(Adafruit's collection I've browsed online, and possibly even ordered something from there; RadioShack appears not to even ship outside the US.)
Well, anyway here in US RS was the place to go for kids and adults who liked electronics and needed parts and tools from what I understand. That's why there is name recognition and nostalgia about it.
Until the one by me closed earlier this year, it was the only place I could go to buy things like breadboards, transistors, and LEDs. Now I have to order these things online.
Then they basically all turned into cell phone stores and became irrelevant.
Sources:
- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-radioshack-kensingtoncapi...
- http://ubidestates.hibid.com/catalog/103245/radioshack-aucti...
Indeed, the company is a husk of its former self and has already sold off most of its assets.
But, if so, the @adafruit twitter account is definitely further confusing things.
If RadioShack couldn't earn enough to stay open -- selling all the various products that they did (mostly Sprint phones and service the ladt few years, AFAICT) -- do you really think there's gonna be enough sales of AdaFruit products to keep retail stores open? No.
Radioshack failed by giving up its original niche and trying to do what bigger, better-funded competitors were doing, badly. Maybe there wasn't a sufficient market for an electronic components retail store, but there certainly wasn't a sufficient market for a mini Best Buy with even worse prices.
There might well be a market for a much smaller number of stores with stuff for people who make things. Germany's Conrad Electronics appears to do well with that, though their stores are larger and also include a lot of ordinary consumer stuff.
Radioshack failed when they fired their engineers that were really good at coming up with all the neat stuff they had at the time. So they had no engineers then they started to be a me-too in an already filled space of consumer electronics and cellphones.
I bet that if they would have found a way to hold on to the vision their original engineers had, they could have been the ones to create the Raspberry Pie at an earlier date. Or drones, or expand their part business and become what Digikey is now. Radio Shack had wildly more resources than any of these other projects when they started, but they scoffed at the kits and parts and left them for the cell phone market which they coveted for an easy dime that didn't require the engineers of old.
I'm surprised that they held on for as long as they did, all the while being completely blind to the "makers" that were still there and growing up around them. Until it was quite literally too late and they just became another "me-too" there also.
Now, Adafruit is expensive, but I trust their components not to explode or otherwise destroy my project. I would travel to an Adafruit-owned RadioShack on Sunday night for that last-minute component. And like I did so often in the 90s, walk out of there having thrown a couple hundred dollars into the "this looks interesting" project hole.
Heck, in the valley, IRL fulfillment (willcall)/retail of electronic components is limited: (Halted isn’t organized and sells mostly used stuff without ESD management anywhere, Fry’s is a joke). Maybe you can will-call some places (Jameco), but the main sources like FleaBay and DigiKey don’t compare to IRL/right-now like Shenzhen highrise of everything bad fakes, good fakes and authentic. If you’re prototyping and about to do small runs it’s much easier in China because suppliers of all sizes and contract manufacturers right there, and can turn-around PCBs in a couple of hours. America doesn’t have anything remotely close to the density and rapid business efficiency of Shenzhen.
I went to my local RadioShack's liquidation...bought a ton of RadioShack branded things at discount to have for nostalgia purposes. Was also pleasantly surprised to see a section of the DIY kits you would find at adafruit including arduinos and RPi's.
What else could they do? Even with the big markups, those resistors and transistors weren't profitable because they turned over so slowly.
I have so much Radio Shack branded crud around my house (and that was even before I went on a shopping spree through like six stores undergoing clearance), they used to be so much more than a store. I'm glad to see it finally end up in good hands.
Fascinating stuff: https://priceonomics.com/porsche-the-hedge-fund-that-also-ma...
Adafruit is an awesome, modern business model (juxtaposed to the tiny margins of components and other commodification) that pumps out tons of quality kits, and Fried is killing it! I see tons of new product demos all the time on their YouTube channel.[0]
0: https://youtube.com/user/adafruit
PS: Still have my PS/2 :cueCat.
Update: if you really love electronics, more YT channels: eevblog, ave, bigclivedotcom, mikeselectricstuff, strange parts, this does not compute, louisrossmann (IIRC)
I hope for adafruit's sake this is just a joke around a framed radio shack cert.
I just know that Adafruit will bring back at least some of the luster that Radio Shack once held in my heart.
Add a pickup counter... I would still pay shipping to pick up.
