Radio Shack isn't quite dead yet

Yesterday's Wall St Journal had a piece about Radio Shack's survival.  They declared bankruptcy a second time in 2015. They have closed all the Radio Shack owned stores, except for a mere 100.  The brand is being carried by independent retailers. 
  The lawyers are talking about (and billing for)  exiting the second bankruptcy this year.  No details were given.  The Journal wishes them well, and quotes an independent retailer at length.  The retailer was enthusiastic but he didn't have any info either.
  I wish them well.  I remember shopping  Radio Shack back when it was a single store on downtown Washington St in Boston.  That was before Tandy bought them and built them up to a nationwide chain.  Shopping Radio Shack in the old days, when they sold Realistic hi-fi (later stereo), ham radio gear, electronic parts, and strange surplus items, was fun.  The current stores, selling kids toys, cell phones, batteries and cables are not so fun.  They still have small collections of electronic parts, which I go to buy, but these are small low cost items that won't keep a store afloat.  They seem to have given up on personal computers, a market they pioneered in the '70s.  Radio Shack needs some product, some big ticket items, with some decent margin, to pay the rent.  And they cannot compete with the big box stores on price.  Walmart can always demand lower prices from its suppliers than anyone else can. 
   You would think there would be some openings.  Up here in the sticks, the only place that carries computer stuff (paper, ink cartridges, laptops, monitors, routers, etc) is Staples.  Hardly a computer oriented kinda store. 

Shed a tear for Radio Shack

They are hurting.  They just announced they will be closing 1000 stores.  And it may get worse.  I remember when they started up, a single store on Washington St in Boston.  That was before Tandy bought them.  In those days the store was filled with electronic parts, mostly surplus, TV antennas, hifi equipment, and ham radio stuff.  If you were building or fixing electronic stuff Radio Shack is where you went for parts.  They carried their own brand of hifi, Realistic, which never had the cache associated with Harman Kardon or Bogen or McIntosh, but the price was right and it sounded OK to my ear.  Once they even carried British Army surplus rifles for $19.95 each.  It used to be a fun place to shop, even if you didn't need any parts or rifles.
   That was a long time ago.  They are still around but the stock is less interesting, cell phones and point-n-shoot cameras, and toys.  They still have some parts and wire and connectors, but this is all little stuff, couple of dollars apiece, and you gotta sell an awful lot of it to keep the lights on.  I still buy parts for my home projects at the Shack, but that's about it.  Although Radio Shack pioneered home computers, remember the TRS-80, they seem to have faded out of that business.  They still have a few cables and connectors, but you don't see laptops or printers in the store. 
   Without a high value or a high volume product, they will continue to hurt.  When they go,  most of us will have to go Internet for electronic parts and stuff.