The Shack Steps Up Their Game
Whit
Posts: 4,191
Walked into a local Radio Shack the other day. I found about a dozen Velleman kits and 4 of the Forrest Mims notebooks. It looked like they were re-organizing the whole parts, tools section too. Hope this is a sign of some good things to come.
What's more - this was a mall store - not my regular Radio Shack - which is usually much better that the standard stores. Can't wait to go there...
What's more - this was a mall store - not my regular Radio Shack - which is usually much better that the standard stores. Can't wait to go there...
Comments
It's looking like a move for making a quick sale, not a long term relationship with the community.
Again, fingers crossed.
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I'm out of the office right now in Texas (RadioShack - good news to report!) but as soon as I return to home base we'll be sure that all the heads are nodding up and down, or at least faking it if they have to.
Ken Gracey
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Never give up.
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I've been e-mailing Radio Shack for years about Parallax products to no eval.
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I've never got an e-mail from Radio Shack.
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To here Ken is there at Radio Shack headquarters is to awesome
OBC
Maybe there's not enough guys building stuff anymore to warrant putting parts on the shelf?
As for Parallax products at RadioShack... I wish they stocked the USB2SER converter. It's way less expensive than the off-brand converters that are usually stocked in various stores, and I know that they work with the Parallax boards.
Wouldn't that be sweet!
I don't think a Propeller chip on a peg board i going to generate too many sales. Pretty much what the RFID reader and Pink Sensor have shown in sale at the Shack. People look at it and say What is IT ?
Now, a Propeller Demo Board packaged with the PEK book, (kinda like a WAM for Propellers), or a PPDB packaged with same, (may be a little expensive for entry level), would be the item for the pegboard.
I just buy Prop chips when I order from Parallax, Mouser, or Digikey. I would hate to see the markup at the Shack.
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If RadioShack pops up in a google search as having the product on the shelf sought in the search, Its sold.
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No waiting on the mail.No worries about were your money is going over the NET.
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Next when home with the product.The uses sees Parallax.com
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One visit and the user is hooked.
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I call this Market Strategy.
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Brilliant!!!
They would be required to maintain the single quantity price of $7.99 or less, lower prices with volume discounts. Parallax will undoubtedly lower price in the future when other Propeller chips are released and to remain competitive in a rapid core-count-escalating-future.
They're supposed to be releaseing the Propeller Board of Education next month, and I think that there's a rewrite of WaM to go with it.
You are not the standard man on the street. And with the amount of Propeller chips that you have purchased , (100+), you would not pay retail for them. Very few people would known what a Propeller was hanging on the wall in a Radio Shack. Same for a Atmel, XMOS..( did I just say that?), PIC, whatever. OK, maybe Arduino would be recognized. But that's a learning platform like the Demo Board.
Welcome to the Forums :-)
-Matt
Good luck to Parallax with Radio Shack.
It was a surprise to me when my recent trip to the electronics parts stores for resistors brought up finds only in blue color. At first I was a little confused on all those extra color coded bands and refused, but the language translation indicated that 5 and 10% resistors were no longer sold. Obsolescence is in effect with resistors! It looks like precision resistors are the only thing sold at hundreds of parts stores over here. So, RS can carry the 1% values, perhaps not by choice but by necessity if they want to continue to do resistor sales business.
Loopy - give me a nice fat 2W, 5% carbon composition resistor in the plate side of a long-tailed phase inverter any day!!!
:thumb:
My first Parallax product was a WAM kit from RS as well, though to be honest, I first heard about Parallax from a young man using Stamps on a rocketry project.
Oh yes it is. The mark up is something like 20X, which is an astounding margin. They need the margin because these parts don't contribute to a lot of revenue. High profit, low revenue. If it were low(er) profit, low revenue there'd be no reason for them to carry these parts. They might as well just cater to the cell phone crowd.
On the batteries front, I'm not sure RS is still considered the go-to place for batteries. Is it? During the 70s and 80s, when RS made a huge push into the battery arena, they had a buyer by the name of Leon Lutz that did incredible things with the product line. He was also the buyer for books (that's how I met him) and some other stuff. He sold several million dollars worth of books just about Radio Shack batteries. The book sold the batteries; the batteries sold the book. Amazing synergy, and an amazingly gifted marketer.
-- Gordon
Almost Identical to the way I found about Prallax!
That is actually a rewrite of Robotics with the Boe Bot. It could be rewritten as a rewite of WAM in the future.
RS does have a handful of interesting, or useful components. But more often than not, I find that they only have a small fraction of what I might actually need, so I usually have to resort to buying stuff online anyways. It would be nice to see them cut some of their redundancies in exchange for a wider selection of products - oh, and maybe a couple extra cabinets to make sure it all fits
Smartest move I've seen the Shack make lately. Hope they're sincere.
You alluded to some good news on this front... Anything you can share yet?
OBC
Hey all, yes, pretty soon I can share some news. I can confirm that the "Shack is stepping up to their game" and that the effort is real and will be matched with results. They've done their homework and they're getting involved in the right way with a team who understands the vision. I've been there several times and have another week-long Dallas excursion planned around this purpose, not to mention many tel-cons in recent days.
If you'll give me another couple of days I can tell you what to expect from Parallax around this effort. At the moment I'm gathering our troops and making sure everybody is lined up so we can execute the plan. It's really exciting!
Ken Gracey
-Phil