They could rename themselves ADHDio Shack and specialize in items designed for the ADHD community, which now comprises about 1/6 of school-age children. Alongside the ubiquitous Fbox and Grand Theft Autonomy, they might sell the latest ADHD drug and test to see how many seconds beyond 30 they can extend their ability to focus on anything real. Since parents and society in general don't seem interested in doing anything to halt the ADHD epidemic except to push pills and blame teachers, you might as well figure out how to make some money off of it.
Hey, it's a thought. For every Radio Shack out there, I see at least one or two of those dietary supplement stores selling muscle powder by the gallon. I guess if you can't focus, at least you can look healthy at the beach.
If DigiKey and Mouser are profitable maybe they could buy RS.
I see no way they would want to waste their money on that. Browsing the shelves full of hundreds of thousands of identical looking chips, resistors and capacitors would not sell them any faster. Doing a parametric search on a shelf rack is not so easy:)
IMO there has to be a place where you could still browse shelves.
Seems to me that the place to do that now a days in the pages of sparkfun or adafruit or Parallax on the RaspberryPI. Or better yet attending Maker fairs and so on. Then you get to see what people are doing and an introduction to what can be done. Just like the old HAM radio meet days. See how sparkfun has grown exponentially in the time Radio Shack has been wilting.
On the other hand yes. Here we have YEInternational. They have a huge store where you can browse tons of electronic goodies, basically from the RS catalog. http://www.yeint.fi/. It's a magical Aladin's cave. I was in there yesterday and came out with all kind of stuff I did not expect to be buying!
Then there is the ELFA shop that carries Parallax goodies along with a huge product range. And PARTCO for lot of normal cheap electronic bits.
As I calculated here earlier, given the relative populations of this small country and the USA I suspect there is the possibility to support about 200 such stores in the US. Not the thousands that Radio Shack has.
In their relentless race to the bottom, it looks like Radio Shaft won. Microshaft is obviously a close second, though, especially as they cling to their Windows 8 concept. Who couldn't love a touch screen interface designed for computers that have no touch sensors? It's almost thee definition of being out of touch with consumers, human beings, reality. I have put off buying computers for the simple reason I can't stomach Windows 8. The PC makers must feel like their futures have been shackled to an Alzheimer's patient who, no matter how hard they try, just can't seem to snap out of the Reagan years.
I can't believe they did this. I really can't. How can a company that size not know about consumer testing? Yes, they probably do, but they must have totally ignored the results and just wanted to jam something nasty down everyone's throats. It's like deliberately annoying, the way it would be if someone went into your house as a prank and shuffled everything around so you have to re-learn where everything is located, putting all your clothes in the kitchen cabinets and all your dishes in the bedroom closet, etc. All their "improvements" just cause more problems. There's so much that could be said about that crappy software, which I'm using right now. No, I don't want to go set up an account at MS, just to get it to work right. I want it correct the first time. Just a small thing that annoys me is that under "Photos", I downloaded a Wikipedia page once, and now it thinks that a tiny logo from Wikipedia is one of my personal photos, so it scrolls through it as I look at personal photos. It's like a 25x25 logo blown up to 400x400 and it's just an annoying thing, that I have to go through the trouble of deleting.
Just to stay remotely on topic, automation has been a fact of life for 100's of years. Ironically countries with the greatest level of automation technology also have the lowest unemployment rate.
PS: For a good read on Wikipedia, check out the Luddities who were a group of people that smashed up new textile equipment in England, as they saw it as a job threat. The company owners won out.
These businesses seem to think that moving the items around the store creates more customer movement around the items and thus more sales. Do they think we are hamsters?
I overheard an interesting conversation between a walmart employee and a customer today asking where to find a "moved" item, and the employee asked for patience as they hadn't learned where things were yet either. Is there anyone else who doesn't see the time/labor costs increased because an employee moved something, then has to take the time to relearn the store?
It is proven that the longer they can keep you in the store, the more you will buy.
Moving items means that you are likely to stumble across something you weren't looking for, but will buy when you see it.
When I shop, I make a list. It it's not on the list...I don't buy it.
In that case expect RS to file for Chapter 11. That takes care of the creditors' objections. Though the creditors have to "approve" the plan out of bankruptcy, it's the bankruptcy trustee who will decide if stores should close, and you can bet that will be the case. Leases are more easily broken under bankruptcy, and the cost of closing stores when you're basically insolvent is far less than what the writer of this piece suggests.
PS: For a good read on Wikipedia, check out the Luddities who were a group of people that smashed up new textile equipment in England, as they saw it as a job threat. The company owners won out.
While MS might be short sighted in trying to shove windows 8 down our throats the true blue Luddites are the corporations that insist on using only MS software when free open source software that works as well or better is available.
It is proven that the longer they can keep you in the store, the more you will buy.
Moving items means that you are likely to stumble across something you weren't looking for, but will buy when you see it.
That's true for enough shoppers that it more than makes up for those it causes to shop elsewhere.
When I shop, I make a list. It it's not on the list...I don't buy it.
Bean
Same here.
At one point when my wife and I were shopping for 18 people we joined costco. To save time I put the list on a spreadsheet and added the aisle/rack/shelf so we could get in and out as fast as possible. Turned out to be an exercise in frustration because of how often things were moved around. Did not bother to renew our membership.
These businesses seem to think that moving the items around the store creates more customer movement around the items and thus more sales. Do they think we are hamsters?
I overheard an interesting conversation between a walmart employee and a customer today asking where to find a "moved" item, and the employee asked for patience as they hadn't learned where things were yet either. Is there anyone else who doesn't see the time/labor costs increased because an employee moved something, then has to take the time to relearn the store?
LOL..marketing studies indicate that the easy money that companies chase is spent by those who have the IQ of hamsters.
Consider what you see on television....designed for the lowest IQ that is able to qualify for a credit card.
Hmm.. I don't know about the psychology of 'moving around'. When I enter a shop where suddenly I can't find the shelves where I expect to find the goodies, I always get a feeling that the shop has less inventory than before, that they are downsizing, that they are not as much in the business as before, and I leave.
@Tor
All the computer store franchises in Taiwan have closed their upper floors from the halcyon days of 20 years ago. The main computer street in Kaohsiung that once had door-to-door retail shops selling anything you can imagine for 10 or so city blocks is mostly vacant shops these days.
I suppose this is the clearest of economic indicators that the computer industry has matured and the boom of the past 3 or 4 decades is over.
Sure we have 'The Internet of Things', the promises of Cloud computing, and bigger than ever flat screen TV sets; but the iPAD may just be the last gadget that everyone wanted to have for quite awhile.
What is really scary is that on-line shopping has shuttered so much retail space that it is no longer fun to go window-shopping. We just sit in front of a monitor and mouse around for whatever comes to mind.
Hmm.. I don't know about the psychology of 'moving around'. When I enter a shop where suddenly I can't find the shelves where I expect to find the goodies, I always get a feeling that the shop has less inventory than before, that they are downsizing, that they are not as much in the business as before, and I leave.
Even Walmart got this wrong a few years ago. They decided to "clean up" their stores with a big overhaul, doing away with all the bins and temporary shelves in the aisleways. Only trouble is, sales went flat. Seems that people *liked* the clutter of the average Walmart. Made them feel they were hunting for the bargains. In the end, the store put back some of the "clutter" -- at least as much as the fire inspector would allow. But sales have been slow to return. And in some areas, it never really did. The trend has been toward dollar stores, where the typical one is stuffed with anything they can get put out on the aisles.
Even Walmart got this wrong a few years ago. They decided to "clean up" their stores with a big overhaul, doing away with all the bins and temporary shelves in the aisleways. Only trouble is, sales went flat. Seems that people *liked* the clutter of the average Walmart. Made them feel they were hunting for the bargains. In the end, the store put back some of the "clutter" -- at least as much as the fire inspector would allow. But sales have been slow to return. And in some areas, it never really did. The trend has been toward dollar stores, where the typical one is stuffed with anything they can get put out on the aisles.
I don't know why the large majority of the people that stopped going to Walmart did but I know that I stopped because the aisles are to narrow and the are to many poles in them. This means it's about impossible to pass someone when you both have carts and in my case that means I'm always stuck trying to get past very slow moving people. I know where what I want is but it takes to long to get there. Then there's the lines at the checkouts!! I remember when Walmarts opened in the chitown area they used to boast that if there were ever more then 3 people in line they would open another register. These days the rule seems to be that if the wait in line is less then 15min they close down a register! There are 20+ registers and only 2-3 ever seem to be open!! The stores here are crowded and very understaffed. I much prefer to go to the nearby Target. There never seems to be anyone in the store and I can get around and through the checkout quickly!
I can believe all those dollar stores are a goldmine. I never shopped there before we had the twins. These days, it seems like cheap entertainment to make a quick stop there to let them buy something; a buck each is only two bucks. But when I look around, I need this aluminum wallet and two fuel bottles and that remote control (the Jerk!) and an extension cord wrapper-upper thingie. Hey, they're only a buck! So I rarely get outta there for under $20.
In 2008, the 99-Cent Only stores raised their prices to 99.99 cents and it worked out well for them. By sticking with integer math, prices truncate to 99 cents and they didn't have to change their store signs.
@Tor
All the computer store franchises in Taiwan have closed their upper floors from the halcyon days of 20 years ago. The main computer street in Kaohsiung that once had door-to-door retail shops selling anything you can imagine for 10 or so city blocks is mostly vacant shops these days.
I suppose this is the clearest of economic indicators that the computer industry has matured and the boom of the past 3 or 4 decades is over.
Sure we have 'The Internet of Things', the promises of Cloud computing, and bigger than ever flat screen TV sets; but the iPAD may just be the last gadget that everyone wanted to have for quite awhile.
What is really scary is that on-line shopping has shuttered so much retail space that it is no longer fun to go window-shopping. We just sit in front of a monitor and mouse around for whatever comes to mind.
I suspect that the retail space you see shuttered is because of the Internet shopping that is becoming the norm..not the exception.
I don't know why the large majority of the people that stopped going to Walmart did but I know that I stopped because the aisles are to narrow and the are to many poles in them. This means it's about impossible to pass someone when you both have carts and in my case that means I'm always stuck trying to get past very slow moving people. I know where what I want is but it takes to long to get there. Then there's the lines at the checkouts!! I remember when Walmarts opened in the chitown area they used to boast that if there were ever more then 3 people in line they would open another register. These days the rule seems to be that if the wait in line is less then 15min they close down a register! There are 20+ registers and only 2-3 ever seem to be open!! The stores here are crowded and very understaffed. I much prefer to go to the nearby Target. There never seems to be anyone in the store and I can get around and through the checkout quickly!
Walmart has been taken to task for undermanning their stores...that is why so few registers are open.
They have also made the WSJ and Forbes for not stocking their shelves..I for one only shop at stores that actually carry inventory.
Because of the recession companies are costing costs to maximize their profits...which never means that customer will be happy.
Even Walmart got this wrong a few years ago. They decided to "clean up" their stores with a big overhaul, doing away with all the bins and temporary shelves in the aisleways. Only trouble is, sales went flat. Seems that people *liked* the clutter of the average Walmart. Made them feel they were hunting for the bargains. In the end, the store put back some of the "clutter" -- at least as much as the fire inspector would allow. But sales have been slow to return. And in some areas, it never really did. The trend has been toward dollar stores, where the typical one is stuffed with anything they can get put out on the aisles.
That trend will continue...the race to the bottom.
The Great Recession saw a huge rise in the popularity of the dollar stores, and at the same time a reduction of traffic to Walmart, Target, and the others. While there are a few big chains (99 Cents Only, Dollar Tree, Dollar General, etc.) most of them are independent neighborhood shops, and are about the only way a sole proprietor can "compete" with the likes of Walmart and Target. The Maywood / Vernon area of LA is full of wholesalers and distributors that cater primarily or even solely to the independent dollar stores. (Note to Erco: most have case quantity minimums, so be prepared to buy 48 remote controls, and 24 aluminum wallets).
For the locals, a few of the wholesalers (like JC Sales in Vernon) have separate cash-and-carry outlets, without the case quantity minimums. You need a California resale license, though ... which, ahem, is free.
So Erco, what's stopping you from becoming eBay China yourself?!
On crappy Walmart stores: I can well imagine. OTOH, the THREE near me have too much competition to be complacent. The nearby grocery stores, almost all major chains, are very price-aggressive. The K-Mart closed -- thanks Eddie Lampert -- but there are Targets, a Big Lots, Costco, Smart & Final (a smaller western states chain but very competitive), and several others. Walmart wouldn't be allowed to let these stores go to seed or severely understaff them, but I have heard that they do exactly this in other areas of the country.
On crappy Walmart stores: I can well imagine. OTOH, the THREE near me have too much competition to be complacent. The nearby grocery stores, almost all major chains, are very price-aggressive. The K-Mart closed -- thanks Eddie Lampert -- but there are Targets, a Big Lots, Costco, Smart & Final (a smaller western states chain but very competitive), and several others. Walmart wouldn't be allowed to let these stores go to seed or severely understaff them, but I have heard that they do exactly this in other areas of the country.
Google "walmart problems" and read the articles.
Recently Walmart admitted that they have lost over 3 billion dollars due to not stocking their shelves.
What is really scary is that on-line shopping has shuttered so much retail space that it is no longer fun to go window-shopping. We just sit in front of a monitor and mouse around for whatever comes to mind.
Isn't that just another form of "Window" shopping? Not as much fun or exercise as wandering around people watching and checking out the latest gadgets, but certainly more environmentally friendly.
Isn't that just another form of "Window" shopping? Not as much fun or exercise as wandering around people watching and checking out the latest gadgets, but certainly more environmentally friendly.
Retail is simply a delivery mechanism to route product from supplier to buyer..the implementation has and will continue to change as technology advances.
In the majority of human enterprise, people did not range more than 20 miles from where they were born and had a very limited range of products to barter for. As technology has advanced, the variety of products have increased and will continue. The B&M store delivery system is just an update version of the blanket on the ground under a shade tree where a producer would spread his wares for the local customer would trade something for it. Times may change but people do not..as we move towards a global market and virtual currency, the supply and demand drive the process.
All true, though much of the current retail landscape is just a reinvention of something very old, mail order. The Internet is nothing more than a catalog, with the benefit of quicker order fulfillment. Before anyone says this is the new technology the Internet provides, that's not entirely true, either. In decades that seem long ago, it was easy to call Sears, Montgomery Wards, Spiegel, or JC Panney, place an order, and get it a few days later. The first time I ever used my first credit card was not for a local purchase, but a telephone/mail order. This was 1977.
Technology affects short term trends, but long term buying habits are dependent on human psychology. In reference to the subject of this thread, RS's woes are not from changes in technology per se, but failure to understand the psychology of the buying public. There are many types of bricks and mortar stores that continue to do well. The best also have heavy online presences, so they're priming the pump from both ends. RS couldn't figure out the psychology behind either B&M or online sales.
So Erco, what's stopping you from becoming eBay China yourself?!
Actually, it's here already. I'm fortunate live just minutes away from the world-famous TRW swap meet, which is part hamfest, part antiques, part tools, and part hi-tech items: satellite TV, lasers, LiPos, etc. I recognize a lot of Ebay China parts there, some with a little markup, some with a lot. It's nice to have the option to see stuff in person before buying, or if you need it yesterday. Last Saturday of each month, rain or shine. And it NEVER rains in LA.
Comments
Hey, it's a thought. For every Radio Shack out there, I see at least one or two of those dietary supplement stores selling muscle powder by the gallon. I guess if you can't focus, at least you can look healthy at the beach.
I still hear of reports of Parallax infrared sensors and Pings being sold even as RS has replaced them with their store brand equivalents.
On the other hand yes. Here we have YEInternational. They have a huge store where you can browse tons of electronic goodies, basically from the RS catalog. http://www.yeint.fi/. It's a magical Aladin's cave. I was in there yesterday and came out with all kind of stuff I did not expect to be buying!
Then there is the ELFA shop that carries Parallax goodies along with a huge product range. And PARTCO for lot of normal cheap electronic bits.
As I calculated here earlier, given the relative populations of this small country and the USA I suspect there is the possibility to support about 200 such stores in the US. Not the thousands that Radio Shack has.
I can't believe they did this. I really can't. How can a company that size not know about consumer testing? Yes, they probably do, but they must have totally ignored the results and just wanted to jam something nasty down everyone's throats. It's like deliberately annoying, the way it would be if someone went into your house as a prank and shuffled everything around so you have to re-learn where everything is located, putting all your clothes in the kitchen cabinets and all your dishes in the bedroom closet, etc. All their "improvements" just cause more problems. There's so much that could be said about that crappy software, which I'm using right now. No, I don't want to go set up an account at MS, just to get it to work right. I want it correct the first time. Just a small thing that annoys me is that under "Photos", I downloaded a Wikipedia page once, and now it thinks that a tiny logo from Wikipedia is one of my personal photos, so it scrolls through it as I look at personal photos. It's like a 25x25 logo blown up to 400x400 and it's just an annoying thing, that I have to go through the trouble of deleting.
Just to stay remotely on topic, automation has been a fact of life for 100's of years. Ironically countries with the greatest level of automation technology also have the lowest unemployment rate.
PS: For a good read on Wikipedia, check out the Luddities who were a group of people that smashed up new textile equipment in England, as they saw it as a job threat. The company owners won out.
I overheard an interesting conversation between a walmart employee and a customer today asking where to find a "moved" item, and the employee asked for patience as they hadn't learned where things were yet either. Is there anyone else who doesn't see the time/labor costs increased because an employee moved something, then has to take the time to relearn the store?
Moving items means that you are likely to stumble across something you weren't looking for, but will buy when you see it.
When I shop, I make a list. It it's not on the list...I don't buy it.
Bean
In that case expect RS to file for Chapter 11. That takes care of the creditors' objections. Though the creditors have to "approve" the plan out of bankruptcy, it's the bankruptcy trustee who will decide if stores should close, and you can bet that will be the case. Leases are more easily broken under bankruptcy, and the cost of closing stores when you're basically insolvent is far less than what the writer of this piece suggests.
While MS might be short sighted in trying to shove windows 8 down our throats the true blue Luddites are the corporations that insist on using only MS software when free open source software that works as well or better is available.
That's true for enough shoppers that it more than makes up for those it causes to shop elsewhere.
Same here.
At one point when my wife and I were shopping for 18 people we joined costco. To save time I put the list on a spreadsheet and added the aisle/rack/shelf so we could get in and out as fast as possible. Turned out to be an exercise in frustration because of how often things were moved around. Did not bother to renew our membership.
http://money.msn.com/investing/post--did-radioshack-run-out-of-things-to-sell
"It's a tough sell," Spoonauer says. "DIY is not enough to get people off their couches and into the stores."
Sometimes when I can't something or the line is ridiculous I just go somewhere else.
LOL..marketing studies indicate that the easy money that companies chase is spent by those who have the IQ of hamsters.
Consider what you see on television....designed for the lowest IQ that is able to qualify for a credit card.
That's where I've gone wrong.. Don't own a television connected to cable, dish, or air channels. I'll have to take your word for it,
-Tor
All the computer store franchises in Taiwan have closed their upper floors from the halcyon days of 20 years ago. The main computer street in Kaohsiung that once had door-to-door retail shops selling anything you can imagine for 10 or so city blocks is mostly vacant shops these days.
I suppose this is the clearest of economic indicators that the computer industry has matured and the boom of the past 3 or 4 decades is over.
Sure we have 'The Internet of Things', the promises of Cloud computing, and bigger than ever flat screen TV sets; but the iPAD may just be the last gadget that everyone wanted to have for quite awhile.
What is really scary is that on-line shopping has shuttered so much retail space that it is no longer fun to go window-shopping. We just sit in front of a monitor and mouse around for whatever comes to mind.
Even Walmart got this wrong a few years ago. They decided to "clean up" their stores with a big overhaul, doing away with all the bins and temporary shelves in the aisleways. Only trouble is, sales went flat. Seems that people *liked* the clutter of the average Walmart. Made them feel they were hunting for the bargains. In the end, the store put back some of the "clutter" -- at least as much as the fire inspector would allow. But sales have been slow to return. And in some areas, it never really did. The trend has been toward dollar stores, where the typical one is stuffed with anything they can get put out on the aisles.
I don't know why the large majority of the people that stopped going to Walmart did but I know that I stopped because the aisles are to narrow and the are to many poles in them. This means it's about impossible to pass someone when you both have carts and in my case that means I'm always stuck trying to get past very slow moving people. I know where what I want is but it takes to long to get there. Then there's the lines at the checkouts!! I remember when Walmarts opened in the chitown area they used to boast that if there were ever more then 3 people in line they would open another register. These days the rule seems to be that if the wait in line is less then 15min they close down a register! There are 20+ registers and only 2-3 ever seem to be open!! The stores here are crowded and very understaffed. I much prefer to go to the nearby Target. There never seems to be anyone in the store and I can get around and through the checkout quickly!
In 2008, the 99-Cent Only stores raised their prices to 99.99 cents and it worked out well for them. By sticking with integer math, prices truncate to 99 cents and they didn't have to change their store signs.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/sep/09/business/fi-99cents9
If Ebay China ever opens a brick & mortar store in LA, I'm a dead man.
I suspect that the retail space you see shuttered is because of the Internet shopping that is becoming the norm..not the exception.
Walmart has been taken to task for undermanning their stores...that is why so few registers are open.
They have also made the WSJ and Forbes for not stocking their shelves..I for one only shop at stores that actually carry inventory.
Because of the recession companies are costing costs to maximize their profits...which never means that customer will be happy.
That trend will continue...the race to the bottom.
For the locals, a few of the wholesalers (like JC Sales in Vernon) have separate cash-and-carry outlets, without the case quantity minimums. You need a California resale license, though ... which, ahem, is free.
So Erco, what's stopping you from becoming eBay China yourself?!
Google "walmart problems" and read the articles.
Recently Walmart admitted that they have lost over 3 billion dollars due to not stocking their shelves.
Isn't that just another form of "Window" shopping? Not as much fun or exercise as wandering around people watching and checking out the latest gadgets, but certainly more environmentally friendly.
Retail is simply a delivery mechanism to route product from supplier to buyer..the implementation has and will continue to change as technology advances.
In the majority of human enterprise, people did not range more than 20 miles from where they were born and had a very limited range of products to barter for. As technology has advanced, the variety of products have increased and will continue. The B&M store delivery system is just an update version of the blanket on the ground under a shade tree where a producer would spread his wares for the local customer would trade something for it. Times may change but people do not..as we move towards a global market and virtual currency, the supply and demand drive the process.
Technology affects short term trends, but long term buying habits are dependent on human psychology. In reference to the subject of this thread, RS's woes are not from changes in technology per se, but failure to understand the psychology of the buying public. There are many types of bricks and mortar stores that continue to do well. The best also have heavy online presences, so they're priming the pump from both ends. RS couldn't figure out the psychology behind either B&M or online sales.
Actually, it's here already. I'm fortunate live just minutes away from the world-famous TRW swap meet, which is part hamfest, part antiques, part tools, and part hi-tech items: satellite TV, lasers, LiPos, etc. I recognize a lot of Ebay China parts there, some with a little markup, some with a lot. It's nice to have the option to see stuff in person before buying, or if you need it yesterday. Last Saturday of each month, rain or shine. And it NEVER rains in LA.
http://w6trw.com/swapmeet/swapmeet.htm
http://www.yelp.com/biz/w6trw-trw-swap-meet-redondo-beach