KH6HZ wrote:
"Bob Brock" writes:

In response to "Dee Flint" :

Right. Radio Shack pimps the hot products for the moment. The way I see
it, them not even carrying license manuals speaks volumes about demand for
them. Now, when you walk into a Radio Shack and see loads of HF antennas,
HF rigs, and a shelf of study guides; then you can say that Ham radio is
back in demand.

Radio Shack cannot compete with big discount houses like HRO.

I disagree, Mike. Radio Shack had its roots in selling amateur
equipment when it was a Boston firm decades back. When Tandy bought it,
it in good shape. It swallowed Allied Electronics back around 1970 and
either closed or turned into Radio Shack stores, all of the Allied
retail outlets. It owns and operates Allied Electronics as an
industrial distributor. Right now the company is in search of itself.
Why would people go to Radio Shack to buy bad stereo equipment or
overpriced computers when the big box stores are selling better and
cheaper stereo equipment and computers. Radio Shack is getting out of
the parts business. If you've been into one of the outlets recently,
you'll find the sales people woefully short on product knowledge. At
the moment, RadShack is like a cellular phone store which pushes batteries.

When Radio Shack made a decision to push amateur radio gear ten or
fifteen years back, it did so mostly with Radio Shack branded equipment
which was short on features and rather shoddily made. It pushed a few
2m and 70cm FM HT's and mobile transceivers and a few niche market rigs
like the low power 10m transceivers. The sales people were, again,
woefully short on product knowledge.

If Radio decided to sell a wide variety of amateur radio equipment of
assorted brands and it gave adequate sales training to its staff, it'd
be a big player. It has a great distribution network and outlets all
over the country. It could even dedicate a store in each major market
to amateur radio sales. It could offer discount pricing and service.
Unfortunately, it has never had management who "got it". I predict the
company may end up disappearing in a few years if things stay the way
there are.

Several years ago Radio Shack used to sell computers as well as stereos and
TVs. Now those product lines are all but missing from their stores. Why?
Lack of demand?



Not really. They simply cannot compete with Circuit City, Best Buy, etc. for
those products. First they don't have the floor space necessary in the
average Radio Shack to properly carry those goods, nor do they have the
economies of scale that those other mega-retailers have.

Competition from Circuit City, Staples, Office Depot, Office Max, Walmart,
K-Mart and the like. These stores offer cheap prices compared to anything
offered by RadShack. Radio Shack could easily compete with these stores.
Only Circuit City has a large store dedicated to electronics. The
others have departments which are no larger than the average Radio Shack
store. The big box stores aren't offering ham gear and I don't think
Radio Shack could be successful in selling amateur radio gear in all of
its stores. We're still a very small consumer electronic market.

Dave K8MN