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Businesses The Almighty Buck The Courts

Radioshack Declares Bankruptcy 294

gemtech writes RadioShack has declared bankruptcy today. As reported Monday, the company has struck a deal to sell up to 2,400 of its approximately 4,000 stores to Sprint. From the article: "RadioShack said the remaining stores are expected to close. The company's franchise locations, as well as stores in Mexico and Asia, are not included in the deal. The bankruptcy announcement is no surprise. The New York Stock Exchange suspended trading of its shares on Monday. And RadioShack workers have told CNNMoney that some locations have already been converted to clearance stores."
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Radioshack Declares Bankruptcy

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  • by Sowelu ( 713889 ) on Thursday February 05, 2015 @06:33PM (#48994015)

    So you have a bunch of stores for sale in tech-sector-friendly locations, just when Amazon is starting to establish a physical presence... Hmm.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Amazon could just rent out a few of the soon-to-be-abandoned locations and not deal with RS.

    • the rest will be unleased or sold to others
    • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday February 05, 2015 @08:27PM (#48994927)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        Curiously, Radio Shack in Sunnyvale was basically empty a few days ago except for the electronic components section, which is all I care about anyway. Here's hoping they co-brand it with Sprint and keep that back section stocked as-is. :-)

  • consumerism wins! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 05, 2015 @06:34PM (#48994025)

    That's what happens when nobody builds or repairs anything anymore ever. Throw it away, buy a new one. Luckily the corporate consumerists haven't adopted the same strategy yet, or we'd be seeing massive layoffs and turnover.

    • by Megane ( 129182 ) on Thursday February 05, 2015 @08:13PM (#48994851)
      So where will I go now to get blank stares?
    • by mirix ( 1649853 )

      It might be different in the US, but in Canada they always had terrible stock. So if your thing didn't have a broken lamp or speaker, or a dead battery - you were SOL, as they didn't carry anything else.

      There's so much different silicon now that it isn't really feasible to stock even a small portion of it in every mall anyway, so most anything you fix you'll have to order in parts for...

      It would have been more reasonable when I was a kid (and they only stocked a whopping 3 transistors and zero fets then, to

    • by dywolf ( 2673597 )

      Radio Shacks problems stem in large part from migrating from a parts/geek store to a consumer store.
      Selling gadgets, phones, TVs, and such, and less of the stuff they were originally known for.
      They shifted markets, shifted their focus, and were unable to compete.

      Meanwhile their backstop, components and parts, they tried to still do, but now you had to order and wait, rather than having a stock in store. Problem was as they did this, the internet was making them irrelevant. Why go to a physical store and pla

  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 05, 2015 @06:35PM (#48994027)

    they probably still want your name, address, and phone number in the clearance store

  • Goodbye (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Goodbye old friend.

    Although, I thought you had died years ago.

    • Re:Goodbye (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Thursday February 05, 2015 @07:09PM (#48994341) Journal

      The Radio Shack of my youth did die years ago.

      I remember in the early 1980s the owner of the Radio Shack in my town would let me monkey around with the Color Computers, the Model 4s and the Model 100s. My grandfather bought me my first computer; a lowly Radio Shack MC-10, when I was 10 years old and I remember reading the manual from front to back about three or four times. My earliest programming experience was on that little computer, with 4k of RAM onboard and a 16k expansion module.

      Good memories, but that store went away a long time ago, replaced by an unremarkable stereo and cell phone dealer staffed by people who could barely read the sales brochures.

      • I remember typing in page after page of some game programmed in basic, as found in some magazine, and then running out of memory with just a half a page left.

        • Re: 4k (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Deadstick ( 535032 ) on Thursday February 05, 2015 @08:50PM (#48995057)

          That wouldn't be Softside, would it? When they first started to publish Basic games for the TRS-80, R/S threatened to sue for IP violations; only R/S, they said, had the right to say "Radio Shack" or "TRS-80" in print unless they paid royalties. So Softside began referring to them as "S-80 bus" games.

          R/S got their wish: nobody ever discusses Radio Shack computers in print any more.

      • Yeah, I feel that way too... See also my other comment to this story (which links to my Jan 15 comment).
        http://slashdot.org/comments.p... [slashdot.org]

        Or, as it says here:
        ""This Is Why RadioShack Is in Trouble"
        http://www.bloomberg.com/news/... [bloomberg.com]
        "Feb. 2 -- Radio Shack is in talks to close half it's stores and convert the other half into Spirit mobile shops. If that happens will anyone even notice? Bloomberg took to the streets of San Francisco to ask potential customers how much they really know about Radio Shack. The lack

      • by anchovy_chekov ( 1935296 ) on Thursday February 05, 2015 @10:20PM (#48995485)
        These are the comments I came to see.. the wistful memories from a time long gone by (not the harping about Obama, etc).

        I remember the day the dream died for me: walking into a store newly stocked with consumer goods and asking "Where are your ICs?". After a little confusion (and perhaps consultation with the old-beard I imagined locked up in the storeroom) I was directed to a small carousel containing LEDs and switches, but sadly not the ICs I was after.

        I walked away... never to return.
        • Re:Goodbye (Score:5, Interesting)

          by RSanna ( 3992445 ) on Friday February 06, 2015 @12:30AM (#48995855)
          Radio Shack was a revelation to this 12 year old in 1972. We live in a small rural town in Montana, USA. Once a month we would load up the car and go to the big city, POP +/-35,000, for groceries and other stuff. I noticed the new store, but only got to walk by the front window that first month. The parts I had to work with came from cast of TVs, radios and mail order catalogs. I saved every penny every day and dreamed ever night for the next month. Walking into that store was a pivotal moment in my life. There were so many components I knew, understood and well wanted to play with that I had never actually seen save in catalog drawing and white paper schematics. I aches my soul to know that something so visceral has been torn from the experience of today's youth. There is a vast difference between reading about something (web or catalog) and seeing touching and yes smelling it in person. R.I.P.
      • Stereos? Not anything of note for years now.

        In 1973 my parent's got a Clarinette 85. That stereo lasted forever. I'm still using the speakers. I gave away the receiver/8 track/phono to a poor lady in 1988, still working wonderfully. It was replaced by a 1988 Realistic, which I'm using now.

        That was a reason to go to Radio Shack. Why they got rid of their brands is beyond me.

        • I'm using "Optimus" branded RadioShack speakers as we speak, which are 20+ years old. They still work, and they're still the best speakers in the house. I have never personally been to Radioshack for anything more than cables, but the legend lives on...
    • Goodbye old friend.

      Although, I thought you had died years ago.

      Oh they did die years ago, it's just nobody found out until now...

    • Goodbye old friend.

      Man, me too...

      I *love* Radio Shack.

      I love going in and rummaging through the parts to see what kind of stuff I could make.

      Well...now it's different. When I was a kid it was with my dad for fun, now I'm making hand-crafted electronics and it's more immediate.

      I just can't help but think that with the right merchandising Radio Shack can be a hit.

      A deal with Apple makes total sense...b/c Radio Shack is so many places where Apple stores are not.

      Ah well...

      I hope the current locations can stay open where I live at

      • A deal with Apple makes total sense...b/c Radio Shack is so many places where Apple stores are not.

        It's not about quantity of locations its about quality of locations. Apple chooses the locations for their stores VERY carefully. They aren't in 2000 strip malls for a reason. They would have to seriously compromise a lot of about what makes their product and sales experience different. Honestly I cannot think of any value in RadioShack's rotting carcass to Apple.

        Amazon on the other hand... maybe. The biggest risk to Amazon is companies like Macy's or Walmart finally figuring out that stores can serve

  • by Meshach ( 578918 ) on Thursday February 05, 2015 @06:42PM (#48994077)
    Several years ago they were bought by Bell and re-branded as The Source. They still operate in Canada.

    I wonder why they were able to survive in Canada and not in the US?
  • by sootman ( 158191 )

    I was just in a clearance store today. Got a couple LED ornaments, and some t-shirts for $1.50 each.

  • by colin_faber ( 1083673 ) on Thursday February 05, 2015 @06:46PM (#48994109)
    I stopped shopping there long ago because they stopped stocking anything useful. I don't need a cellphone from them, I needed parts, which they no longer carry.
    • by N7DR ( 536428 ) on Thursday February 05, 2015 @06:52PM (#48994153) Homepage

      I stopped shopping there long ago because they stopped stocking anything useful. I don't need a cellphone from them, I needed parts, which they no longer carry.

      Some stores no longer carry parts, and some carry a reduced inventory. But some stores still carry a decent supply of components ans similar small, useful items. We have two Radio Shack stores in the closest city; one is essentially useless and simply directs me to the other store (but I frequently try it anyway, since it's the closer of the two). The other one isn't half bad, and almost always has what I need. I shall certainly miss it if it goes away.

    • They seem to have decided a number of years ago to try to be Best Buy, only in 1/20th of the floor space, with higher prices, and while ensuring that they rebadge any major brand products to bear their own, woefully antiquated and little-known brand badges instead, to ensure that consumers would gravitate to Best Buy instead, where said major brands with which consumers were familiar continued to remain on display.

      It started to make zero sense sometime in the late-1980s and it just got worse and worse from

  • I wonder if they have a Model 4p hiding in back. . . . .

    • Radio Shack used to have a huge distribution center and "outlet store" in the Hagerstown, MD area where I was living about 20 years ago. I'd pick up all kinds of out-of-date stuff they must have gathered from back store rooms of Radio Shacks across the country.

      I guess the distribution center is still there. I wonder if they'll turn it into the Mother of All Clearance Centers?

      • Replying to myself because I couldn't be troubled to read my google search returns before hitting "Submit" on my last comment.

        The Distribution Center is toast. [bizjournals.com]

        I still have fond memories of the Radio-Shack-that-was, and that place is a part of them. "4 cubic feet of random parts for $25? I'll take 4!"

        Brand new TEAC FD-55 360k floppy disk drives (originally intended for Tandy 1000 family systems)? Worked great with my TRS-80 and my old CP/M system, and a steal at $20 each.

      • by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Thursday February 05, 2015 @07:16PM (#48994415) Journal

        One of my first jobs was getting on a old Model 16 that had been upgraded to a Model 6000 (a whopping 1mb of RAM), with two 20mb hard drives, and five or six dumb terminals. We actually used the Radio Shack multi-user accounting software and worked on multi-department accounting. Did the job nicely, actually, and it's how I got my training as a sysadmin/bookkeeper/manager. I inherited the beast when the company closed down and I monkeyed around with it for a while; got a Usenet and email feed going via UUCP. In the end the 8" floppy drive crapped out, so I gave it to a friend of mine who got things up and running again and had a private BBS running for a few years.

        Tandy made some reasonably decent hardware. The 16/6000 was quite a machine: M68000 processor, Z80 coprocessor that could run CP/M, but under Xenix basically took care of all the I/O.

        I also had an MC10 a CoCo, CoCo 2 and a CoCo 3 (though I never upgraded the latter to 512k). Played around a lot in OS/2 and wrote an accounting program in BASIC-09 (which was a dialect that felt like a mix of BASIC, Pascal and COBOL). But in the end the PC one the computer wars, I went out and bought a 486, switched between Linux and Windows 3.1, and my old equipment finally got chucked during my last move about eight years ago.

        • After getting laid off from a large defense contractor in San Diego in 1986, a friend who managed one of the local Radio Shack stores turned me on to an opening at the local Radio Shack Computer Center, which did repairs of Radio Shack's TRS80 computers. Since I was a component-level electronics tech for 5 years with the defense contractor, it was a pretty easy "slide" over to working on the -then new- personal computers. I worked there for about a year, when the guy who quit, which created the job opening

    • Dude... Think how cool a brand new TRS-80 would be, complete with the tape recorder.... Or one of those computers with the 8 inch floppy drives... Oh the memories/nightmares!
  • by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Thursday February 05, 2015 @07:06PM (#48994295)

    I saw this day coming after I worked there for a period. Treating their employees poorly was part of their business plan. [sbnation.com] I am surprised that it took so long though. Kornfield isn't around to see this, [nytimes.com] but he must have seen it on the horizon as well.

  • by Harlequin80 ( 1671040 ) on Thursday February 05, 2015 @07:08PM (#48994321)

    They stopped carrying what their original customer base wanted. Tandy disappeared, Dick Smiths has got even worse and I don't know how they are still going.

    But then JayCar came along. Picked up all of their old customer base and have been making a killing ever since. Jaycar's buzz line is "Better. More Technical" you can go in there an they have bins of components - Love that shop - http://www.jaycar.com.au/ [jaycar.com.au]

    • It's been a long time since I was in a Dick Smiths but it sure reminded me of Radio Shack. Went to a JayCar near Christchurch a few years ago and was impressed.
  • by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Thursday February 05, 2015 @07:13PM (#48994379)

    Before cell phones, before the internet, before computers... heck before REMOTE CONTROLS FOR YOUR TEEVEE!

    Radio Shack was THE place for geeks to hang out. Kinda like a micro-Fry's in every mall. My dad swore by the Realistic stereos (I never did but when the only other alternatives at the time were Sears or JCPenney's for stereo receivers... They held up pretty well.) I cut my teeth on a TRS-80 Model 1 (Of course I promptly pooh-poohed it for the TRS-80 Model II because it's still true that geeks don't handle obsolescence well! Christmas was asking for the 150 electronics project kits or other gadgets.

    Sure, it sucks now and we don't seem to live in a time where people play with electronics or chemistry sets anymore but a time where people are content to watch what the kardashians are up to and re-tweeting it on their phones because, gosh darn it, math is hard.

    And now I watch as Radio Shack sells off to the Undying Lands. It's better this way anyway, it was a lousy cell phone store and the last time I went in there to buy a pair of speaker stands, to match the set I had purchased in that store 5 years earlier, I was told by the new kid manager that they don't have *and never sold* speaker stands.

    yah... Fare thee well...

    NOW GET OFFA MY LAWN!!!!

    • I think I've seen a few around. Especially if some of them get into Raspberries or the equivalent.
    • by Nethead ( 1563 )

      I'll be burning my last battery card in protest.

      Ah, the first laptop, the Trash-100.

      • Ah, the first laptop, the Trash-100.

        I still have one.. Last time I checked it still worked.. Its one of the 8K of ram versions. Paid $795 for it in 1985. Guess it should be in a museum somewhere....

    • I have a "Realistic" 7 transistor radio my dad bought from the original Radio Shack store in Boston by mail order, around 1957-58. Its case is red leather with a large tuning dial and a smaller volume dial and a metal plaque that says "Realistic". It ran on a -now-obsolete- cylindrical 9 volt battery, since been modded to work with the current rectangular 9 volt batteries.. Darn thing still works, although the case is kind of beat up. I'm pretty sure he paid over $100 for it, although I was only 7-8 at the

    • by sconeu ( 64226 )

      Yep. In the days before Fry's, the Shack was the place to go for components.

      Then they decided to become Best-Buy-wannabees.

  • Although the prices are way OTT to buy from on a regular basis they can be useful when you need something fast. I went into my local one (a mere 9 miles away in a nearby city) just before christmas and had to leave after a few minutes because the half a dozen AC fans in the high ceiling severely affected my tinnitus :(

    We used to have Tandy stores that carried Radioshack stock but they were all bought by Carphone Warehouse in 1999 and now they only exist as an online store.
  • by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Thursday February 05, 2015 @07:43PM (#48994637) Homepage

    A shame. I was just starting to think it was making a modest return to its roots.

    When I visited one a few months ago, they had quite a decent little display of Makershed Arduino kits and books about the Arduino, and they had a kind of dense metal cabinet with shallow drawers filled with individual parts, a much larger selection than they used to have hanging on pegs in blister packs.

    I needed a new soldering iron and I bought one there.

  • by kencurry ( 471519 ) on Thursday February 05, 2015 @07:52PM (#48994693)
    Many years ago (like late 70's, early 80's) Radio shack was a place you could walk into, browse electronic components, and talk to and meet knowledgeable people to help with home brew projects. Then they expanded like hell, employed stupid corporate business policies like charging people to pay for store catalogs, ridiculous "i need all your personal info" so I can sell you a resistor, etc.

    Haven't been in one of their stores in probably 20 years, surprised that it took that long for them to fail. In retrospect, they were so poorly managed, they weren't even good at failure.

    Good riddance (and yes, I'm still pissed about the time you assholes tried to charge me money to send me a catalog of your stuff!!)
    • Then they expanded like hell, employed stupid corporate business policies like charging people to pay for store catalogs, ridiculous "i need all your personal info" so I can sell you a resistor, etc.

      I remember this shift well. Our local store manager understood though. As soon as you gave him a WTF look he would reply with "Right. Kris Kringle it is then."

  • Remember when Radio Shack was place to go for electronics hobby stuff and electronics components? Now (or guess yesterday) the few electronic components they have are 10x the price of Jameco, Digikey, Mouser etc, and they hardly ever have what you need anyway. They were doomed as soon as they jumped the shark into being primarily a cell phone store, and jacked up the prices on everything else. It was only a matter of time and it's amazing they sold enough cell phone plans to last as long as they did.

  • The company's franchise locations, as well as stores in Mexico and Asia, are not included in the deal.

    I get that the overseas stores are not included in the sale to Sprint, because that would make absolutely no sense, but what I really want to know is what happens to them when Radio Shack goes bankrupt. In other words, I want to know if my local Radio Shack located inside a Borders store (I kid you not [wikimapia.org]) will still be open.

    • I want to know how your Borders is still open. Then I discovered that you are in Malaysia, so I have a different question. You have a circuit City or Hechinger do you?
  • ..but I feel a twinge of nostalgia on hearing this. I cobbled more than a few hi-fi experiments using parts sourced from rat shack in the 80's.

    Still have an Archer SWR meter. And a Micronta multimeter I strongly suspect is a Fluke in a different dress.

    Oh well. Fare the well, Rat Shack.. you failed at adapting to a world without buggy whips.

  • While you changed through the years I still remember going to Radio Shack for my vacuum tubes, or getting the parts and board to build electronics projects.

  • by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Thursday February 05, 2015 @08:46PM (#48995029)

    Radioshack squandered every advantage. There was nothing that would have stopped them creating an online business that really leveraged and complemented their highstreet presence and distribution network. But the management team apparently chose to plunder rather than innovate

    Really, how much would it have taken to recognize 5 years ago that they could allow someone to order their choice from a wide range of items before noon and pick it up in-store after 5pm same day, next day for more exotic items that had to come from an out-of-area warehouse. Not only would that be a faster way to order things, but would be a much better way to offer a returns policy and give a chance to sell cables and other accessories.

    For the geeky well endowed, could they really not have offered 3d printed parts on a similar delivery schedule (or even in-store) or small scale manufactured parts. Could they not have had a travelling maker demo that moved from store to store every Saturday hawking maker slide or raspberry pis or some such things.

    For the less geeky at heart could they not have let people order in-store as they consult with someone who can guide them - Amazon would sure get a lot more business out of my parents if they somehow improved their comfort levels with buying online.

    It's not like they would have had to stop selling cell phones if they didn't want to.

    • If those are ideas that would've saved radio shack, then they're still good ideas after radio shack is gone...

  • http://slashdot.org/comments.p... [slashdot.org]
    "Yeah, sad for me too. When I was a kid, in the late 1970s, with an interest in robotics and computers., my father and I would visit Radio Shacks to get various parts for my projects. ..."

    I was tempted to follow creimer's example from that discussion and buy some stock or options hoping for a bounce, but I guess financially now I'm glad I didn't:
    http://news.slashdot.org/comme... [slashdot.org]
    "Radio Shack has been preparing for bankruptcy for years. There's nothing new in the WSJ report th

  • by Brad1138 ( 590148 ) <brad1138@yahoo.com> on Thursday February 05, 2015 @10:09PM (#48995443)
    I was hoping "Incredible Universe" would make a comeback...
  • Goodbye to Allied Radio, Heathkit, Lafayette Electronics, Henry Radio and the rest of them. Times have changed. It's so sad to see the end of the ability to design and experiment with electronic hardware. Let's face it, who's going to attempt to hand wire ASICs, SMT devices and keep signal integrity on what was previously-known as a "breadboard" circuit? Things have changed but there is a huge gap in the ability for hobbyists to design and construct hardware. All that seems to exist is video shit/games

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