason as they did then. They will ask you for that information if you tell them you want an account, which is slightly different from being directly required to ask that up front, but it's still a thing that happens. But I'd wager most (hard ass) managers would rather their employees not ask if they have an account because the employees only ask that because people get so mad if you just start asking their personal information to look up
I was born in the late 70's, but I lived during the 80's and 90's… I loved going to Radio Shack… but it's definitely cemented for me even today is the scene in "Short Circuit 2" where Johnny 5 had to repair himself(with help)…
@@jescis One of my Earliest memories of RadioShack is when Mom took me to one for the First time in October of 1985 to purchase Batteries for her Weight Scale in Cape May,NJ. I remember there being this little keychain they sold that made 9 different sounds with 9 buttons when you pressed them and had 4 Red Light Bulbs. The Sounds sounded like an 8 bit Atari Dogfight with two Fighter Jets battling each other.
Having been a manager of a Radio Shack in the mid 80's to the mid 90's, I would have loved to help with this episode. There were many things we knew internally that weren't covered here. I got out when I saw the end coming, early to mid 90's. There were little things as well as the big things that contributed to the fall that were starting during that time. Oh ,and a good portion of those little things included manager fraud. (IE: TSP) You pretty much summed up the final decline pretty well, but some of us Managers saw the writing on the wall much earlier. As the snowball towards destruction went down the hill, we saw the original kick that started it all. Oh, and side note, they changed to The Shack because that's what most of the customers called us. "I'm going down to The Shack to get the adapter and cords I need." Most of us actually embraced that. You ever decide you want to do a "Behind the Scenes" kind of episode, I'd love to talk with you about it.
There's nothing wrong with Radio Shack customers giving the place a cute nickname like The Shack but unless the nickname does as good a job or better off conveying what it is you sell or provide it's a terrible idea to change your store name to the nickname. People hear Radio Shack and think of a hobby electronics and parts store. People hear The Shack and think of some run down beer shop or a dingey unkempt gas station. It's like if Walmart changed their name officially to Wally World just because people call it that as a nickname. You see an ad on TV or TH-cam for Wally World and it sounds like a kids theme park, not a grocery/department store.
The biggest thing that is killing companies, and driving corporate greed, is the stock market and being public. Having everything structured on OBSESSING about growth and making as much money as possible for the shareholders, never being satisfied with steady growth naturally, it ALWAYS has to be to expand rapidly and stretch themselves extremely thin just to make shareholders a few more dimes. It’s the problem with almost everything. Corporate greed is absolutely mind blowing right now…
No, the issue is Private Equity firms. They're bought and liquidated but the hollow husk will continue to exist. It happened to probably all of your favorite companies at some point.
@@jaredchampagne2752 going public is definitely an issue for some companies, but companies like Nintendo (I own Nintendo stock) seem to be okay regardless. I think it really just depends on company/country's culture
@@ginak5802 but when a company goes public, it holds a legal fiduciary duty to MAXIMIZE shareholder profits, instead of making common sense decisions that’s best for the customer and thinking of long term consequences of the company. This leads to lower quality products and up-charging. Nintendo does great things and has for years, but they’ve also pulled a lot of slimey tactics over the years too.
Having a Lafayette Radio Electronics store, Radio Shack was a competitor or sorts. We had a big boost in customers when they shifted to consumer electronics. When LRE started to chase them down that market, I went independent and basically became a parts house. A good move due to all the R&D going on and the MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Operations) needs of all the companies nearby. Not to mention all their DIY ex-customers. When RS started firing managers, I hired a few as their knowledge was invaluable. Great video and trip down memory lane.
I still shop at a Radio Shack in Monroe, WI. Just a month ago, I bought some drop resistors for the dead odometer in my car, and a can of joy juice (what my friends, teacher, and I call contact cleaner). They had a classic looking boom box there that also had Bluetooth and USB integrated into it.
So real talk. It's not actually bad CEOs making rookie mistakes. It's an actual tactic investors use on purpose. This is standard business as usual for Wall Street. Long term sustainable growth is NEVER favored over short term profit. They milk companies of as much quick upfront profit as they can get, then they chop up and auction off the remaining drained husk that once was a thriving business. And because of a little thing called "fiduciary duty" a CEO trying to make smart choices for the company can and will be successfully SUED into doing the quick buck stupid thing, because legally they MUST act in the best interest of their clients. Their clients being their share holders, and the share holders' best interests being new super yachts. The only way it will ever stop it to insist on financial law reform.
I spend so much time in Radio Shack and dog eared their huge product catalogs in the 1970s. It took forever, but I saved $250 from picking berries to buy two Mach 5, 15" bass speakers. They were amazing!
I worked at radio shack from 2006 to 2007, and the pressure was on to sell credit cards and like only credit cards. I had a boss that demanded we ask the customer at least four times if they wanted to sign up for a credit card. So I had this guy on the hook who was buying a lot and I stood to make a lot in commissions from him, And I knew my shit and I was upselling him like crazy. And I asked twice and on the second time he said "If you ask me about the credit card again I'm going to drop my stuff and leave". I wanted those commissions so I decided to shut my mouth. And then my boss took me aside and asked me how many times I had asked him I said two but that he was going to just leave if I asked him again. So my boss decided he was going to ask him because we needed to sell the shitty credit cards with the 29% interest or whatever the fuck they were. And it was then that the guy just dropped the stuff, told me to put the TV back and left. My boss cost me a very nice commission. All because they were desperate to sell the fucking credit cards.
If you're known as "Radio Shack" all through history, you never change your name, even if you stopped carrying radios or radio parts. Even if it's year 3000 and no one alive knows what a radio is, your store name should continue being Radio Shack.
Big company leadership only last 5-7 years. So makes sense that they went for the short money. Miss the days of large family owned companies that made long term decisions.
The employees at RadioShack were cool nerdy guys. There were gadgets everywhere. I loved that place. It hurts to see the commercials I remember watching live, decades ago, now being replayed on this sad documentary.
@@rc123theycallme same miss them now. We shopped at radio shack in 2012 while being taken care of at NIH (national institute of health) during their closing sale. Ended up using that router up until 2017.
I used to love going to Radio Shack but started avoiding it because they insisted on getting your phone number and address to buy anything. I'd want some batteries and look around but figured i could buy battereies anywhere else without being hassled for my contact info.
Born in 1950, got interested in radio and electronics in the 1960s. They had cabinets with unpackaged resistors, capacitors, etc. When integrated circuits came out you could even buy TTLs to build digital circuits. Then Radio Shack started packaging two componesnts in a cardboard box, for a LOT more money. The phones and computers shoved the racks of parts out of the store. Radio Shack still sold small tools, soldering irons, cheap multimeters, etc. I stopped going there for electronics.
RadioShack was handy for getting components that you otherwise would need to wait to have shipped. I was more than happy to pay a little extra to get a couple capacitors or a resistor right away and get the repair done.
I worked there towards the end. Radio Shack wanted to pivot from hobby electronics to becoming a cell phone retailer FORCING unfair sales numbers on employees to push cell phone contracts on customers that just wanted to come in and buy a fuse or odd battery. I worked in an area where AT&T was pretty much the only provider that had service in the area (this was back in 2012) and at that time Radio Shack wasn't carrying AT&T, so it was near impossible to push sales. Plus I'm a tech guy I didn't want to use deceptive sales tactics. Soured my entire history with the store because I was a hobbyist but there was more profit in taking kickbacks from cellphone contracts than the profit on a 75 cent resistor.
The day after I got my drivers license one of the first places I drove was to Radio Shack where I bought the parts to build a cable descrambler that I found instructions for online. Thank you Radio Shack, for helping 16 year old me watch major new release movies during the day and even better movies late at night, even though my parents wouldn’t pay for the premium channels.
As a HAM operator, I can assure you when they went phones, they ditched all my HAM needs and tried to sell me a phone and service I didn't want or need. Then, I think to hammer the last nail in the corporate coffin, they were charging double for normal Duracell batteries, But, since people were in the store, surely someone would pick them up. Nope. They were located in the SAME parking lot as Walmart. And the Walmart is still doing good.
I can recall going in to one of their stores during the time of their demise and thinking what even is this place?! They didn’t carry anything I was looking for anymore.
In the early 2000s in Tulsa Oklahoma Radio Shack did a trial run of stores inside of BlockBuster. They hired and trained a bunch of new employees. My ex and his friend and I were in that group. They split us all up and had us train at the main stores there in town. The first ones hired once finished with training (also in that group) went around to the new locations inside of blockbusters and “built” the stores (got everything set up). Was quite an experience. I lucked out and was able to get my own store in a rich neighborhood. Made best sales in my district obnoxiously consistently. The job was so slow I remember mostly sitting on the counter watching tv. I remember sitting there on 9-11 watching in horror what was happening. It wasn’t long after I quit. The boredom was too much.
Used to be able to fix things with parts from radio shack. Things became throw away and technology was moving too fast. Nobody has a TV for life or a car for 20 or 30 years anymore. These days people don't wear clothes more than a few times before it gets thrown out. You can see the decline of our society by the trends in industry. Less self reliance and more convenience isn't a good thing.
I used to frequent Radio Shack back in the day as I was an electronics hobbyist. There was a location here in DC near my job that briefly became a Sprint store and has been closed since 2017 I believe. It was pretty cool to be able to go to the mall and pick up a pack of resistors and capacitors (as well as whatever electronics components you might need), but that's a relic of a bygone era.
@@93greenstrat yeah what a time to have lived. Not only could you get parts to make your own radio from the mall, you had an arcade with every top game, and per store. You could visit Radio Shack, beat street fighter II, and leave with a puppy. Malls don't have that magic now and that's why they are on the way out sadly
I worked at radioshack 02 - 03. They were telling us to sell any adult who walked in a cell phone. They already had one? Sell them another one. Why does one person need two cell phones? Those kinds of questions get you fired. I dont think a single person was surprised they went under.
Back around that time I was working as a IT manager. Which, because of my work, I would up having to carry two cell phones and two pagers. One day, I popped by a Radio Shack to buy a CR2025 battery only to be confronted by a overly aggressive female RS employee who tried to hard sell me a cell phone. She was so aggressive that she would not let me buy the battery until she talked to me about buying a cell phone. When I showed her the two cell phones/pagers that I already had -- she was like you still need another. The only reason why I did not walk out of the store and go somewhere else was because at the time RS was the only place locally that had CR2025 batteries -- which I really needed at the time. She finally sold me the battery -- but she was really angry that I didn't buy a cell phone. Needless to say, as soon as I left the store -- the thought in my mind was Radio Shack is going out of business.
Cell phones and satellite dishes were pretty risk free. RS never had to commit to buying the hardware, the service provider owned it. RS would sell it, pocket the commissions, and hoped the customer bought something else while you processed the paperwork and pushed them out the door.
@@jimkear6749 That all changed in '04. When Tandy signed an Exclusive Partnership with SprintNextel. This Deal locked EVERYONE else out and forced RadioShack to discontinue carrying New Cellphones from Sprint's competitors. This was the severed thread that DOOMED RadioShack.
@Haywire13 yup, I was 2005-2009, between cell phones (including that trumpet mobile garbage), satellite TV, satellite radio, magicjack, and garbage service plans....they lost their focus and tried to complete against walmarts and best buys...yeah just sad they lost it
I worked in the Customer Care department at their Ft. Worth headquarters for ten years and was laid off in 2006. One of the jokes in the office was that every store manager's only goal was to make sure every customer walked out of the store with a satellite dish hanging around their neck and a cellphone shoved up their ass. But, seriously, for the price point, Realistic and Optimus audio components were top of the line. Up until we switched to Chinese junk with the Realistic and Optimus names slapped on them, that is. I had a pair of Optimus headphones that were the best I've ever owned. I only stopped using them because the ear pads disintegrated from age.
@wadechilds6671 Optimus! Yes! My first car in the mid 90's was a used basic car; didn't even have a tape deck and 3/4 of the speakers were blown. First thing I did was go down to Radio Shack and bought an Optimus CD player radio and speakers and installed it myself. It was a good system for a broke teenager!
@@cleanclean4031 It wasn't, which is a shame. The clarity and sound range on those things was amazing. If I remember correctly, they were made by Koss exclusively for RadioShack. I paid about $100 for them back in the mid-1990s.
Radioshack was a place that I remember buying my first CD-ROM games, a RC car, my family's walkie-talkies, and getting my discman from. A few of those games and the walkies I still own! I also remember my Mom buying a stereo for her first car from our local Radioshack. (My Mom didn't learn to drive until after having my sister and I in her late twenties). It was a place that every kid in the early 2000s had heard of, and if your didn't own something from them, you were considered uncool. Just how it was back then.
Early 2000s? Nobody was going to RadioShack in the 2000s and certainly nobody thought it was the “cool” place to go. By the early 2000s Best Buy, Circuit City, Service Merchandise, hell even Walmart to some degree was the place to go for all the things you’re mentioning and then some. RadioShack was the only place to buy particular types of new technology in the 80s and the beginning of the 90s (Big screen rear projection televisions for example) but by the 2000s they were a Dinosaur that primarily catered to people who could repair at the component level. Nice try though. It’s so pathetic how Gen Z tries to drum up faux nostalgia out of things they couldn’t possibly have any meaningful connection too. Such lame posers. “Oh em gee I saw radio shack in an episode of Stranger Things….soooooo many memories “
@@bernielomax4702bro. Everybody born in 2000 knew about RadioShack. Imagine trying to gatekeep nostalgia. No one cares. By the time we were 10 RadioShack didn't matter. It was still a recognizable brand for most of our early lives. Find something important to be angry about loser. Swear you millennials don't actually know how old we are.
None of the Radio Shacks where I grew up ever sold video games, or computers, or game consoles, or music, or movies.... Yeah, they were pretty much already dead in the mid 90s for us. There was nothing they had that you couldn't buy at the Albertsons down the street. I guess the managers took the radio part of Radio Shack too literally. Sold almost nothing but boom boxes, speakers, headphones, & toy cars & planes.
@@haydendegrow945 I'm with you..that's where my first RC cars came from..when I got a lil older.. that's where I bought my cordless phones and speakers n amps
Growing up in a rural community during the late 80's-90"s (our closest WalMart was an hour away, we didn't get a local one until 2002) RadioShack was a staple business in the community. Not only did they sell your standard handheld electronics, but also electronic components. The guy who ran our RadioShack also ran a electronic repair business, I remember he advertised he could fix broken Nintendos and other game systems. He also sold used games....But overall it was an important business to have because if something broke you could drop it off in the morning and pick it up on your way home from work, it was cheaper and less of a hassle than having to make the two hour round trip drive to "the city" to replace things...
Didnt even know they existed past early 2000ish. Wow. I used to buy speakers and wires etc and built custom stereo systems. Once they stopped selling components i never bought anything thete again.
I loved all the science and electronic and radio kits, RC cars, walkie talkies, CB systems, toy robots and laser guns I would get as a child from my family through Radio Shack. Radio Shack actually felt more like a high-tech toy store. We lost something great in the nation when Radio Shack just began stocking rows and rows of beepers phones, and paid calling cards. I know times had changed but Radio Shack was something that ignited the imagination in children with regard to so many professions. Little before they closed the last by me I got some solder and a iron and it was just this tiny section in the far back of the store near the floor.
Radio Shack would have been great if they were healthy enough to embrace the maker community. Raspberry Pi, Arduino, 3D printing, PC builders...could have been a nice pivot, especially if they made or licensed some products with good reputation in these areas.
i miss having radio shack around. was one of the last places to find tiny electronic components locally. if they came back they should focus on makers.
But there are already many retailers supporting makers. You can buy in person at Microcenter or anywhere online. If you are a maker, you are not likely to be stuck doing nothing because you can't find supplies. No. You already know where to find what you need, right? So what would Radio Shack stores add?
@@LatitudeSky Alas, closest microcenter is a 4 hour drive. Not anyone close sells components at this level. Even small shops. So it's ordering and waiting. Radioshack was one of the last ones in my area. Though I can probably find at least 1000 stores that sell cellphones
I remember getting annoyed when they insisted on having my info name and address for a small cash purchase. Then they tried to sell crappy cell phones. Then a clerk said her computer was better than another one that it wasn't better than and mocked me saying I must just want to play games if I didn't want her computer.
Those two-way radios, as seen @9:00 in the video, referred to by some as 'handy-talkie' or 'walkie-talkie" were a marvel of wireless communication back in the 1960s into the '70s. Imagine, for $15 in 1968 {equivalent to $130 US in 2024) a person could have a two-way radio communication device that was good up to a quarter-mile distance. In the 21st century, for less than $40, a person can obtain a cell-phone and have two-way communication world-wide! The high-tech advances I've witnessed in the last half-century is nothing less than mind-boggling!
My stepdad loved Radio Shack. I still have my Realistic tape recorders and my brother’s remote control jeep. Tandy was headquartered here in Fort Worth. We used to go to the leather stores and get those leather hobby kits.
I worked at RS back in the 1980s while in college, then later as a part-time job in the 90s. I have to agree with just about everything you pointed out. The plan should have been to let Verizon and Sprint people sit in the corner and sell their phones. A regular Shack customer would come in, find stuff on their own, and stand in line while the RS employee had to make multiple calls to activate cell phones for people. The regular employees should have never touched the cell phones. RS did best when they sold accessories for stuff that didn't come with your electronics from eBay.
Loved going to Radio Shack as a kid. Radios, speakers, little handheld TVs, gadgets, cheap RC cars...it was great! Noticed a difference in the place later on in my teenage years, and that may have been partly due to growing up and my interests changing, but the store just didn't feel the same later in the 2000s. It just felt like a phone store that also happened to have some other electronics.
They had a lifetime guarantee on their vacuum tubes, no receipt needed just bring in the bad tube. I remember if you walked in and asked about getting a replacement tube the manager would say They were out. I had to pretend I was going to buy the tubes and when the salesman went to ring Them up I just handed them the bad tubes grabbed the new tubes and walk out.
The last time I went to a Radioshack was because I was desperate and needed an SD card. It was around 2011 and I really didn't want to stand around in Walmart and wait for someone to unlock the case for me (back then, the SD cards were all locked away). I think it was a 4GB SD card. It would have cost me $75. I visibly blanched at the sticker, told the old man "no thanks", drove across town to Walmart and happily waited for someone to unlock the case to buy the SAME EXACT CARD for $15.
The day that Radio Shack lost me as a regular customer was when they stopped having headphones out on display to try before you buy. The day Radio Shack died for me,was when I went in to buy a CD Walkman & they had nothing but phones.
@@slightlyevolved Yup. I remember seeing them the last time I stepped into a RadioShack in July of 2008. The last thing I remember buying from the Houston Galleria Mall Store was a Portable Pocket Flashlight. I believe I still have it.
This takes me back. I use to get radio control cars on Christmas from RadioShack. I still have home theater equipment from them that still works great.
I worked there (Store 01-6419 outside of Chicago in Zion Il.) from 2000-2004. Great Manager Mike McHale went down with the ship, priceless memories during the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons - thanks Mike!
Anyone remember for many many years whenever you bought something from Radio Shack they hand wrote the ticket and always wanted full address and such. They actually made it difficult to purchase from them. Even when many others had more modern POS devices, Radio Shack was still handwriting tickets. Even the employees were frustrated with the process.
I recall in the 1990s that the customer had to provide a phone number when the purchase was being made, even for a $5 item. When I went to a local Radio Shack store to buy a trivial item and the retail clerk asked for my phone number, I gave them the main phone number of my workplace. When the clerk punched in the phone number at his computer terminal, he became puzzled that a dozen other names appeared on the computer screen that were associated to that same phone number.
I worked at Radio Shack for a few years from 2011-2013 and boy what a wild ride! I can’t lie…I miss radio shack!! Not working there but the brick & mortar stores! I can’t express how many times I’ve needed a little part or weird cable and thought “god I wish radio shack were still here”
The problem with these shops is always the same. In the old days these shops had propper staff, they knew the items, and they could repair items. Even when online sales started, these shops where still in demand. Only when shops started to hire "sales people" with no knowledge, people deceided to buy online, as it was cheaper and the shop didn't give any additional value.
Problem is people don't value experienced clerks. An experienced clerk demands a higher wage; to pay that higher wage, the store must sell goods at a higher price. People go into the store, ask questions, then go to a big box store or online catalog to make the actual purchase. Then they go online & complain about the smaller store's high prices. "They're ripping us off." No. They're providing a service; you're ripping them off.
@@stillbuyvhs I think it is the other way arround. In the old days you got good service from people with knowledge, however over time, this became sales drones and nothing more, yet the prices stayed the same.
Sad to see Radio Shack and Fry's disappear. It's just not the same buying on the internet where you can't touch and fully examine items before you buy them.
As a young kid, my favorite part of Radio Shack was the section that had the strobe lights and plasma globes. As i got a little older my interests shifted to the electronic components like resistors, capacitors, LEDs etc. Those Science Fair electronic labs were my bread and butter.
No matter how obscure the item you needed, Radio Shack always had it. A cable with a 1/4” stereo jack on one end with two RCA jacks on the other; you’d be asked which of the dozen different lengths you needed. Even when I thought there was no way they’d have a cable which would let you use 2 sets of headphones from one jack, by God, they had it. (During the 70s, specialty adapters were arcane).
I'm pretty sure the radio shack in Fort Myers Florida is a front for criminal activity. I went in there one day just out of morbid curiosity, and the guy working the desk seemed genuinely shocked that I was in the store. And it was just me and him. The place was poorly lit, they didn't have a whole lot of inventory on the walls, and the entire time I was there he seemed really nervous. So either I am extremely intimidating, which I'm not, or she was nervous that I was a cop trying to sniff out why that hell a radio shack was still around.
Jullian Day could have saved that company if they had not fought every decision he made and then kicked him out. He was trying to broker an exclusivity deal with DJI drones and wanted to get into slot car racing. He even found a build it yourself tube amp with an ipod dock that had upgrade options that let you use the original parts and speakers to make larger, fancier options. All things that sound exactly like what you would find at radioshack. But all the board wanted to hear was "celphones". I find it interesting that you never mentioned the fact that RadioShack operated the kiosk in Sam's wholesale
I heard that Apple and RadioShack were in talks for a Joint Venture back in '04 to develop a Mobile Phone from the iPod Touch Concept, this of course became the iPhone. But at the time, Apple was pitching it using the iPod Touch concept. RadioShack/Tandy backed out of the deal because Apple wanted to sell a Mobile Phone for $600. Had RadioShack accepted the deal, they would have had 20% Control of iPhone, Been Able to EXCLUSIVELY carry them in RadioShack PLUS would have been paid by Apple Yearly 2nd Party Royalties. They Really screwed the pooch there.
I used to spend so much of my days in Radio Shack after my father bough me an MC-10 computer and eventually Iupgraded to a Color Computer 3. I couldn't afford to purchase games so I learned programming and wound up selling my own when I was in High school. Even got my games reviewed in a magazine specializing in the Color Computer, Rainbow. They didn't really like the games... but hell. I was in high school. Sad to see it go.
They seemed to really go downhill for hobbyists the moment they started pushing mobile phone sales in the early 90s onward. They got huge commissions for each mobile contract, upwards of $250-300 so that's all sales or management cared about selling. It was when things like their components/parts bins started to vanish from most locations, when the interesting franchise-independent items (like custom speaker cabinets) also went away, and it just started to look a lot like a modern T-Mobile store but with a bunch of off-brand electronics like RC cars and low-quality stereos kind of scattered in the background. It was a stark contrast from what I remember from the early 80s when the local radio shack was like 3000 square feet and full of metal detectors, electronics learning kits, stereos/tvs, CB radios, TRS-80 computers, synthesizers, oscillators, multimeters, and so on.
I sort of loved Incredible Universe, and was sad to see it go. There was a big one in Houston and I loved going there to just play around with the electronics.
I had a TRS 80, had a CB radio for my car, my first car phone and first cell phone, all because of Radio Shack. The only thing that I still have from there is a small sun powered cigarette lighter that I use to show how a parabolic solar cooker works.
Slight observation: Circuit City and Radio Shack rebranding as The City and The Shack would be like Walmart and K mart rebranding as The Wal and The K, since The Mart would actually describe what they are... unlike The City and The Shack
Man talk about bringing back memories. I remember back in the 80's going to RadioShack with my Uncle John and picking up bits and bobs, building crystal radios and all kinds of electronic kits. Those cable descramblers were a blast to build and I sold more than a few to my neighbors for money to buy more nerdy tech from there.
I had forgotten all about the battery of the month. I was fortunate to have grown up around Boston and been interested in electronics in the 1960's. We had stores like Radio Shack, Lafayette Radio Electronics, Allied, Heathkit, etc.
In the early 70s, I got a bunch of the "Project Kits" as a kid. I eventually built all the kits. Everyone back in the landline days leased their phone. It's the same with cable modems today. Comcast charges $15-$20/month for the modem, or you can just buy one of your choosing.
Radio shack not only sold electronics such as toys, radios, etc, but this was the only place you could get parts like led lights, diodes, computer chips and other things internal to most electronics. A real techs dream store
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Microcenter fills a similar niche today. They're not as omnipresent as Radio Shack was though.
@@alexhajnal107 Radioshack really focused on the "Everyone is close" idea, with at one point 95% of the US Population lived within 5 miles of a RadioShack. Being at 5000 stores
@@GleppaPiggpooper
@@alexhajnal107I'd visit Micro Center if the nearest one wasn't 137 miles away :(
A large problem is corporate culture. "We made 6 million last year in profit and we made 5 million in profit this year" "so youre telling me we lost 1 million" "no that's not it" "great let me sell off the profitable part of the business to.make up that 1 million loss" "wait no"
Lmao. I've work with those types.
Yes be cause your stock tanks if not making more profit and not selling long term plans to make more profit
Then you add to that the P.E.F. mindset of "Buy company, sell off what we can to generate a spreadsheet of amazing numbers for a quarter. SELL, SELL, SELL! And do it as fast as possible. Then brag to clients how your firm turned a 20% profit from a declining company. Sucker more people into becoming clients, rinse a freakin repeat!"
@@petewillson205 And the top folk get paid in stock and need those numbers to keep going up...
Not only that, they sold a manufacturing division which is much more steady due to making parts for other flagship companies. That would be like TSMC selling their plants for short term gain, completely boneheaded.
Radio Shack. During liquidation they did not want to sell their customer list and fought that they had an agreement with customers to protect their privacy. The courts ruled that in bankruptcy all contracts were up to court decisions. The customer list was determined to have a monetary value so it was ordered to be sold.
Remember this when companies say they don't sell your information. Customer lists are assets and subject to sale in bankruptcy. This was the biggest event during Radio Shack bankruptcy and is now a case study.
"What do you mean, Doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan." - Marty McFly.
I thought about this line, and then scrolled down to see if anyone posted it!
@@spicytuna62 was just watching that clip on a BTTF3 binge. Was just thinking of the movie series after getting off the Simpsons ride, the original had more of a narrarive
@@spicytuna62 he lied horribly 😂😂😂
When I was a kid in the 90s, while my mom would go into the supermarket two doors down, I would wander Radio Shack. Man, I loved that store. The staff were also surprisingly accepting of a kid hanging out in there. They could recognize that spark I had for electronics and computers and didn't want to mess it up.
@@Look_What_You_Did I dunno about that, at least where I lived. I wasn't a practically rambunctious kid but I was frequently told to leave stores if I wasn't with my parents or there to buy something. No one really wants to babysit kids in their store.
Yeah I did the same thing. My mom would be at Luckys and I would go over to Radio Shack. I was that annoying kid constantly asking questions and never buying anything.
Same😁
@@Kylefassbinderful Depended who was staffing and or managing the stores at that time.
The older store staff would usually be pretty tolerant especially if you showed an interest in their products even if you were just browsing and learning things. Many times those guys would be happy to give you information. The younger store staff often times didn't want to be bothered with kids...
I used to depend on Radio Shack for a lot of my model railroad electronics. I could buy resistors, LED's, small lamps, terminal strips, solder, wire, and hardware. I grieve the loss of those stores.
Having a electronics parts house, I had a lot of model railroad customers. They would create some amazingly impressive layouts. One customer invited me over to his house which was basically a train station with trains and dioramas throughout the house. Good times!
Indeed. My maternal grandfather had a 4 x 8 HO scale layout in the basement of our former home, and I imagine he went to Radio Shack quite often. As a novice model railroader myself, I've noticed that there's a trend toward making model railroad layouts easier to set up and run, though more experienced modelers (such as some of my fellow model railroad club members) would likely make use of the items you mentioned above.
I was a sales associate at Radio Shack during the cellphone push - and boy was it a push. We were pressured into trying to get people, who just wanted some damn parts, to buy cellphones. It was a very stupid business decision on Radio Shack's part.
My father constantly stated, "a city is not a city without a Radio Shack." This was in the 80s.
That’s how I feel about Starbucks nowadays, lol.
Even tiny places had Radio Shacks, it was the Dollar General of its day in terms of ubiquity.
@@amandathemystic1828Barnes & Noble
@@amandathemystic1828 I lived in a pretty bare area forty mins from a small town. Worked at the gas station near the interstate and when people asked for the nearest Starbucks...the guys LOST it. Nearest was in a different state.
Circuit City and RadioShack are/were "tech" retail companies that IRONICALLY couldn't adapt to the changes of Technology. As sad as it is, they deserved to go under for not adapting to TECHNOLOGY, the things THEY WERE SELLING.
It’s more due to corporate malfeasance than being incapable of adapting to changing tech
True. But is crazy RadioShack lasted longer than Circuit City.
It’s mostly just giant corporate companies that get too big, breed incompetence, men in suits that don’t even understand the market they are in charge of. Once they start making lots of money, they get complacent and fall asleep at the wheel, and over a few years markets totally turn around, and it’s like the frog in the heating water metaphor. They don’t notice until it’s too late. Almost every CEO at every company is extremely incompetence and tone deaf.
@@JoseOlaldeCircuit city was just the PINNACLE of corporate incompetence.
It still kills me that they turned to selling nothing but phones & list business to the dozens of phone kiosks in the mall they were attached to.
Radio Shack was the nerd store. Needed a weird adapter, diode, resister, capacitor? Radio Shack had it. Needed an RCA splitter? Got it. Even almost up the the very end (2008?) I could go to the local Radio Shack and find the cables I needed to connect my 8mm camcorder to my computer to digitize my old vacation footage...dang I miss them, but Best Buy and Amazon have pretty much taken over that space.
Tandy corp. wanted to make all the money off of more expensive items and got rid of most of things like switches and diodes. Also most of their stores lost money because of this. Got rid of the people who knew about things opting to hire Min. wage people instead.
I needed a tantalum capacitor.
Radio shack employee said they did not stock it at the store, but could order it for me.
I said ok, and while the employee was ordering it, I once again told him to make sure it was a TANTALUM capacitor, and he assured me it would be.
After maybe a week or 2, my order came in, and guess what it was? ELECTROLYTIC radial, not tantalum.
So, not only did the Radio Shack store **NOT** have it, but they also wasted my time too.
As someone who was on the ground floor towards the end, ima explain it in my own words. They focused too hard on 3rd party phone retailing, selling other companies phones, made up close to 75% of sales. They removed all the components drawers and put more sd cards and phone cases. Their core customer went to internet long before the end but they werent helping the cause
Greetings: True
I too was there for that debacle
I was working for them when they dropped Verizon and forced us to sell At&t. The only way we made money was selling cell phones and add ons. Cellphone case, car adapter, headphone set and if you could. Extended warranty that included battery replacement. They were done once Verizon knew they didn't need us anymore and had their own store in the mall.
These places going out of business, for 80s and 90s kids, is the equivalent of Amazon or Facebook just shutting down one day.
We had one near my house when I was a kid in the 2000s. I would later pick up electronics repair myself, would've been nice to have. Thankfully local hardware stores have at least the basics.
Except people miss Radio Shack and recall it fondly in many cases. I doubt Facebook or Amazon would stir up many emotions if they closed. They don't have the personal interaction and advice.
I worked there in the 2000’s… I can tell you the day it lost track. The stopped paying us commission on our sales and made all of us managers hourly employees. No one cared anymore after that. Our district lost half its managers in one paycheck.
From memory I think when RS tried to sling cell phones and put loose hardware on the back burner they started to lose the plot. That and they sold uncompetitive home electronics. WGAF about a AM-FM/cassette boombox with a built in 3" B&W TV in 2002?
I did too. Remember " Millennium Silver"? 😂
@@chad-harris that was very much a symptom of that problem... Not the cause.
It was before 2000. I left in 95 and they had already started to decline. The decision to abandon their own brands and start relabeling pioneer products for example, was the real start of the end. People noticed, so they could buy the name brand for 30-50% less somewhere else. Same with computers, they should have kept Tandy in house but instead started selling Compaq etc. We made 7% commission and within 12 months (94), in store sales dropped over 50%. The only thing we actually sold were speakers, scanners and bag phones. Parts were still OK but that accounted for such a small part of overall sales.
"Make more money now and no money later" is a perfect description of modern corporate culture.
Yes...only worry about the numbers for this month. Or quarterly for the far-forward thinkers.
Yep since CEOs rarely ever are held accountable for their actions they get hired by a company, squeeze as much money as they can either by dubious or outright illegal means then dip when they go down, run away with all the money then start up with another company and pretend nothing ever happened
The "Battery a month" thing was cool. My uncle worked in the mall and did that. Every month he got a free battery for his TV remote. And if you ever had a remote in the 80's, you pretty much needed to replace the battery every month.
Luckily his only needed one AA. But, it also had four buttons. PWR/VOL+/VOL-/ and CHAN +. You could only change the channel up. missed the one you wanted, back around again. Thankfully it only had 13 channels.
Worked there from 96 to 98. Surprised no mention that every single sale we made, we were required to ask the customer for their name, address, phone number, etc. That would never fly today and I still remember people yelling at me for asking. That was my first and last retail job. :)
stores are asking about the store cards all of the time.
I hated that.
@@davidkuhlman8004 This is what stores learned to do to keep people from yelling at them. Instead of asking for personal info up front, you ask if they want the store card and only ask the personal info if they say yes.
Yeah we hated asking, it was fairly awful
"that would never fly today" it does, it flies around like moths with a light bulb. Go to a microcenter, go to a harbor freight, go to a target, they're all always asking "do you have an account with us?" for the exact same reason as they did then. They will ask you for that information if you tell them you want an account, which is slightly different from being directly required to ask that up front, but it's still a thing that happens. But I'd wager most (hard ass) managers would rather their employees not ask if they have an account because the employees only ask that because people get so mad if you just start asking their personal information to look up
As a 70s kid I would go with my grandfather to Radio Shack. I loved waking around and seeing all the items. Miss those days.
I was born in the late 70's, but I lived during the 80's and 90's… I loved going to Radio Shack… but it's definitely cemented for me even today is the scene in "Short Circuit 2" where Johnny 5 had to repair himself(with help)…
@@jescis One of my Earliest memories of RadioShack is when Mom took me to one for the First time in October of 1985 to purchase Batteries for her Weight Scale in Cape May,NJ. I remember there being this little keychain they sold that made 9 different sounds with 9 buttons when you pressed them and had 4 Red Light Bulbs. The Sounds sounded like an 8 bit Atari Dogfight with two Fighter Jets battling each other.
Having been a manager of a Radio Shack in the mid 80's to the mid 90's, I would have loved to help with this episode. There were many things we knew internally that weren't covered here. I got out when I saw the end coming, early to mid 90's. There were little things as well as the big things that contributed to the fall that were starting during that time. Oh ,and a good portion of those little things included manager fraud. (IE: TSP) You pretty much summed up the final decline pretty well, but some of us Managers saw the writing on the wall much earlier. As the snowball towards destruction went down the hill, we saw the original kick that started it all. Oh, and side note, they changed to The Shack because that's what most of the customers called us. "I'm going down to The Shack to get the adapter and cords I need." Most of us actually embraced that. You ever decide you want to do a "Behind the Scenes" kind of episode, I'd love to talk with you about it.
What's 'TSP'?
@@stevew1487 Tandy Service Plan
There's nothing wrong with Radio Shack customers giving the place a cute nickname like The Shack but unless the nickname does as good a job or better off conveying what it is you sell or provide it's a terrible idea to change your store name to the nickname. People hear Radio Shack and think of a hobby electronics and parts store. People hear The Shack and think of some run down beer shop or a dingey unkempt gas station. It's like if Walmart changed their name officially to Wally World just because people call it that as a nickname. You see an ad on TV or TH-cam for Wally World and it sounds like a kids theme park, not a grocery/department store.
@@stevew1487 Tandy Service Plan aka extended warranty
The biggest thing that is killing companies, and driving corporate greed, is the stock market and being public. Having everything structured on OBSESSING about growth and making as much money as possible for the shareholders, never being satisfied with steady growth naturally, it ALWAYS has to be to expand rapidly and stretch themselves extremely thin just to make shareholders a few more dimes. It’s the problem with almost everything. Corporate greed is absolutely mind blowing right now…
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No, the issue is Private Equity firms. They're bought and liquidated but the hollow husk will continue to exist. It happened to probably all of your favorite companies at some point.
@@jaredchampagne2752 going public is definitely an issue for some companies, but companies like Nintendo (I own Nintendo stock) seem to be okay regardless. I think it really just depends on company/country's culture
Not to mention our government facilitates that greed by bailing the top echelon of them out when they gamble and lose.
@@ginak5802 but when a company goes public, it holds a legal fiduciary duty to MAXIMIZE shareholder profits, instead of making common sense decisions that’s best for the customer and thinking of long term consequences of the company. This leads to lower quality products and up-charging. Nintendo does great things and has for years, but they’ve also pulled a lot of slimey tactics over the years too.
Having a Lafayette Radio Electronics store, Radio Shack was a competitor or sorts. We had a big boost in customers when they shifted to consumer electronics. When LRE started to chase them down that market, I went independent and basically became a parts house. A good move due to all the R&D going on and the MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Operations) needs of all the companies nearby. Not to mention all their DIY ex-customers. When RS started firing managers, I hired a few as their knowledge was invaluable.
Great video and trip down memory lane.
THE place to go for a shortwave radio in 1990...oh, and receivers, speakers, turntables. What a time to be young.
I still shop at a Radio Shack in Monroe, WI.
Just a month ago, I bought some drop resistors for the dead odometer in my car, and a can of joy juice (what my friends, teacher, and I call contact cleaner).
They had a classic looking boom box there that also had Bluetooth and USB integrated into it.
So real talk. It's not actually bad CEOs making rookie mistakes. It's an actual tactic investors use on purpose. This is standard business as usual for Wall Street. Long term sustainable growth is NEVER favored over short term profit. They milk companies of as much quick upfront profit as they can get, then they chop up and auction off the remaining drained husk that once was a thriving business. And because of a little thing called "fiduciary duty" a CEO trying to make smart choices for the company can and will be successfully SUED into doing the quick buck stupid thing, because legally they MUST act in the best interest of their clients. Their clients being their share holders, and the share holders' best interests being new super yachts. The only way it will ever stop it to insist on financial law reform.
That's capitalism.
Get money.
Just get it.
Get as much as you can.
Get it as fast as you can.
Get it any way you can.
Just get it.
I spend so much time in Radio Shack and dog eared their huge product catalogs in the 1970s. It took forever, but I saved $250 from picking berries to buy two Mach 5, 15" bass speakers. They were amazing!
I worked at radio shack from 2006 to 2007, and the pressure was on to sell credit cards and like only credit cards. I had a boss that demanded we ask the customer at least four times if they wanted to sign up for a credit card. So I had this guy on the hook who was buying a lot and I stood to make a lot in commissions from him, And I knew my shit and I was upselling him like crazy. And I asked twice and on the second time he said "If you ask me about the credit card again I'm going to drop my stuff and leave". I wanted those commissions so I decided to shut my mouth. And then my boss took me aside and asked me how many times I had asked him I said two but that he was going to just leave if I asked him again. So my boss decided he was going to ask him because we needed to sell the shitty credit cards with the 29% interest or whatever the fuck they were.
And it was then that the guy just dropped the stuff, told me to put the TV back and left. My boss cost me a very nice commission. All because they were desperate to sell the fucking credit cards.
If you're known as "Radio Shack" all through history, you never change your name, even if you stopped carrying radios or radio parts. Even if it's year 3000 and no one alive knows what a radio is, your store name should continue being Radio Shack.
Big company leadership only last 5-7 years. So makes sense that they went for the short money. Miss the days of large family owned companies that made long term decisions.
The employees at RadioShack were cool nerdy guys. There were gadgets everywhere. I loved that place. It hurts to see the commercials I remember watching live, decades ago, now being replayed on this sad documentary.
@@rc123theycallme same miss them now. We shopped at radio shack in 2012 while being taken care of at NIH (national institute of health) during their closing sale. Ended up using that router up until 2017.
I used to love going to Radio Shack but started avoiding it because they insisted on getting your phone number and address to buy anything. I'd want some batteries and look around but figured i could buy battereies anywhere else without being hassled for my contact info.
Born in 1950, got interested in radio and electronics in the 1960s. They had cabinets with unpackaged resistors, capacitors, etc. When integrated circuits came out you could even buy TTLs to build digital circuits.
Then Radio Shack started packaging two componesnts in a cardboard box, for a LOT more money.
The phones and computers shoved the racks of parts out of the store.
Radio Shack still sold small tools, soldering irons, cheap multimeters, etc.
I stopped going there for electronics.
I remember their home stereo stuff. OPTIMUS. It was made by or a clone of Pioneer. Good stuff!
RadioShack was handy for getting components that you otherwise would need to wait to have shipped. I was more than happy to pay a little extra to get a couple capacitors or a resistor right away and get the repair done.
I just found your channel yesterday, and have been binging since. High quality, nostalgic, and informational videos. Great job man 👍🏼
I worked there towards the end. Radio Shack wanted to pivot from hobby electronics to becoming a cell phone retailer FORCING unfair sales numbers on employees to push cell phone contracts on customers that just wanted to come in and buy a fuse or odd battery. I worked in an area where AT&T was pretty much the only provider that had service in the area (this was back in 2012) and at that time Radio Shack wasn't carrying AT&T, so it was near impossible to push sales. Plus I'm a tech guy I didn't want to use deceptive sales tactics.
Soured my entire history with the store because I was a hobbyist but there was more profit in taking kickbacks from cellphone contracts than the profit on a 75 cent resistor.
The day after I got my drivers license one of the first places I drove was to Radio Shack where I bought the parts to build a cable descrambler that I found instructions for online. Thank you Radio Shack, for helping 16 year old me watch major new release movies during the day and even better movies late at night, even though my parents wouldn’t pay for the premium channels.
@@DuckOfRubber what were the better movies at night? 😉😉😉
😂😂@@Ob_GynKenobi
@@Ob_GynKenobi Skinemax duh
@@Ob_GynKenobiskinemax probably haha 😅
As a HAM operator, I can assure you when they went phones, they ditched all my HAM needs and tried to sell me a phone and service I didn't want or need. Then, I think to hammer the last nail in the corporate coffin, they were charging double for normal Duracell batteries, But, since people were in the store, surely someone would pick them up.
Nope. They were located in the SAME parking lot as Walmart.
And the Walmart is still doing good.
I can recall going in to one of their stores during the time of their demise and thinking what even is this place?! They didn’t carry anything I was looking for anymore.
In the early 2000s in Tulsa Oklahoma Radio Shack did a trial run of stores inside of BlockBuster. They hired and trained a bunch of new employees. My ex and his friend and I were in that group. They split us all up and had us train at the main stores there in town. The first ones hired once finished with training (also in that group) went around to the new locations inside of blockbusters and “built” the stores (got everything set up). Was quite an experience. I lucked out and was able to get my own store in a rich neighborhood. Made best sales in my district obnoxiously consistently.
The job was so slow I remember mostly sitting on the counter watching tv. I remember sitting there on 9-11 watching in horror what was happening. It wasn’t long after I quit. The boredom was too much.
Parts, specialty cables and adapters are now a hassle to get without radio shack.
Used to be able to fix things with parts from radio shack. Things became throw away and technology was moving too fast. Nobody has a TV for life or a car for 20 or 30 years anymore. These days people don't wear clothes more than a few times before it gets thrown out. You can see the decline of our society by the trends in industry. Less self reliance and more convenience isn't a good thing.
I used to frequent Radio Shack back in the day as I was an electronics hobbyist. There was a location here in DC near my job that briefly became a Sprint store and has been closed since 2017 I believe. It was pretty cool to be able to go to the mall and pick up a pack of resistors and capacitors (as well as whatever electronics components you might need), but that's a relic of a bygone era.
@@93greenstrat yeah what a time to have lived. Not only could you get parts to make your own radio from the mall, you had an arcade with every top game, and per store. You could visit Radio Shack, beat street fighter II, and leave with a puppy. Malls don't have that magic now and that's why they are on the way out sadly
My husband (then boyfriend) bought his first digital camera from Radio Shack. It was 2001 and i thought it was so cool lol
@@UnbridledFinds was he able to capture any primo 9/11 footage with it
Nope, just lots of our hiking pictures that look like something out of The Blair Witch movie lol.
Digital cameras back then we're really cool thing
We have a Radio Shack in Maine, and it stays afloat because it's also a record store.
Greetings: No kidding? A RS still in service? A store selling vinyl? Wow!
Hm what's the deal with Maine. Is that where the last Blockbuster was in a Family Guy episode or am I totally wrong?
@@warriorstar2517 is it the only place in town to give your horse a drink of water
😂that's in bend Oregon@@cleanclean4031
I worked at radioshack 02 - 03. They were telling us to sell any adult who walked in a cell phone. They already had one? Sell them another one. Why does one person need two cell phones? Those kinds of questions get you fired. I dont think a single person was surprised they went under.
Back around that time I was working as a IT manager. Which, because of my work, I would up having to carry two cell phones and two pagers. One day, I popped by a Radio Shack to buy a CR2025 battery only to be confronted by a overly aggressive female RS employee who tried to hard sell me a cell phone. She was so aggressive that she would not let me buy the battery until she talked to me about buying a cell phone. When I showed her the two cell phones/pagers that I already had -- she was like you still need another. The only reason why I did not walk out of the store and go somewhere else was because at the time RS was the only place locally that had CR2025 batteries -- which I really needed at the time. She finally sold me the battery -- but she was really angry that I didn't buy a cell phone. Needless to say, as soon as I left the store -- the thought in my mind was Radio Shack is going out of business.
@@Haywire13 Worked there in 12 to 14 and it was the same thing.
Cell phones and satellite dishes were pretty risk free. RS never had to commit to buying the hardware, the service provider owned it. RS would sell it, pocket the commissions, and hoped the customer bought something else while you processed the paperwork and pushed them out the door.
@@jimkear6749 That all changed in '04. When Tandy signed an Exclusive Partnership with SprintNextel. This Deal locked EVERYONE else out and forced RadioShack to discontinue carrying New Cellphones from Sprint's competitors. This was the severed thread that DOOMED RadioShack.
@Haywire13 yup, I was 2005-2009, between cell phones (including that trumpet mobile garbage), satellite TV, satellite radio, magicjack, and garbage service plans....they lost their focus and tried to complete against walmarts and best buys...yeah just sad they lost it
I worked in the Customer Care department at their Ft. Worth headquarters for ten years and was laid off in 2006. One of the jokes in the office was that every store manager's only goal was to make sure every customer walked out of the store with a satellite dish hanging around their neck and a cellphone shoved up their ass.
But, seriously, for the price point, Realistic and Optimus audio components were top of the line. Up until we switched to Chinese junk with the Realistic and Optimus names slapped on them, that is. I had a pair of Optimus headphones that were the best I've ever owned. I only stopped using them because the ear pads disintegrated from age.
@wadechilds6671 Optimus! Yes! My first car in the mid 90's was a used basic car; didn't even have a tape deck and 3/4 of the speakers were blown. First thing I did was go down to Radio Shack and bought an Optimus CD player radio and speakers and installed it myself. It was a good system for a broke teenager!
@@nimravus01 Realistic. First Ever VCR we owned was brought at RadioShack back in March of 1987.
Thats unfortunate. Was it not as common to replace pads then?
@@cleanclean4031 It wasn't, which is a shame. The clarity and sound range on those things was amazing. If I remember correctly, they were made by Koss exclusively for RadioShack. I paid about $100 for them back in the mid-1990s.
Radioshack was a place that I remember buying my first CD-ROM games, a RC car, my family's walkie-talkies, and getting my discman from. A few of those games and the walkies I still own! I also remember my Mom buying a stereo for her first car from our local Radioshack. (My Mom didn't learn to drive until after having my sister and I in her late twenties). It was a place that every kid in the early 2000s had heard of, and if your didn't own something from them, you were considered uncool. Just how it was back then.
Early 2000s? Nobody was going to RadioShack in the 2000s and certainly nobody thought it was the “cool” place to go. By the early 2000s Best Buy, Circuit City, Service Merchandise, hell even Walmart to some degree was the place to go for all the things you’re mentioning and then some. RadioShack was the only place to buy particular types of new technology in the 80s and the beginning of the 90s (Big screen rear projection televisions for example) but by the 2000s they were a Dinosaur that primarily catered to people who could repair at the component level. Nice try though. It’s so pathetic how Gen Z tries to drum up faux nostalgia out of things they couldn’t possibly have any meaningful connection too. Such lame posers. “Oh em gee I saw radio shack in an episode of Stranger Things….soooooo many memories “
@@bernielomax4702bro. Everybody born in 2000 knew about RadioShack. Imagine trying to gatekeep nostalgia. No one cares. By the time we were 10 RadioShack didn't matter. It was still a recognizable brand for most of our early lives. Find something important to be angry about loser. Swear you millennials don't actually know how old we are.
@@bernielomax4702 So true lol
None of the Radio Shacks where I grew up ever sold video games, or computers, or game consoles, or music, or movies.... Yeah, they were pretty much already dead in the mid 90s for us. There was nothing they had that you couldn't buy at the Albertsons down the street. I guess the managers took the radio part of Radio Shack too literally. Sold almost nothing but boom boxes, speakers, headphones, & toy cars & planes.
@@haydendegrow945 I'm with you..that's where my first RC cars came from..when I got a lil older.. that's where I bought my cordless phones and speakers n amps
Dang the food inspired nomenclature for the colorful radios was soooo far ahead of its time!
My mom got her first flip phone at radio shack 😭 I remember she was so excited. A great memory of mine.
Growing up in a rural community during the late 80's-90"s (our closest WalMart was an hour away, we didn't get a local one until 2002) RadioShack was a staple business in the community. Not only did they sell your standard handheld electronics, but also electronic components. The guy who ran our RadioShack also ran a electronic repair business, I remember he advertised he could fix broken Nintendos and other game systems. He also sold used games....But overall it was an important business to have because if something broke you could drop it off in the morning and pick it up on your way home from work, it was cheaper and less of a hassle than having to make the two hour round trip drive to "the city" to replace things...
Charles Tandy: CEO hall of fame.
Didnt even know they existed past early 2000ish. Wow. I used to buy speakers and wires etc and built custom stereo systems. Once they stopped selling components i never bought anything thete again.
I loved all the science and electronic and radio kits, RC cars, walkie talkies, CB systems, toy robots and laser guns I would get as a child from my family through Radio Shack. Radio Shack actually felt more like a high-tech toy store. We lost something great in the nation when Radio Shack just began stocking rows and rows of beepers phones, and paid calling cards. I know times had changed but Radio Shack was something that ignited the imagination in children with regard to so many professions. Little before they closed the last by me I got some solder and a iron and it was just this tiny section in the far back of the store near the floor.
Radio Shack would have been great if they were healthy enough to embrace the maker community. Raspberry Pi, Arduino, 3D printing, PC builders...could have been a nice pivot, especially if they made or licensed some products with good reputation in these areas.
They kinda did, but too little, and too late!
I came across two random RadioShacks in the middle of nowhere Texas...wild, it was two years ago.
Old enough to remember being in the
Battery of the Month club and looked forward to getting that free battery 🔋
Sears: We've literally been going out of business for 30 years.
Radio Shack: Hold my Crappocino.
Radio Shack was the only place I could get record player needles for years. Then eBay and Amazon came along. I suspect there are many such stories.
i miss having radio shack around. was one of the last places to find tiny electronic components locally. if they came back they should focus on makers.
But there are already many retailers supporting makers. You can buy in person at Microcenter or anywhere online. If you are a maker, you are not likely to be stuck doing nothing because you can't find supplies. No. You already know where to find what you need, right? So what would Radio Shack stores add?
@@LatitudeSky Alas, closest microcenter is a 4 hour drive. Not anyone close sells components at this level. Even small shops. So it's ordering and waiting. Radioshack was one of the last ones in my area.
Though I can probably find at least 1000 stores that sell cellphones
you've been pumping these vids out and they are all top quality, respect!
Loved going to Radio Shack for electronic project supplies, and Radio Shack brand Police Scanners
I remember getting annoyed when they insisted on having my info name and address for a small cash purchase. Then they tried to sell crappy cell phones. Then a clerk said her computer was better than another one that it wasn't better than and mocked me saying I must just want to play games if I didn't want her computer.
Those two-way radios, as seen @9:00 in the video, referred to by some as 'handy-talkie' or 'walkie-talkie" were a marvel of wireless communication back in the 1960s into the '70s. Imagine, for $15 in 1968 {equivalent to $130 US in 2024) a person could have a two-way radio communication device that was good up to a quarter-mile distance.
In the 21st century, for less than $40, a person can obtain a cell-phone and have two-way communication world-wide!
The high-tech advances I've witnessed in the last half-century is nothing less than mind-boggling!
My stepdad loved Radio Shack. I still have my Realistic tape recorders and my brother’s remote control jeep. Tandy was headquartered here in Fort Worth. We used to go to the leather stores and get those leather hobby kits.
Thanks for covering RS. I worked for them in the 90s, without retail experience and I learned a lot from them, which helped me in my career later on
I worked at RS back in the 1980s while in college, then later as a part-time job in the 90s. I have to agree with just about everything you pointed out. The plan should have been to let Verizon and Sprint people sit in the corner and sell their phones. A regular Shack customer would come in, find stuff on their own, and stand in line while the RS employee had to make multiple calls to activate cell phones for people. The regular employees should have never touched the cell phones. RS did best when they sold accessories for stuff that didn't come with your electronics from eBay.
I miss this place… as a hobbyist, I always felt like a kid in a candy store every time I walked into a Radio Shack
Loved going to Radio Shack as a kid. Radios, speakers, little handheld TVs, gadgets, cheap RC cars...it was great! Noticed a difference in the place later on in my teenage years, and that may have been partly due to growing up and my interests changing, but the store just didn't feel the same later in the 2000s. It just felt like a phone store that also happened to have some other electronics.
Yea, towards the end they tried focusing more on phones and other broad consumer electronics
They had a lifetime guarantee on their vacuum tubes, no receipt needed just bring in the bad tube.
I remember if you walked in and asked about getting a replacement tube the manager would say
They were out. I had to pretend I was going to buy the tubes and when the salesman went to ring
Them up I just handed them the bad tubes grabbed the new tubes and walk out.
Brilliant !
sad that this maneuver was necessary. If someone didn't know better they might think you were shoplifting.
@@SeeJayPlayGames things that never happened for $1000.
"That guy at Radio Shack said I was mad, but who's MAD NOW?!?!? Hahahahahahahahahahahaha......!" - Mr. Burns
The last time I went to a Radioshack was because I was desperate and needed an SD card. It was around 2011 and I really didn't want to stand around in Walmart and wait for someone to unlock the case for me (back then, the SD cards were all locked away).
I think it was a 4GB SD card. It would have cost me $75. I visibly blanched at the sticker, told the old man "no thanks", drove across town to Walmart and happily waited for someone to unlock the case to buy the SAME EXACT CARD for $15.
Currently the one reason my local RadioShack is hanging in there is it is a Stihl dealer and do a lot with small engine repairs. That’s about it.
The day that Radio Shack lost me as a regular customer was when they stopped having headphones out on display to try before you buy.
The day Radio Shack died for me,was when I went in to buy a CD Walkman & they had nothing but phones.
When was that? I worked there up to 2009, and at that point we still had those head shaped acrylic displays for the headphones.
@@slightlyevolved Yup. I remember seeing them the last time I stepped into a RadioShack in July of 2008. The last thing I remember buying from the Houston Galleria Mall Store was a Portable Pocket Flashlight. I believe I still have it.
This takes me back. I use to get radio control cars on Christmas from RadioShack. I still have home theater equipment from them that still works great.
I worked there (Store 01-6419 outside of Chicago in Zion Il.) from 2000-2004. Great Manager Mike McHale went down with the ship, priceless memories during the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons - thanks Mike!
Anyone remember for many many years whenever you bought something from Radio Shack they hand wrote the ticket and always wanted full address and such. They actually made it difficult to purchase from them. Even when many others had more modern POS devices, Radio Shack was still handwriting tickets. Even the employees were frustrated with the process.
I recall in the 1990s that the customer had to provide a phone number when the purchase was being made, even for a $5 item.
When I went to a local Radio Shack store to buy a trivial item and the retail clerk asked for my phone number, I gave them the main phone number of my workplace. When the clerk punched in the phone number at his computer terminal, he became puzzled that a dozen other names appeared on the computer screen that were associated to that same phone number.
I worked at Radio Shack for a few years from 2011-2013 and boy what a wild ride! I can’t lie…I miss radio shack!! Not working there but the brick & mortar stores! I can’t express how many times I’ve needed a little part or weird cable and thought “god I wish radio shack were still here”
Fry's electronics that is another one that was sad to see go. Now I need to order stuff online when I need to fix anything electronic own.
The problem with these shops is always the same. In the old days these shops had propper staff, they knew the items, and they could repair items. Even when online sales started, these shops where still in demand. Only when shops started to hire "sales people" with no knowledge, people deceided to buy online, as it was cheaper and the shop didn't give any additional value.
Problem is people don't value experienced clerks. An experienced clerk demands a higher wage; to pay that higher wage, the store must sell goods at a higher price. People go into the store, ask questions, then go to a big box store or online catalog to make the actual purchase.
Then they go online & complain about the smaller store's high prices. "They're ripping us off." No. They're providing a service; you're ripping them off.
@@stillbuyvhs I think it is the other way arround. In the old days you got good service from people with knowledge, however over time, this became sales drones and nothing more, yet the prices stayed the same.
Sad to see Radio Shack and Fry's disappear. It's just not the same buying on the internet where you can't touch and fully examine items before you buy them.
I always immediately hit like and leave a comment on all your videos, I want to increase engagement in the algorithm 👍
As a young kid, my favorite part of Radio Shack was the section that had the strobe lights and plasma globes. As i got a little older my interests shifted to the electronic components like resistors, capacitors, LEDs etc. Those Science Fair electronic labs were my bread and butter.
These videos are bangers!! And you pump them out pretty quick!
No matter how obscure the item you needed, Radio Shack always had it. A cable with a 1/4” stereo jack on one end with two RCA jacks on the other; you’d be asked which of the dozen different lengths you needed. Even when I thought there was no way they’d have a cable which would let you use 2 sets of headphones from one jack, by God, they had it. (During the 70s, specialty adapters were arcane).
I moved to the US in 1997. The only thing I used Radio Shack for was cables and adaptors.
I'm pretty sure the radio shack in Fort Myers Florida is a front for criminal activity. I went in there one day just out of morbid curiosity, and the guy working the desk seemed genuinely shocked that I was in the store. And it was just me and him. The place was poorly lit, they didn't have a whole lot of inventory on the walls, and the entire time I was there he seemed really nervous. So either I am extremely intimidating, which I'm not, or she was nervous that I was a cop trying to sniff out why that hell a radio shack was still around.
I bought so many blank cassettes from that place. Kids today won't know whats its really like to make a music playlist😂
I got my first soldering kits and components at radioshack. I loved it
Jullian Day could have saved that company if they had not fought every decision he made and then kicked him out. He was trying to broker an exclusivity deal with DJI drones and wanted to get into slot car racing. He even found a build it yourself tube amp with an ipod dock that had upgrade options that let you use the original parts and speakers to make larger, fancier options. All things that sound exactly like what you would find at radioshack. But all the board wanted to hear was "celphones". I find it interesting that you never mentioned the fact that RadioShack operated the kiosk in Sam's wholesale
I heard that Apple and RadioShack were in talks for a Joint Venture back in '04 to develop a Mobile Phone from the iPod Touch Concept, this of course became the iPhone. But at the time, Apple was pitching it using the iPod Touch concept. RadioShack/Tandy backed out of the deal because Apple wanted to sell a Mobile Phone for $600.
Had RadioShack accepted the deal, they would have had 20% Control of iPhone, Been Able to EXCLUSIVELY carry them in RadioShack PLUS would have been paid by Apple Yearly 2nd Party Royalties. They Really screwed the pooch there.
When I was a kid in the early 1990s I went to RadioShack and was told it was waaaay past its prime in the 1970s
They were known as Tandy in the UK and was known for extremely poor customer service with the staff but knowing anything about electronics.
I used to spend so much of my days in Radio Shack after my father bough me an MC-10 computer and eventually Iupgraded to a Color Computer 3. I couldn't afford to purchase games so I learned programming and wound up selling my own when I was in High school. Even got my games reviewed in a magazine specializing in the Color Computer, Rainbow. They didn't really like the games... but hell. I was in high school. Sad to see it go.
They seemed to really go downhill for hobbyists the moment they started pushing mobile phone sales in the early 90s onward. They got huge commissions for each mobile contract, upwards of $250-300 so that's all sales or management cared about selling. It was when things like their components/parts bins started to vanish from most locations, when the interesting franchise-independent items (like custom speaker cabinets) also went away, and it just started to look a lot like a modern T-Mobile store but with a bunch of off-brand electronics like RC cars and low-quality stereos kind of scattered in the background.
It was a stark contrast from what I remember from the early 80s when the local radio shack was like 3000 square feet and full of metal detectors, electronics learning kits, stereos/tvs, CB radios, TRS-80 computers, synthesizers, oscillators, multimeters, and so on.
I sort of loved Incredible Universe, and was sad to see it go. There was a big one in Houston and I loved going there to just play around with the electronics.
The Bellaire City one of course. On 610, its an HCC now. I attended that Campus in 2005,2007.
I had a TRS 80, had a CB radio for my car, my first car phone and first cell phone, all because of Radio Shack. The only thing that I still have from there is a small sun powered cigarette lighter that I use to show how a parabolic solar cooker works.
Slight observation: Circuit City and Radio Shack rebranding as The City and The Shack would be like Walmart and K mart rebranding as The Wal and The K, since The Mart would actually describe what they are... unlike The City and The Shack
Man talk about bringing back memories. I remember back in the 80's going to RadioShack with my Uncle John and picking up bits and bobs, building crystal radios and all kinds of electronic kits. Those cable descramblers were a blast to build and I sold more than a few to my neighbors for money to buy more nerdy tech from there.
I remember wondering to myself for so long, "how on earth is Radio Shack still around??"
6:10 Whaddaya mean, Doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan!
I had forgotten all about the battery of the month. I was fortunate to have grown up around Boston and been interested in electronics in the 1960's. We had stores like Radio Shack, Lafayette Radio Electronics, Allied, Heathkit, etc.
In the early 70s, I got a bunch of the "Project Kits" as a kid. I eventually built all the kits. Everyone back in the landline days leased their phone. It's the same with cable modems today. Comcast charges $15-$20/month for the modem, or you can just buy one of your choosing.
Thank you! My grandpa ALWAYS bought my toys for birthdays from the Shack