The last RadioShack in Maryland is closing

There are many retail places that I know that are just unable to keep up with ever increasing rent. There is only so much a retailer can do with the prices of their products before they lose customers. Losing customers only worsens the pressure on paying rent.

Consumers say they lament the loss of brick and mortar stores, yet their actions of only buying online shows that isn't really that big of a loss to them. It's such a weird situation for a retailer. I don't envy their situation.

I have the fondest teenage memories waiting for Halo midnight releases.

For Halo 3 we had LAN parties in the back of pick-up trucks after rushing down to GameCrazy (Hollywood Video's game store chain which was attached on the side) after middle school in Canyon Park.

Halo Reach was the Lynnwood GameStop after a friend begged his parents to let him stay out late that night.

So many friends and memories. I miss those energetic meet-ups!

I remember a story I heard about Microcenter. It was started in my hometown (Columbus, OH) by a Radio Shack store manager. When PCs were coming out, the store manager kept putting those PCs up at the front of the store. The district manager would come back and make him put it in the back. This went on for a bit until the store manager quit, took his best sales guy, and opened up Microcenter at the mall next door, selling PCs. They eventually took over the entire mall, before moving to another part of town, and then expanding to other towns. By the time Radio Shack figured out where things were going, things were too late.

I didn't know this years later, watching Young Sheldon ... that Incredible Universe was Tandy's attempt to get into the consumer electronics when Radio Shack's profit started falling, and that Tandy has a whole (very profitable) leather company. My SCA friends tend to know a lot more about Tandy Leather than they do about Radio Shack.

Fry's Electronics closed here in the west part of Phoenix, several years ago. Their shelves were starting to get bare and were selling things from consignment. It took a while for them to die, and I finally found out why: they were having trouble getting credit to buy inventory.

> I live in NYC now, and fortunately we still have Micro Center which is still fun, though I do worry that it might go the way of Fry's Electronics soon enough.

When Fry's died during (not because of) the pandemic, basically half the comments on articles were "oh no, what about Micro Center?" to which the immediate response was invariably "they're all completely packed" (partially due to the pandemic meaning everyone wanted better computer gear for WFH). During the height of the GPU shortage, it was often said that your best chance of getting a GPU was going to the nearest Micro Center. On all of my more recent trips, Micro Center has seemed to do pretty strong business.

Somehow, Micro Center does seem to have found a strong niche that makes it survive as a brick-and-mortar store in an increasingly online store (hell, Micro Center's website is pretty notorious for looking like a 90's webstore). Part of that is probably knowledgeable salespeople (something Fry's was known for lacking). And I think there's also a savvy psychological rationale behind its expansion policy--its stores always come across as just a bit too small, and its locations too few, but the flip side is that you don't have cavernous spaces you need to fill (like Fry's did).

> I live in NYC now, and fortunately we still have Micro Center which is still fun, though I do worry that it might go the way of Fry's Electronics soon enough.

There are actually five in the metro area: Brooklyn, Queens, NJ, LI, and Yonkers. I live in biking distance of the Brooklyn store and drive past (stop at) the Yonkers one pretty frequently and find they’re both usually quite busy, so hopefully they’ll stick around.

I make a point of trying to buy from them because I value having a place nearby that employs actual purchasing staff so I don’t have to sort through junk and counterfeit products, and because I like having a place where I can deal in person, have things same day, return without shipping etc.

Its not just Amazon. Amazon's electronics catalog isn't even that great compared online retailers like Mouser, DigiKey and NewEgg for PC parts.

Sometimes you just want a resistor, but when you buy online, you generally have to buy them by the thousand, and then find a place to store the other 999 of them in your house somewhere. There is definitely room for local stores because the cost to ship something very small has a high floor.

> I'm not judging anyone for using Amazon instead of buying from a store

Given Amazon's labor practices, maybe you should be.

> I understand it, it's really hard to compete with Amazon in today's environment, and I'm not judging anyone for using Amazon instead of buying from a store

I am. :-)

> I buy online too, and fundamentally these are for-profit businesses and I don't feel any obligation to give them charity.

You can also judge people for prioritizing profit over all else.

Even from a purely utilitarian-calculus perspective, it's a bit strange to me when people say "I wish we had X" but then "but I understand people need to make money". Like, if you wish you had X, then X has utility to you. Now, it may be that the amount you would pay for X is less than what was needed for X to survive, but that's not necessarily implied by the mere fact that X has to make money.

And that's leaving out all the other positive and negative utilities that come from these various choices. Like living in a town where you can go to a place and have interactions with people, or even just browse unfamiliar and interesting products, instead of just a big warehouse.

There isn't any reason not to judge people for doing things that you think make the world worse.

There are also RadioShack stores in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua

https://www.radioshackla.com/guatemala/storepickup/

The ones I’ve seen sell mostly phones and toys now. They might have a very small selection of components in a corner.

> Weird to see my home county pop up on HN

I second this sentiment. It is sorta bizarre, there is not really a tech scene in the area except for a few niche roles in support of Pax River Naval Base (I'm also operating my SaaS down here https://weatherthetrip.com/download :peace_sign:). I remember visiting this store back in the 2000's and was surprised when I saw it still in business a few months back.

I smile whenever I see the RadioShack logo on my solder and soldering iron.

Oh yeah, it was awful by then. At my store you made essentially minimum wage plus a sort of commission for addons/upsales (as long as they were over a certain percentage of your total sales) and flat bonuses for new cell contracts, phone/accessory sales.

Theoretically it could add up to a passable paycheck for retail, but they had it set up so that only a few senior staff ever got enough hours/good shifts where you could conceivably hit the addon percentages needed to qualify for commissions. So the only way to make any money was to sell cell plans, phones, and accessories. The whole store was totally focused on hawking cell plans.

Then we had to go to monthly meetings an hour out of town on our own dime. That's where they talked at us about the company and how cool and great it was. Such a shitty place to work. IIRC there was a dedicated web forum called "RadioShackSucks" or something like that where staff complained to each other.

Also anecdotal, but it seems that RadioShack in that era was a particularly awful place to work. I applied around that time (might have been that exact year, or else it was 07-08). I was weeded out by the online personality test. My dad was friends with the store manager and he said "your son doesn't really have what we're looking for". Mind you, this would have been my 3rd or 4th retail job by that point, and I had references. I knew they did commission sales, and I had no experience in that, but I also wasn't the kind of person to upsell crap the customer didn't need. I'm glad I didn't get the job.

2009 is around the last time that I remember going into a Radio Shack, with the intention of buying a Nintendo DS and a game. I watched the guy go to the back to get a baggie containing the system, manual, accessories, etc, and stuff it into the box. He went back looking for the game (which was similarly absent from the case, along with the manual), came out empty handed.

"Well, couldn't find the game. So just the system?"

"Umm...no. I'll just buy the system down the street, since I'm going to have to go there to buy a game anyhow."

I have great memories of buying electronic components, kits to work on with my grandfather, and such. They were pretty sad by the end though. No decent kits, no little drawers of components.

My first job was also at RadioShack but back in 1995. We were all focused on batteries, adapters and consumer electronics. and cell phones were starting to be a big deal as carriers started subsidizing phones.

Followed closely by "The Breadboard Has Been Drinking"