A eulogy for RadioShack, the panicked and half-dead retail empire

[happyslug]

114. Dating myself, I remember its much better competitor Lafayette Electronics, closed in 1981.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_Radio_Electronics

Lafayettes were larger stores that had more items for sale. Just bigger and nicer stores, but the advent of digital electronics and the attitude of replacing not repairing electronics killed it.

People forget that till the 1970s Televisions were REPAIRED not replace when they broke. Hardware stores had devices to test tubes to see if they were working or not. Radio Shack was barely a step above the local hardware store, Lafayette was the step above Radio Shack on par with television repair shops (Which also sold Televisions, Lafayette was just a national chain as oppose to the local television store).

As electronics became more and more digital in the 1960s and 1970s, such repairs became more and more NOT cost effective. Transistors rarely burned out, and when they did generally something else was wrong and it was often cheaper to buy something new then repair what you had. With tubes, generally all you had to do is replace the tube, not a big expense or a big job. Furthermore tubes tended to burn out way before anything else, thus cost effective to repair.

Replacement and Repair is what kept Lafayette in business in the 1940s-1981. Yes, profits were made in selling televisions, radios and other electronics, but what paid the month to month bills was repairs, and with transistors repairs on electronics died out, and with the lost of those repairs Lafayette went out of business.

Radio Shack should have followed the same path, but its stores were smaller and thus could survive on the small market for small electronic devices and parts that remained with the switch to transistors. I go into Radio Shack once every decade or so and see what they are selling and try to figure out why I ever thought they may have some obscure electronic device or part that I wanted. With the net, it is easier to find those parts and get those parts then going to a Radio Shack to find out they do not have it. The only thing keeping them in business is selling phones, and some gadgets.

Now in December 1987 I purchased my first laptop from Radio Shack. I was in school and had broken my wrist and could NOT write, so I thought about a small portable typewriter (it was December of 1987 they still existed) but opt instead for a Radio Shack Laptop. It was an 8088 processor and had two 2 1/2 inch floppy disks that I would use to load Wordstar word processing, but I used it for till it broke in the late 1990s (I had upgraded it to with an after market hard drive in 1991 to replace the one floppy but by the late 1990s it was hopelessly obsolete, no longer worth repairing).

I bring it up for it up for when I was in school in the late 1980s I was the only one with a Laptop, now everyone has one. In the late 1980s Radio Shack dominated that market, but then left it go. They refused to upgrade, they wanted to sell what they had sold in the past and never accepted that fact they had to throw things away. For example, it was an aftermarket provider that I had to ship my laptop to to get it upgraded to have a hard drive, Radio Shack did NOT provide that service, or even mention it in their ads (I found out about the place from an electronic magazine, how much things have changed since 1989). Radio Shack in 1989 did come out with a laptop with a hard drive, but only as something to buy new NOT an upgrade.

In the mid 1990s commentators were already making comments how Radio Shack had dominated the laptop market, and then left it get away from them. Laptops in the 1990s were still high price, and high profit items, compared to desk top computers. Once you dominate a market, you do all you can to dominate that market, in the case of Laptops others moved into the market and quickly took it over. I suspect the reason Radio Shack lost the laptop market was they refused to upgrade their laptops, but tried to sell what they had, as oppose to selling what people wanted. A fatal mistake and they lost that market.

According to one source on the net, the model I had, the 1400 LT, could be purchased with a hard drive, but I never saw one. On the other hand I saw 1400 LTs for sale in Radio Shack well into the 1990s, long after having an internal hard drive was a given (i.e. the models should have been withdrawn or sold at a steep discount and newer machines used).

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=1197

Technically being an 8088 machine I should have been able to run only MS-DOS on it, but the first version of windows did run on mine. Great little computer for its time period. Inferior to the desk top computers of the time period (generally 2-3 years behind the desk top in capacity), but if you accepted its limitations a great computer (i.e. use it for word processing and data base management, I did have a modem for it, but never used it for the net was in its infancy and it was easier for me to walk to my local library then to figure out how to get the modem to work).

Thus Radio Shack had the market, but then left it go. They treated it as a fad, not something that would change how people communicated and processed data (i.e. they would NOT see how the computer, let alone the laptop would replace the typewriter). I was in the National Guard at that time and took it to the field. I had a Smith Corona Typewriter with a Centronics port so it could be used as a printer and I had access to electrical power for I was attached to the Maintenance section of my Battalion. People loved getting reports typed instead of bad hand writing on paper (I am talking 1988 and 1989, my last years in the National Guard).

Now, people who had access to desk top computer joked that the laptop was inferior to their laptops (They also had access to dot matrix printers, which could print faster then my typewriter and were a lot smaller) but I never saw any of them take those machines into class.

Now today, the same class rooms I attended all have power cords so more people can use laptops. If Radio Shack had been aggressive when it came to laptops (as oppose to selling them as the latest electronic fad) they would be profitable today.

Just a comment on Radio Shack and how they have shot themselves in the foot over the last 40 years by trying to stay in business as in the days of Television repairs, in the days when something breaks it is replaced not repaired. Staying in the days that people will buy what is in your store, for it is good enough for them. The problem was by the 1990s computers were upgrading so rapidly that holding onto an item for two to three years, drop the price from $1500 to Zero, a concept Radio Shack refused to accept and it cost them the laptop business.

Radio Shack had a window to become the dominate laptop provider, by just insisting on selling the latest laptops, instead they kept selling what had been great three years before. If Radio Shack had fought to dominate the Laptop market, they be raking in the money, but they refused. Radio Shack opt for profits this year as oppose to profits over the next ten years and is now suffering the cost of such short sightedness.

The next step in computers is handhelds, that can be used to transfer data to a main frame via electronic connections with interface with the main frame. i.e. your hand held phone able to be connected to laptop (direct connection, cable connection or even Blue tooth) given that the lap top has a full size keyboard and screen. All data will be kept on the hand held or the main frame (and probably both), the "Laptop" or "Desktop" Computer will just be an interface device (i.e. just a device to type in or have a bigger screen then the hand held, all actual working data and chips would be in the hand held). The Keyboard is still one of the best way to input data (Voice recognition software is better then it has ever been, but they is something about typing that provides clarity).

Is Radio Shack ready for this move? No. Thus Radio Shack will die, the only question is how long will it take to die. Lafayette in many ways had better management, when they saw that they market was dieing they decided to get out of it and sold what they could. Radio Shack is not willing to do that thus it will linger waiting and hoping for another electronic craze that would bail it out for another ten years or so (CB radios in the 1970s and 1980s, Desktop Computers in the 1990s, cell phone from the late 1990s till today).