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

[Chris Osborn]

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