[Coco] More poor news for Radio Shack

[RETRO Innovations]

On 12/12/2014 1:39 PM, John Guin wrote:
> Time did an article on JC Penney, Target and Best Buy adopting the "boutique within a store" : http://business.time.com/2013/04/08/can-the-boutique-store-within-a-store-concept-save-big-box-retailers-from-extinction/
>
> I could not find the Forrester data on the economics here (and would not want to pay anyway) but did find this research paper from Wharton that covers the economic model: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/kinshuk/cvdocs/JZ_SnS.pdf after reading this gentler intro: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-economic-incentives-of-the-store-within-a-store-retail-model/
>
> Long story short: RS needs more room in stores to do this.  But I would visit a Sparkfun or Adafruit stand up display at least once per week if they did something like that.
Though I agree with John that it may not be ultimately feasibly, I am 
glad for Bill's idea.

Even though I am not a Tandy owner from "back in the day", I have fond 
memories of having my folks drop me off at the local RS when they went 
to the mall nearby, and I would spend an hour or so selecting products 
from the "component" aisles to fit my meager budget (and yes, they were 
overpriced then, but just coming home with a handful of bubble packs of 
LEDs and resistors, switches, transistors, and variety packs was the 
highlight of my week. Looking back, i realize all was not well in the 
early 80's, but the salesfolks there tended to be older hams that knew a 
ton about tech, and were happy to talk at some length about a project I 
was considering (one helped me select the correct resistors for a 555 
timer circuit to create a certain waveform frequency, etc.)  I have 
lamented the decline of the stores, the last decade drive into cell 
phones, the floor space they still devote to phones, but the lack of 
sales it seems they generate from phones now, and the lack of technical 
knowledge of the sales staff.  Still, I have not seen a way out.  I 
thought catering to the Arduino/hobbyist crowd push that they initiated 
a few years ago was in line with my thoughts, but it has not helped 
them, which is sad.

I too rarely go there, mainly because Digikey can deliver in 2 days to 
my house, and the cost is nominal ($5.00 for quite a bunch of 
components).  And, the prices there (or at Mouser for new components or 
All Electronics or Goldmine Electronics for surplus) are very competitive.

Jim