[Coco] At RadioShack, a history of hits and missed chances

Sun Oct 5 12:18:14 EDT 2014

Hi,

Here is my 2 cents tough. I live in a country with no Radio Shack, nor
similar, since 1990s. I understand that the do-it-yourself market has
changed a lot since the advent of internet. Nowadays you can buy anything
you want on amazon, adafruit, or worse directly from China (DX, Alibaba,
and so on). With this competition, the profit margins would lower a lot.

However, the DIY market can be made different. When you start a DIY project
you normally want the pieces as soon as possible. If you wait for three
week to receive your chip, you probably will loose interest in the project,
or, worse, will have other things to do. So, it is important to have
somewhere you can just go and buy the thing you need. It would be ever
better if this place started to gather other hobbysts with the same
interest, so you can find help and support for your own projects.

It was not on this direction Radio Shack took on last decade. If they want
to be another cellphone seller, they'll certainly loose their differential
on the market and will be "just another one" as fast as you can spell Tandy.

If RS want to get back into business, they should stop selling cellphone
crap and start investing back in the DIY market. Imagine if they have a #d
printer that you can hire to "print" your stuff? And how about having a
service to make circuit boards? And about helping people to develop
projects that need different skills (electronics, woodworking, robotics,
programming ...)

It will be a pity if nobody gets on this market.

But this is just my opinion,

On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 12:25 PM, Chris Osborn <fozztexx at fozztexx.com> wrote:

>
> On Oct 5, 2014, at 8:01 AM, <davidlinsley at gmail.com> <
> davidlinsley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2024676003_radioshackanalysisxml.html
> >
> > This article was in today's Settle Times and is a reprint from a Fort
> Worth Star-Telegram article. No mention of the CoCo directly, and mostly
> mainstream press fluff, but some mainstream coverage of Radio Shacks woes
> none the less.
>
>     "And the market for hobbyists and do-it-yourselfers has evaporated"
>
> Not even close! It has grown a lot, and has a whole new culture associated
> with it, known as "maker." And Radio Shack knows it. That same culture is
> the one that made them huge, their problem is that they have largely
> abandoned that market and think they need to sell things that appeal to
> everyone. Yes, I know mail order can undercut Radio Shack, but there's a
> lot of times when you gotta have something right now or you want to inspect
> something in person to make sure the part is going to fit.
>
> Someone at Radio Shack has been trying to get in on the maker movement,
> they tie in with Make magazine a lot. Heck, they even sent me free tickets
> to Maker Faire last year because I posted some silly things I made on
> twitter! I think though it must be a very small team that's trying to get
> back into the hobbyist/diy/maker market because in-store they are
> constantly clearancing parts & tools.
>
> The hobbyist & DIY market is bigger than it ever was, they just need to
> stop turning those people away.
>
> --
> Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx
> Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com
>
>
>
>
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