RadioShack - WHAT THE FUCK?

I have been there recently. In fact, I was just there in September.

they seem to make most of their cash on shitty phones or something... really not sure how they're around... they do charge you triple price for all the small shit they carry...

I USED to love radio shack when I did alot of electronics shit and needed the oddball parts for soldering....

Uhh... they have stuff that people, like, buy. And they buy things at a low price and sell them for a higher price.

I was there last week.

So, you are the one to blame? You and baddog???

pretty much. I just needed audio cables, and it was closest.

I've done the same. Even so, how do they make enough off of those little oddball shit parts? They always cost less than a dollar.



RadioShack CEO = miracle worker.

Radio Shack was the SHIT back in the day.

You could build your own radios and televisions and possibly even a
eletromagnetic photon ray gun from their shit.

They still make their money.
Last year I had to set up a DJ booth.
Would not have happened without Radio Shack!!!

Actually, I went there because they were the only ones that were open, convenient and had what I needed.

I felt the price was more than fair.

I went there a couple years ago with my son to pick up a router and the price was quite reasonable.

I needed a Firewire cable recently and they were the closest and still open...and they had it.

I overpaid compared to having it shipped, but I didn't want to wait, so I can stand to eat a few bucks.

Well I wont say what radio shack in San Diego but thats where me and my ex stripper girlfriend used to buy cocaine from. Since there was never anybody in there he would even bust out with a few lines for us on the checkout counter. Great memories.

that's about the worst place to buy a firewire cable... $40 versus $5 elsewhere but like you say, sometimes you don't have a choice if you want it now

I KNEW IT!!!


Now I see how they do it!

I like Radio Shack! Even though they were a little overpriced on cables, they always maned to have everything I needed, in stock. Who the hell else has 25 Foot RGB Cables at 8pm on a Tuesday?

Long Live Radioshack!

they are now called "Ther Source" up here in Canada .. but they do carry the cool shit that can be harder to find diodes, individual LED's and resistors ..stuff for making cool shit ..Hell when I was still with Sweet i pretty much kept the "Buttcam" running off of Radio Shack and home depot .. lol

I was just there a couple of weeks ago. I needed some oddball batteries and some LEDs for some assorted geekery.

I'm not saying they don't have some sneaky shit! They do!!!


I just see you buying ONE 25 foot RGB cable at 8pm on a Tuesday for like $4. Then I see you not visiting RadioShack until next year. How are they making MONEY??????

I go there from time to time when I need some extra long cord or splitter for something or other.

i do a lot of audio and video work, they ALWAYS have the cable I need at the last minute

i go there at least once a week, so do many people, the one by my house always has 3-4 people in it

They make money because they position themselves often across from hair, nail or female clothing stores. So when my wife drags my ass to the mall and goes into some clothing store, I hit the shack.

Coke addicts?

I go there if I need little shit, like those fucking plastic clips that hold the cables to the baseboard. Also, there's this fine ass spanish chick that works there and she helps me find the the little plastic clips.

Well, judging by the fact that I can not recall the last time I went to a Radio Shack that did not have several buyers in it, I guess that he isn't the only one hitting it at 8 PM on a Tuesday.

Last week I bought a cord that goes from my pc speaker output to the input RCA jacks on my Surround Sound Stereo unit. Also picked up an APS at the same time.

.......this turned out to be a radioshack adverting thread at the end.....

fuck radioshack.

I've gone there at least two or three times in the last year.

Once for a cheap scientific calculator, and a couple other times for various electronic widgets.

And, yeah... as was mentioned... the place always had other customers walking around in it.

usually family type people

besides radio shack overcharges for everything, i don't think coke heads could afford it

I'm just amazed they can pay commercial rents.

got some cheap 2 gig sd cards there, $20 each

Anybody ever notice how every Radio Shack smells the same? No matter what state, city, or location. Always the same.

They sell crap to broke people on high percentage credit cards. That is where they make their money.

If you need to buy an ohm meter they are convenient. They're like the masters of the impulse buy, however. And how many times have they ever hit you up to buy batteries when checking out? Pure evil... but quite clever.

''Awww, shit yeah I need some 9 volt batteries. And two for only $2?! Hit me!''

Funny article by the Onion:
Even CEO Can't Figure Out How RadioShack Still in Business
http://www.theonion.com/content/news...figure_out_how

I used to work at radio shack back in 1990-1991. Back then we sold a lot of little parts. The store I worked in made about 75% of its total income off those parts because the profit margin on them was huge. They would pay 50cents for a cable that they sold for $7 and would sell 15 of that one cable a day whereas they would pay $200 for a VCR that they sold for $225 and they would sell one of those a month.

I did see some pretty shady stuff though. One of things the store I worked at sold a ton of was hand held CB walkie talkies. They were normally $99 and would go on sale for $79 and we would sell everyone we could get our hands on. The manager of the store I worked at had about 4-5 returned because they didn't work. We ran out of them one weekend during a sale and instead of sending the customers to another store he sold them the bad radios and told them they were new. Afterwards he tells me that it is okay because by the time the people come back to exchange them we should have more in stock. That kind of stuff happened all the time.

The management treats the employees like shit (or at least they did in the district I worked in) so they have a high turnover of sales people. They also used to pay either minimum wage or 6.75% commission, but with such cheap stuff the only time you ever made commission was at Christmas and then they would lower it to 5.5%.

The best story ever though was just before I quit the store I worked for hired a guy that dressed like a mobster. He didn't know shit, was pushy and generally sucked. One day the manager was dumb enough to trust him to close, do the books and make the bank deposit. He did the books, took the night drop lock bag to the bank then got out of his car in the bank parking lot, took a hatchet from his trunk and hacked open the bag. He took the cash (around $2000) and threw the bag and the checks in the dumpster. He then rammed his head into his car a few times and called 911. He told them he had been mugged. What he didn't know was there was a guy standing at the ATM who saw the whole thing. So the manager fired him and a week later I went on my vacation. As I left for my vacation I told him I was using my vacation as my notice and that I wasn't coming back.

I worked there about 2 years. About 9 months after I quit I went in to buy some little part. I had a kick ass job and was doing well and the manager told me he has had 9 people come and go since I left and that I was the best person he ever had and asked if I would ever come back. I told him if he had treated me like that before I might have actually stayed and maybe he needed to be a little less of an asshole and people would stay. It felt good to see the look on his face.

I was in a store about 6 months ago getting an audio cable and they have changed. They used to only carry Realistic brand audio/video components and Tandy computers. Now they carry name brand stuff so they have become more like a regular store than used to be. I think that is how they have survived. We have become a name brand culture. If they hadn't made that switch they would have gone under years ago.

Sorry for the long post. I could give a two hour monologue about the shit that Radio shack is (or at least used to be).

Great post!

They get their money like every other big franchise, off their store charge card, so people buy those shitty computers adn whatnot, for $24/m
end up paying $10k for a $1k computer... The american way..

I went for a radio part, they had ZERO radio parts or electronic parts, lol
what a joke...

I remember buying the occasional bit from Tandy Electronics (the Australian trading name) years and years ago.

A 2 pack of LEDs cost something like $1.30 when you could buy them "unwrapped" at an enthusiast shop for 20c each.

When I was a kid I also did a computer course with the computers they sold, the ones with the keyboard, monitor and cassette all in the one black and beige shell... can't remember the model name? I already knew too much so I was bored shitless. :D

Cutting edge....... for 1981.

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/....asp?st=1&c=18

The two items that jump out at me from back when I worked there in 1990-91 were a cell phone we sold. It was huge, weighed about 10 lbs and cost around $2,000 plus around 40cents a minute for calls. There was also the "top of the line" home computer. It was a 286 that ran at 16MHZ had a 20 megabite hard drive and 512K of memory. Once you added in a monitor and printer you were looking at close to $3,000.

Hey, I still have mine. LOL

Hey, I loved my brick phone. I wish I could get mine activated. The damn thing worked very, very well.

great post for sure thanks for the story

yeah they did change, Called "The Source" up here in Canada they dont carry all the neat shit that much any more, Always want your name and addy for "Warranty " purposes, last time I was there I told them, I came to buy something for cash , not to tell you my life story ;)

I still buy the odd thing there