Sadly, the earlier rumors have come true: Radio Shack will be closing as many as 1,100 stores in the coming months. This represents approximately 20% of the total and will leave the company with slightly more than 4,000 remaining locations.
For this geeky kid of the 1970s & 80s who loved radio and electronics, Radio Shack was one of my favorite places on Earth! Every fall, I’d wait patiently for the new annual catalog to be released. I would then beg, plead, and pester my mom until she drove me there so I could see and play with all the new “toys.” Radio Shack was my primary source of electronic parts, CB equipment, police scanners, antennas, coaxial cables, roof mounts, etc.
For some reason that I’ll never understand, they dropped their proprietary line of merchandise in the 1990s to became an overpriced, understocked version of Best Buy. Those unique Archer, Realistic, Micronta, and Science Fair items were replaced with name brand equipment which could be purchased cheaper just about anywhere else. Radio Shack became just another expensive “middleman”, mainly for cell phones and computers. Their demise was now inevitable.
There is a silver lining in this cloud, however. The shuttering of 1,100 Radio Shack stores should make for some great clearance and closeout deals. Back in 2006, Radio Shack also closed several hundred underperforming stores. I was lucky enough to attend multiple store closing sales in my area. This allowed me to purchase brand new police scanners, radios, TV/FM/CB/scanner antennas and mounting equipment, antenna rotors, cables, connectors, adapters, etc., at discounts ranging from 50-80% off the regular price! I’m looking forward to the 2014 Radio Shack list of store closings. As soon as it becomes public, I’ll post it here.
What was your favorite Radio Shack product of yesteryear? There were several good ones! Please leave a comment and share with the group.