The Phone Bubble Burst
I don't know why they thought phones would be their salvation. Throwing the store almost 100% into phones is what killed the business in the first place. They killed the store brands - Archer, Realistic, Optimus - and started selling the same brands you can get elsewhere. Yes, those store brands were just re-badged gear from other companies but for the most part it was pretty good. I still own a wired telephone "just in case" and it's a RadioShack model I bought in 1994. At my place of business I have Optimus speakers (the heavy metal-cased "AV" models) playing 24x7 in the shop area that were a Father's Day gift for my dad in 1992.
They got rid of the car stereo section and all its associated adapters, harnesses, and cables. They got rid of the huge selection of electronic components and replaced it with a small sampling and the promise that they could order anything that wasn't there. So can we - that's what ebay and Amazon are for.
I am a former Shack employee with several stints in the mid 1990s, store 01-1936. I sold Tandy and IBM Aptiva computers, floppy discs, and CD laser cleaners. I was there for the Newton PDA and the original one-penny cell phone sales. I've matched more DC adapters and weird batteries than I care to imagine. It was a place where people without a lot of technical knowledge could get gear that was better than what they would have chosen on their own at a big-box store, and we could answer any questions they had about it. Some bean counter decided that phones were more profitable and they threw away the rest of the store to chase the money. It didn't work.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
