I got a Radio Shack digital multimeter for xmas from my dad. It was the last thing he bought me before he passed away. After 20+ year's I still have that digital multimeter and it's still working great.
I wouldn’t say they were the death of other companies, the creation of them exposed the flaws of older companies and caused them to effectively implode into non-existent.
@Beanie Boos! how am i lame for liking a convenient online shop that ships pretty fast and serves it purpose don't come saying nonsense and expect to be right
@@redrooster1908 say what you want it's not nice to say thet someone who worked hardy's company is stupid, they are stupid for believing that to thank you
This is very true. In the days of 60000 different types of phones and chargers, radio shack 9 times outta 10 had a battery and/or a charger for any of them , not to mention phone clips for your belt in case you felt you weren’t getting beat up enough on a day to day basis
Todd L-M i miss radio shack I always went there for drones or remote cars just in 3rd grade they changed the shop to a pizza store am in 6th grade i go to 7th on the 26th rip radio shack
I owned a Radio Shack franchise from 1984-1997, store 22-A592. Sold it at the end of Fed 1997. They started hiring people to run the company who had no idea what Radio Shack was about. Shortly after I sold my store, the company got all the stores to put almost all of the small items, capacitors, resistors, audio adapters and plugs, etc, into these big drawer cabinets. I KNEW they were history at that point. Sure enough........
jake, i have a concussion right now and im supposed to limit my time looking at screens. ive been so bored just having to sit here and rest. thank you so much for your interesting videos that i can listen to without having to look at the screen.
Thanks, Jake for covering Radio Shack in your series. I worked for Radio Shack for 10 years from 1979 to 1989, very BIG years for the chain, and a very important 10 years in my life. I managed 4 different stores over that time, 3 in Southern California and 1 in Seattle, before I left the company (well, I left sales, then ended up as the District Secretary for the Seattle stores for almost 2 years). Watching your video was very cathartic for me. I guess there's been some closure that I've never really dealt with, and it really helped to get a good cry over seeing the loss of a place I took great pride in working in, and winning sales awards during my time as a store manager. I loved working with my fellow salespeople, and loved helping customers, but middle and upper management definitely didn't "get it". I found the knowledge level of the salespeople was severely lacking over the years, and I usually ended up helping a customer when I'd be in a store, shopping for myself. I had the know-how, and was glad to share it. I miss that part a LOT.
@krzyfkn Yes they are usually referred to as "The good old days" .. when in fact, we can be standing smack dab in the good Old days and not even know it until they're gone.
It's a shame, I always went to Radio Shack as opposed to the the other places. They had such friendly and knowledgeable staff! Always ready to help! I always had the experience with the other stores that the products weren't very good and the staff were inexperienced in electric. It's so sad!
Very similar background and I credit RS for giving me the opportunity to have a very successful career in Tech. I don’t see it happening without my time there. I just bought a set of Mach Ones which I couldn’t afford when I worked there but always drooled over. Once I saw a store manager outside my local store with a bullhorn (mid 2000’s) I knew it was over.
Man, Radio Shack was such a great store. ........Right up until they decided it would be an amazing idea to dedicate 90% of every store to phones which I can find in every damn store in the world...and then I had no reason to go in there again.
I can remember never seeing anything remotely interesting in those stores. I went to their closing clearance and couldn’t find much of anything I wanted.
Op is right, totally true unfortunately. I remember back in the early 2000’s I had a second job at Radio Shack for a couple of years. The majority of the customers we had all came in for parts, obscure batteries, and small electronics like house phone’s, ipods/cd players and cable’s. I think I changed more watch batteries in the time I worked there than I sold cell phones/plans to customers. Everyone that came in knew we were highly trained and knowledgeable and could do these things and answer questions that no other electronics store could or would. I spent lots of time with customers helping them pick out whatever they needed from leds, resistors, speaker wire to even motherboards and chips to build and repair electronics. We were the only brick and mortar store that had any of that stuff.
Jake, I had a really hard test that exhausted me, and this video came out right when I was done with the test. It really made me happy. Thanks a lot!!!
I lived in Scott City Kansas for a little while. They have an open Radio Shack in town. Original, never cosmetically updated, never closed, never changed ownership. Truly a living relic.
We still have one in arkansas owned by the same family for ages. They used to have I think 3 stores and they're now down to just one. They have board game nights on Tuesdays after close lol
The biggest loss was the types of products that Best Buy, etc don't offer and never offered - actual discrete electronic parts, such as resistors, transistors, switches, PC boards and enclosures, and all sorts of related stuff. You used to be able to walk into an RS and buy just about anything like that. During their last few years, it became just a tiny corner of the store. Now, there is nearly nowhere to buy any of that stuff, at least in-person.
I stock all my hobby supplies, resistors, hundreds of all colors of leds, switches, and accessories from Shenzhen China on eBay. No more 8 dollar 2 packs of leds for me!
I ordered on ebay !! i got on line ... this is true the last 10 years people.... from the 60s , (i think) you could get the components , expensive I know, at RS also, as I am an expert on electronic components (being on that business for 40 years or so. ...) the quality of RS components were very very high. mostly parts from USA and Taiwan ... I remember some miniature bulbs, buttons and connector OR you buy from BIG brands or from RS if you want then to work properly. the quality of RS electronic components were VERY good. They charged you big money, but the worked beautifully .. at that time (60. 70. 80. 90) most of the chinese components were a piece of shit .. that changed the last decade as we know. When closed I bought the racks with shelves for electronic components. They are beautiful and strong !! The shelves with drawers I men. I think RS grew like a monster and its owns weight killed it ...
I personally remember, back between about 2009-2013 my dad ALWAYS travelled the 25 miles to the mall in a nearby city (we lived in the country) just to get things from Radio Shack like transistors, resistors, capacitors, and other things like that. Even now he still buys some Radio Shack branded things off of eBay just because he liked the quality and simplicity of them
I got a couple nice small needle nose pliers, a soldering iron, a USB hub, and some random thing, paid about 20 bucks. My first gift I still have is a yellow "robie the bank" robot, that pretended to eat your coin then "lick" his lips in apparent delight of the treat.
I was pretty sad when this happened. I grew up playing with their R/C cars and loved seeing all the neat things in their stores. As an adult I'm now a ham radio operator and have acquired 2 old R.S. brand ham radios and they still work!
I have a trs80 still in the box i got new in 1984, used for a year, packed it up. Been siting since. In 2009 I plugged it in and wrote basic code, played a game, packed it back up.
What pisses me off is these competing stores only offered competition in certain areas.... RADIO SHACK WAS MUCH MORE THAN JUST TV, DVD, Stereo store... Radio Shack carried electronic components such as resisters, coils, timers, and an endless line of other amplification components. Soldering wire etc.... People who actually built things from scratch went to Radio Shack.... They weren't "entertainment stand" shoppers... They took the store serious and went there for the real things Radio Shack sold and had on the shelves. Radio Shack was replaced by people who sold electronics BUT NOT electronic accessories ... and test equipment etc.... REAL ELECTRONICS! If I can't walk into a best buy and buy anything Radio Shack had.... Then what good is Best buy? Best buy is nothing like Radio Shack...
we have a hardware sore not far from our local hardware store still open in 2020 they have anything in hardware you would want and the guys know the business instead of saying uuuh i dont know
We still have local stores that filled it like Memory Express, B&E Electronics but Active Eletronics is the direct replacement other than Radio Shacks upgraded The Source which is just an emaciated Best Buy.
I've needed resistors and small electronic components in a pinch before, and it was always, "damn...if only Radio Shack were still in business." Amazon has all that stuff now and it's fast delivery so whatever.
@@haloguru2552 Not the same. What if I need to go inside and compare the components to make sure I'm getting the right one? What if I get it home and find out it wasn't what I thought. I can run right back to Radio shack TODAY!!! and get the right part. Screw waiting 3 days every time I need a little part. Amazon is no better in my book. If you didn't live in the days when radio shack was around... you'll never understand how you might run back and forth in one day to get what you need. People who say Amazon is the answer are the ones that need a part every now and then. When you constantly need components, project boxes, tiny little things for your business.... Amazon is not the answer.
Exploring with josh is the god. This guy is just a joke! Jake the joke! Making long videos about things he sees in news doesn’t even “explore” the places uses other people images and footage. Can’t even film he’s own exploration videos uses other people’s content
@@urban_fox_cub_urbex Exploring an abandoned store is different than explaining why all of the stores are abandoned. Watching a video of just an exploration may seem cool, but you might find yourself looking up why the chain failed..
@@urban_fox_cub_urbex What kind of argument is that, BSF does record his own stuff but honestly I prefer these types of videos. Josh is alright but overdramatic
Worked over 10 years in the late 70’s into the 90’s in the Detroit market. Ran 7 stores. Still have a STA-2250 receiver and a DX 440 shortwave radio. Still working after 30 years!
i have memories of shopping at the Radio Shack on Ford Rd & Mercury, where there was a Franklin Planner store in the same strip mall. I'd run there for cable connectors and such. I wondrr if that was one that you ran.
@@joemachine4714,I ran multiple stores on the west side. Ford Rd near Middlebelt, Ford Rd. And Wayne Rd, , Ford Rd, and Sheldon Rd., Middlebelt and W.7 Mi, Farmington Rd. and W 7mi and Rawsonville road and I-94. I worked a second time round in Ferndale and Royal Oak.
Back when I was a kid during the mid 60's to early 70's, Radio Shack had these science kits as well as chemistry kits. You could make everything from radios, listening devices to little chemical bombs. These kits came in a few different sizes. I think the biggest Science Kit allowed you to build up to 50 different projects. The stuff they sold in the Chemical Kit was unreal. Couldn't buy that stuff today. These Radio Shack Science and Chemical Kits were awesome at Christmas time. Hours upon hours of enjoyment. LOL!
My first two computers were Tandy's; they were good dos-based computers and about $100+ cheaper than any IBM or Texas Instruments computer at the time (early-mid '80s.)
I had the largest electronic set RS sold, 160-in-1 Electronic Set. You could build 160 different 'things" with this deep shadow box filled with resistors, capacitors, input and output transformers, transistors, diodes, cds cells(cadium-sulfide cells, light sensitive), integrated circuits, led's, potentiometers, 2 different types of switches, and there is more. All of theses were mounted with spring-terminals that were used to wire the components together, according to the schematic diagram. For a kid that took his Novice Ham radio license at 16, it was a wondrous thing that never lost it's appeal. By the way, when I took my written exam for my Novice, I studied from a textbook called "Electronic Theory". This was 1981-82. It even had simple computer functions that worked with the integrated circuit, IF , AND, and NOR. It even had a small solar cell. Edit: I scored a 97 on my Novice exam. My dad scored a 95, so he had to buy me a Yeasu FT-101B ham radio with an 8 digit frequency counter. It cost $600 back in '81-82, and I still have it.
@@MrRuffntumble9 That sounds so geeky cool. Yeasu is rock solid equipment. Brought back my 2002/2005 era electronic theory. Though now you can use Arduino and Pis, DrawCircuits & Kano Kits, as well as SCRATCH. In 2005 it was BASIC Stamps. Nothing though on Mechano sets which was similar to the chemistry sets mentioned above.
So wait... If Hobbytown bought the rights to use Radioshack and are opening new stores with that name, does that mean it's still possible Radioshack will get to see its 100th anniversary?
@@morrisonozzy only reason Best Boy has survived is because they aggressively adapt to changing market situations, so does Walmart and Target. Also by offering more brands and things to buy. Visit these stores and you will see they re-arrange the shelves almost every other week. What ever goes mainstream, they bring it in and do away with the old super fassst.
I am grateful to this company because I grew up in Kodiak Alaska ; and the ONLY connection to the rising tech world of the 80’s was that little store. I had a Tandy 1000 I got from there . Had that computer for years and years . Thanks Radio Shack. Wouldn’t have known about Final Fantasy either without old man Dave that ran the place .
Exactly, I spent 15 years of my life in the Circle R corp. I rose to become Store manager of 01-8806 and was working to become district manager of 0595 when I saw the light and realized that after Lin was let go the company was in DEEP TROUBLE. The Digit@l push was just the icing on the cake, I left the company and cashed out 19 days before Circle R filed chapter 11.
Senior Salesmaker, 1997-2001, store 01-8388. The money was really good for someone in college, but the last several months I was there it just went down.
Omg I remember going to RadioShack as a kid with my mom and marveling at all their “cool” things. We would stop by Burlington and then to RadioShack before leaving the mall and it was always a good time!
Same here Ive messed with old electronics my whole life and relied on them for parts for 8 tracks reel to reel players and black and white televisions then one day poof gone .now when I try to find parts I get looked at sideways or laughed at .the guys at rs took interest in my projects .
I grew up and still live in Fort Worth, TX. I remember taking ice skating lessons as a kid at the Tandy center in downtown. I loved that place. It survived into the 2000s because of the skating rink. When they closed it, it was a slow awful death until they finally tore it down in 2012 to build the new square. There's still an old computer in my parent's attic that says Tandy Electronics on it. I remember going to the industrial zone where the electronics division was to get stuff with my dad.
My dad's first job was at a Radio Shack in Ontario, Canada. After he left his job he went on to work in IT for over 20 years and counting. So I think Radio Shack is a really cool place. It's sad I never went there, I never really knew it.
Oh how I miss the days where you actually can go into a store like this and get great service. Walmart, Amazon and shopping online killed the wonderful days of shopping in person. I hate this way of shopping. Thank you RadioShack for the great memories.
The end started when they stopped selling tubes for older radio's/tv's. The downfall continued when they stopped selling their own private label products and started selling the same stuff you can find elsewhere. As they lessened the parts they sold, the downward spiral continued. The death knell occurred when they started selling cell phones. RIP Radio Shack.
Totally agree. They removed any reason to shop there. I used to love them in the 80s (it was always called Tandy Electronics in AU) but stopped going there when it became pointless.
I worked at a radioshack. I'm a DIYer and tinker. For every 500 customers that walked through the doors, one wanted parts. Most everyone else wanted modern electronics. The issue is RadioShack wanted to charge $50 for what could be found at walmart for $20 and a poor quality version at the dollar store for $10.
@@joshuak2872 the very first time I saw a white LED in person was at a Radio Shack and it wasn't very bright, plus it cost the equivalent of 5 USD for a single one.
Great video! I grew up with Radio Shack in the 80's, I remember my father taking me there. In the 90's I'd go there for project parts. In the 2000's it seemed like they just gave up and were trying to be a 3rd party mobile phone seller, unfortunately for them every shopping center where I lived had an AT&T/Sprint/T-Mobile store added in also. The culture of the stores seemed to change too where the employees kind of went from experts to people who didn't really give a damn that you were even in the store or even just phone sales people who were so desperate to make their quota that they'd try to sell you a phone and plan even if you were in there just to buy a battery.
vbrtrmn Spot on, started building electrical projects in the 60s thru the mid 70s if it wasn't for RadioShack I would have never scored high in Electronics on the Advab test for the military, brings back some great memories,
I managed a RS in the early 90's and left to start my own Retail Computer store. When they started selling Packard hell I knew they were done. RS was NEVER the cheapest, but they had stuff no one else carried and they had their own brand that was pretty good. I sold a ton of stereos to older ppl who didn't want fancy hard to use units and they also bought their computers and phones while they were there. My town closed the 2 store in little strip malls in order to keep the Mall store open. Their rent was equal to the 2 stores that closed and being a mall, they had little time to talk to people. When RS sold their own branded stuff ( stereos made by Pioneer, not sure who made the home speakers, they were not very good ) the 5+% higher cost could be explained as the equipment was better, or warranty was better. When they carried normal low end brands, they lost the 1 advantage they had. We got trained monthly when I was there, around the mid 90's they killed off the training and by 2000 or so, they stopped only hiring ppl who knew electronics and hired normal no nothing sales ppl. I enjoyed my time there and it taught me a lot about customer service, info that I used the make a killing in the 90's until computers got cheap in 99 or so. I had 5 really great years at my store and 2 ( plus a few more at RS in another state ) more as Mgr in training and then mgr. They stopped letting us solder home cordless phone batteries just before I left. In 1992 they started the slide of customer support and it got worse from there. Talking about phone sales, at the mall store , RS was literally 50ft away from a huge cell phone selling place that carried all of the same stuff RS had and more, and at better carrier prices. If everything is the same, ppl then shop price. RS was NEVER the cheapest, ever. Wasn't even close.
Last time my dad bought anything from a radio shack was in the mid 2000s. He got a portable dvd player for my siblings and me for a family road trip that summer. Broke half way through the trip dad was able to return it but after that refused to buy anything from again. He was not happy that spent a good amount of money for it to break brand new.
In Canada we still have The Source, which succeeded Radio Shack. They carry the same stuff, and they have pretty good sales, since they are busy in every mall.
@@meltexodus haha I agree they are biased to bell but when I switched with source to bell fiber few years back (almost a year before PS4 launch) they gave me the choice of a free PS Vita or PS3 or anything around that price range with fibe. Pretty cool. Or maybe my mall is just nice since I got 200 off if my pixel 2, returned non-refundable headphones, and got 50 bucks off of headphones that were already 50 bucks off of 200 at best Buy mobile haha
My dad was a store manager of multiple Radio Shack locations from 1977 until 1986. So growing up in the 80s was pretty nice when my dad would bring home TVs, VCRs, video games, and other electronic toys that were sold at Radio Shack.
They had the best RC vehicles. I remember one particular location at the Westdale mall in a Cedar Rapids, Iowa. During one holiday season in the 1990s, the store had leased out the empty store next to it and set up several tracks for people to tryout the various RCs they were selling.
I miss Radio Shack, the original. The components they sold for surface level electronic repair was killer. It was once possible to walk in and purchase items to build just about anything electronic based.
That must have been after 2004 as the company just didnt give a crap anymore. The company died after they got rid of Lin Roberts and training became a joke, as the new leadership of the company seemed to only care about pushing wireless and dropped the commission on the PBA's that was the sales staff's bread and butter money makers.
Falkwulf Yep. It was this decade. I remembered that I was with my brother who decided last minute to go in. I tried running down the up escalator I was on to catch up with him.
@Junior Mudd And some RS customers came in and asked and I QUOTE "I need the thing that hooks into the thing and so my thing will work" I heard this personally at least 100 times a week during my time at my store. It sucked.
Wow, and same goes for me, but with a Tandy Electronics location in Australia (that's what they branded themselves there as), and probably only a few times instead of just once. Like with someone's comment here, it may have been around 2004 or so, or even 2005.
@@falkwulf3842 they went downhill when they changed their bonus structure for managers in 2007. If you had a good store you could make close to six figures as a manager. When they changed it we lost close to half our pay annually. We all left for Wireless Advocates.
I worked at Radio Shack back in the 80s. In fact, I worked at about a dozen stores over the course of 5 or so years. Radio Shack was the place to get your gadget fix. Whether it was a rebranded Moog Synth, or Realistic Mach 1 stereo speakers. They really did have everything. In fact, I still have Radio Shack products in my house. Packages of resistors, transistors, transformers, speakers, switch boxes, home stereos, VCRs, I have a ton of stuff from Radio Shack. Heck, I remember when my friend got a Tandy Model 1 computer for his birthday....boy did I want one of those! Years later, I have a CoCo1 that runs to this day!
I started my hobby in electronics back in mid-60's. I could buy all kinds of electronic components at the Radio Shack that was on Detroit Ave. a few blocks into Lakewood, from the border with Cleveland. I live in Cleveland at the time and Radio Shack was within bicycle distance. Back in the 90's, I started a repair business for CB's, home stereos and other electronic devices. I could buy just about any parts I needed from a nearby Radio Shack In Canton Ohio. When they went out of business, I did buy a few hundred dollars of things they were selling at a 90% off discount. I'm glad I did as I still have a good supply of parts.
The former strip mall where the Radioshack used to be is now a thrift store, with a surprisingly well stocked electronics section. I once saw an old Realistic 4 channel church mixer in there and nearly choked up from the nostalgia.
I got my first stereo speakers(Realistic) at Radio Shack and I belonged to the battery club where you would pull out your RS card and get a new free battery every month. Good times. Thanks Bright Sun Films!
I was there in the final days with the company as a assistant manager. it was very heartbreaking to tell everyone we were losing our beloved store. Every once in a while I'll drive by it to remember the old days.
One of the great business tragedies. My favorite store for decades. I developed my interest and love for ham radio, SW, CB, and scanner radios and i am a hobbiest to this day because of Radio Shack.
In addition to the 'select' Hobby Lobby locations, there are still a number of independent Radio Shack dealers or franchises, which are scattered across the United States. Some of the stores only occupy a few aisles, or perhaps a corner of a local Ace Hardware Store, while the other locations are complete stores! From what I've seen getting inventory or product in from the Radio Shack Warehouse, & restocking sold items in the store, has been the biggest stumbling block for the independent stores. Local customers seem to regularly patronize them, for things like batteries, telephone & computer accessories, & even some audio/video items. Case-in-point: ‘Santa’ bought the kids a Super NES Classic, and it only offers an HDMI output. Unfortunately, the kids' TV is a tradition CRT (think scratch-proof glass screen, over the newer plastic flat panel screen, which scratches really easy). This meant we needed an adapter to go from HDMI to Composite Video & Stereo Audio. Best Buy, Walmart, & even Target had nothing in-stock. Our local Sears & Kmart had either already closed, or no longer had an electronics section in the store. Not wanting to mess around with questionable or unknown online sources, we stopped by our local Radio Shack, and they had exactly what we needed in-stock! This is what made them valued by their customers over the years - convenience & service. From what I’ve seen, & despite many of the nay-sayers out there, the Radio Shack name may just make the 100-year mark, albeit a shadow of its former self.
I was at a Radio Shack a few months ago when I was in Florida. I thought it was a closed up shop that never removed the name but it was a Franchised owned store owned by a dad and his son. I stocked up on electronic hobby items while I was their since my local Radio Shack closed a few years ago.
@@Shwalker07 When the corporately-owned stores were closing in my area, I bought some things, but I limited it to just the essentials. Now that I see how the dealership's stock is hit & miss, when I'm trying to find something, I regret I didn't buy more, especially at those prices. Some of the closing stores were still well stocked right up to the end, when the prices were 80-90 % off the marked price. It was just simply crazy.
@@arbutuswatcher That is good at least you got some good items before your store closed. You ever use the Radioshack website? It seems like they have some items on there that you might want to check out plus free shipping on orders $19 and up. I sound like I work there now lol.
I loved Radio Shack as a kid in the 80's. They had a free battery card where you got a free battery of whatever size every month for free. It was awesome :)
When I was in high school, we always said the slogan as: "You've got questions? We don't have a clue." The only time I ever had someone in a Radio Shack be useful regarding a technical question was when I went on their last day open, and I was seeing what was left on clearance.
That’s only because the marketers got a little confused in their marketing slogan. It was intended to be “If you’ve got questions, We’ve got blank stares.” But apparently that one didn’t fly, so they upscaled it a bit. In seriousness though, they had a great slogan, but by the mid 90s when they came out with that slogan their sales staff was no longer composed of knowledgeable hobbyists who actually knew the merchandise but were instead rather heavily trained and incentivized in cellular phone sales...so they could usually answer a question about a cellphone or plan, but knew very little about any of the other electronics by that point in time. Once they closed the mail order catalog in the mid-90s it was no longer the electronics store of earlier decades but had largely become just another electronics strip mall/hole in the wall store with very little to differentiate it from others. If you were an electronics hobbyist after that time you could no longer drive to the nearest Radio Shack and expect to find all the components your project required, so you still had to visit online mail order stores like Jameco, All Electronics (surplus), Digi-Key (which also had amateur radio origins...as in Morse code “key”), or Mouser (etc.) to find your components, so why drive to Radio Shack if you had to mail order the rest of your items any how?
I’m going to respectfully disagree with you. Please let me take you back to a different time and place in life... In the 1970’s Radio Shack was the only accessible public source in my region (the Northeast) that had staff who were competent with citizen band, police scanners and automotive audio systems. There was a serious reason behind this: As a young child growing up in the early 70’s I remember going to the local RS with my dad. He knew the staff ‘cause they all were drafted and served in Vietnam. The men working at the Concord (New Hampshire) store because of their military training, were experts in fixing and “jury-rigging” these analogue systems. Trust me, these guys knew-their-shit. But sadly as technology developed and became too complex to fix [literally] in the back room, these veterans were all laid off. So I do remember a time when RS was staffed with highly competent and totally bad-ass, cigarette smoking men. (There was even a coin-operated cigarette machine in the store!) It makes me happy to have those Radio Shack Memories. But shit, thinking back on them now, it makes me nostalgic to the point of tears. Thanks for listening. Stay Safe & Stay Strong, Boston
As a 29 year old, my generation didn't need knowledgable experts. We're all the experts now based on all the tech we've adopted readily. I troubleshoot and repair most of my tech with Google as a near unlimited repair manual.
Two things I remember about the original Radio Shack. Back in 1979 while in the Air Force I wanted to build a special cruise control for my car. I went into my local RS store and could buy resistors, capacitors transistors and blank boards as well as leds in their early days. Fast forward to 2000, I needed to replace some internal electronic parts. As I entered all I saw were phones and that is all they wanted to sell me! I asked where the resistors were and they had a blank stare and had no clue what I was asking for. Big box stores learned from their original design but the fell behind and stayed in the past. Luckily I work at a big box store that also hired great minds to advance in online sales and delivery and going stronger every year. I have seen the progression after 23 years and amazed at what we have accomplished. Sad to have seen them go away and hope they can come back AND bring back those parts that us old guys like to build with!
Thanks for sharing this, I worked at Radioshack in its last years... working through its bankruptcy was crazy... Im glad to see it's hanging on a bit. Sprint definitely bought RadioShack for the customer data...
I grew up with Radio shack, and still have some electronic kits I had as a kid and one or two chess computers I got from them. I didn't expect any good news in this video because the local stores all closed, but I found their web site and got a little weepy. Hopefully they will return to Canada someday. Thank you for your work.
I used to shop at radio shack here in Canada , used to go there to buy resistors and capacitors .. just things to fix electronics.. they went downhill when it became the source didn't have half of what i needed .. really miss radio shack and the neat fun commercials they used to have . Thank you for putting this all together Jake.
I'm from Fort Worth so this is pretty cool 😉 Tandy Leather Co is still around albeit much smaller. And the Tandy name isn't plastered all over downtown Fort Worth. The last Radio Shack HQ is now a Tarrant County Community College annex just down from the courthouse and jail.
@@californiagrown7294 My dad owned his own video production company in the early 90's and actually did some work for Tandy Leather Co when I was a kid. He brought home little kits for me to put together that they had given him. I didn't even know about the Radio Shack/Tandy merger until I was much older.
Yep, the decline of RadioShack was bad for Fort Worth I'd say. While there are several large companies based in Fort Worth, few seem based in or near the downtown area. RadioShack was definitely one of the major exceptions.
I absolutely adored Radio Shack. Here in the UK, they traded as 'intertanuk ltd' or as most know 'Tandy'. I was never out of the store, and eventually got a weekend job with them over Christmas 1990. I spent all my wage in store taking complete advantage of my staff discount and best salesman bonus. I miss those days, but still own all the products I bought :)
Imagine how fun it would have been to work at RadioShack in its final days. You and your worker buddies could hang out, watch tv, and get paid for literally nothing since nobody ever came in
It was something, it was kinda funny to just not care and mess around the whole time. We just let people do their own thing and just hung out the whole time. It was kind of sad and in the last few days we ended up just selling things by the bag. You would pay for a certain size bag and you'd just be able to fill it up with as much as you could. i actually enjoyed working there but by the end it had become something not so great.
In early 2000’s I moved to downtown and was job hunting. I went to apply at a radio shack. I noticed that over half of the stuff in the front, for customers to check out, was either broken in some way or just gone. The employees were stationed behind the counter scowling at the sort of homeless looking people. I noticed they had this loud ass harpsichord music blasting inside and outside the store in an attempt to shoe away loiterers. It really wasn’t working, just making hell for the employees instead. The stress and hostility in the air was palpable. When I got to the counter I had to wait for a few awkward minutes while the clerk’s screamed at a couple teenagers. By the time they noticed me I had decided I didn’t really want to work there so I bought a battery for my watch. That place lasted about another year. I went and found an even more miserable job but that’s another story.
What a fantastic surprise jake !!!! Thank you for such a great video as always your in depth analysis and superb editing and videography are appreciated!!!
As a youngster in the 1980s I LOVED Radio Shack. We were not a well off family, yet The Shack with its multitude of good parts allowed me to take home broken high end receivers & amplifiers from Marantz, Pioneer, Sansui and the like (very similar boards, tuners and amp sections as the Realistic good stuff) and repair them and sell them. I was the go-to guy for any electronic repair, I didn't care what the device was, I'd carefully open it and begin my tests. I still have the Radio Shack Multi-meter I used to test those hi power output ICs and other circuits. Curses to you Amazon and Walmart, I don't shop at those places at all.
I first remember going into their store in the early 1970's and at that time Radio Shack was one of those places most men loved to browse. Their gadgets were always fun to look at and in those days citizen band radio were very popular and they sold a lot of them. I remember buying a handheld 4-channel crystal scanner and a few years later seeing them carry the very first programmable scanner. That is the Radio Shack I would forever miss but the world was a much smaller place back then.
Just stumbled across this video (FYI I just binged watched all your videos and I'm addicted). I can't believe I never knew the Tandy Center in Fort Worth, Texas was the Radio Shack headquarters. I used to ice skate in the mall portion as a kid. It also had the only subway system in the area to take you from the parking lot to the mall. Sadly, that mall was already basically gone back then, the ice rink was pretty much the only reason anyone went there. But so many fond memories. It makes since now why the Radio Shack in there was basically the only store left that I can remember.
:-( I still have a drawer cabinet full of resistors, capacitors, 555 timers, op-amps, j-k flip-flops, blah, blah, blah from a Radio Shack clearance. They were the ultimate hacker super store.
my dad was a radioshack loyalist to the end for all of kinds of things. i remember running to radio shack many times w my dad for electronic things. eventually transitioning to circuit city. anyway, i went to mexico city a few yrs ago ... having lost my phone charger, i looked online for a store and omg ... they had a radio shack. it looked like i remembered it in the late 90s! friendly and helpful staff and all.
Amazon, Walmart and Target are the official retail killers. It always seems to lead back to these three retailers in being some of the biggest resons a lot of these smaller stores close. Sad but, I guess people would rather go to a store that has everything in one instead of going to a bunch of smaller places for that one specific item. But for some reason Eventually, I feel like Amazon will kill both Walmart and Target. I honestly never realized how big Radio Shack actually was, Pretty crazy to think about. Its to bad they didn't make it to that 100 year marker though ;( . Great video as always Jake!
It was more than just Amazon (and maybe Walmart) that spelled the demise of RadioShack: Stores were too small, they tried to make up for it with thousands of locations. As mobile phones were pushed more and more, other products became a footnote. Their “store within a store” concept for Sprint and RCA, in the end customers just didn’t care - and why couldn’t they bring in a GOOD brand for their TVs and such?? It was hard to bring in good people, and keep them, when the commission structure changed, and when those BS metrics were introduced (i.e. sell phones with accessories or be fired).
their components were HIGH QUALITY !! I can assura that .. their miniature bulbs were TOP NOTCH , also the connectors !! I remember they were expensive as hell, but the chinese counterparts of the 80s.and 90s were HUGE piece if shit . I have some buzzers, connectors, plugs, LEDs, metal case transistors .. all are TOP quality parts. An old professor friend of mine repair and restore OLD vacumm radios and use to buy the parts from quality on line stores or from RS, because most of the ebay chinese parts were a piece of shit and jepardize his restoration .....
I went there for part as well. You knew you were always getting the best quality even if it was more expensive. But when they stopped selling parts I switched to digikey because they are only 40 miles from my house.
Last thing I bought part wise was a surface mount 3.5mm jack. The guy had to go look in the stockroom for it as they didn't have components on the shelves any more. It was at "the source" in about 2011
Radio Shack failed because they were not competitive in pricing of anything they sold. And the shift away from electronic hobbyists was dumb. Sure, you could find odd audio plugs and patch cables, but not finding the right value capacitor or other parts really killed sales. They tended to have too many stores in some areas.
I think you are right Mr Floyd. They tried to move to much into mainstream, opened to many stores and ended failing because they couldn't compete with the big box stores in the mainstream consumer market. Had they stuck to electronic hobbyists, then expanded into computer hobbyists I think they would still be profitable. They were the place you could find that odd capacitor or weird cable to get your CB radio working. Had they stuck with that, then became that for the computer geeks they would still be chugging along. A store or two per city, that place you can find that odd circuit board or the part to build the ultimate gaming system and I bet there would still be a few stores in every city. They started out as a small specialty store but they moved to far away from that. Just my thoughts on it.
No, they failed because they were over leveraged, meaning that they had too much debt to service. Too many US companies were or are in the same predicament(the scariest being our banks). They started to teach leverage financing to mbas (I learned it too as an accountant with lots of arguing with professors, econ too and it's called keynesian) in the 80s and it has resulted in ruin. It's kind of hard to lower your costs during a recession when a large portion of your fixed costs is debt financing.
@Eugene Cam You're just rattling off terms you've heard without really understanding how they fit together or economics at large. The "retail apocalypse" does not refer to a decline in how much consumers purchase (i.e. retail), but rather a change in the venue in which they purchase those things from brick-and-mortar stores to online stores. (Amazon is retail too.) Prices being equal, buying from online stores doesn't require any less disposable income. Also, there has been no decline of manufacturing in the U.S. Rather, due to increased productivity from automation, there's been a decline in the number of workers needed to achieve a several-fold _increase_ in manufacturing output.
They would still be in business if their employees weren't on commission. Never liked that I had 6 people asking me if I they could help me find something that would take 2 mins to find.
I grew up with Radio Shack in California. I remember when I was first starting in audio engineering, I picked up amazing headphones there and various bits to fix gear. In fact, when I was touring with music and film, we always knew where the nearest Radio Shack was when we needed some bits to repair stuff with ... or when the soldering iron would go on the fritz! I got my first soldering iron there :) thanks for the memories, Jake and you got it right!
I love RadioShack! I got my Amateur Radio License in 1993 and bought my first amateur radio from RadioShack, as well as many short-wave radios of the time. I still remember the first RadioShack catalogs that were mailed to me ! I hope it fully revives !
i just made a SW radio from a non working clock radio! works pretty good! i can get houston, chicago, voice of america, and ESPN+ there was a RS in my town, but it closed. on the last day, i went there, everything was 98% off of everything! i bought every cable, soldering iron, battery, solder, component, connector! i bought $400 of stuff, but just cost $80!
I remember radio shack (Tandy here in the UK) they had some good spring coil project kits that got me started in electronics and ultimately my career. Things have moved on and mostly now I am doing machine automation and control using arduino's. Who remembers some of the brand's? Science fair, archer, Optimus, realistic.
Grew up with RS and Lafayette Radio etc. in 1960s+. These stores and their offerings spawned many kids' imaginations and helped them progress in to further education in science and engineering and good paying jobs. It was great to actually get hands-on with equipment at a local shop. A great loss to our culture.
The other thing for me was the small electronics parts. Chips resistors capacitors etc..in a pinch I had that outlet all around the country to grab a repair part. I felt the loss, maybe more than most average consumers.
Major Weakness it’s been interesting. Have people calling for parts to fix their TV’s or Radios the bought in the late 90’s early 2000’s but we mainly carry the things a hobbyist would need such as capacitors, Resistors, fuses, etc... We are also listed as a Radio Shack store so that also confuses people when I tell them we’re a Hobbytown that carry’s RS product.
Dude, your abandoned videos encourage me to get out and shop at brick and mortar stores vs shopping online and shopping at Walmart. I never realized how amazing all these abandoned retail stores were. The memories are amazing!
It's too bad, back in the day I used to go there for actual circuits and parts to fix things. It was always good to talk to someone there because I was young and didn't know as much but, the guys there knew it all, circuit level repair to very higher level stuff. Then the change over to the cell phones where it took over more of the store. The very knowledgeable people were gone, same with all the stuff I used to go there for. When I would ask for a brand of caps, or circuits or even a breadboard, they looked at me like I had 5 heads... and that is the time I stopped going to radio shack... It really shows you get what you pay for...
How about the fiasco in the early 2000's when they started requiring customers to give all their personal information to make a purchase. You could not opt out... They would refuse to sell you a $2 pack of AA batteries unless you gave your name, address, and phone number. Many stores today still pressure you for info, but you can optionally decline. RS would refuse the sale, and lost many customers.
I think after 911 radio shack recorded who bought what ever in case something bad happened. It was easier to ask everybody then just certain customers.
What about Harbor Freight they always ask me for my name and phone number, I only buy from them when I have a 10 or 20% off coupon so I don't know if that information is always needed when purchasing without a coupon. Plus I have not shopped there in a while so I don't know if anything changed
RIP Radio Shack, Toys R Us, Sears, K-Mart, KB Toys, Borders, Charlotte Russe, Sports Authority, and Sport Chalet. Gone but not forgotten.
Sad they all don't exist, but Borders exists in other countries
Toys R Us survived in Canada. Go for a visit, you'd enjoy it.
dustinwashere they aren’t closing my Charlotte Russe ... yet anyway
Circuit City too
Also, Tower Records, Turtles music store, and Virgin music store
I got a Radio Shack digital multimeter for xmas from my dad. It was the last thing he bought me before he passed away. After 20+ year's I still have that digital multimeter and it's still working great.
mine is 45 years old from when I was 13 and still like new.
That's a great memory… What does that device do?
take care of that unit so ! best Regards !
darkprince56 for electricity testing
MrMcminecraft ohhh ok thanks 🙏🏼
What I have learned from this series: Amazon and Walmart are the deaths of literally every store in existence
@PBS Kids Fan1000 and I think your lame
I wouldn’t say they were the death of other companies, the creation of them exposed the flaws of older companies and caused them to effectively implode into non-existent.
@Beanie Boos! how am i lame for liking a convenient online shop that ships pretty fast and serves it purpose don't come saying nonsense and expect to be right
@@valxrie you're
@@redrooster1908 say what you want it's not nice to say thet someone who worked hardy's company is stupid, they are stupid for believing that to thank you
Before the days of Amazon, if you wanted a freaky battery for your freaky device, you went to Radio Shack!
Kabuki Jo I agree! It was place to go for batteries. When my local radio shack closed down, I felt lost. :(
@@susanhuynh or bomb making parts🤣
My freaky garage door opener needed a battery
This is very true. In the days of 60000 different types of phones and chargers, radio shack 9 times outta 10 had a battery and/or a charger for any of them , not to mention phone clips for your belt in case you felt you weren’t getting beat up enough on a day to day basis
Yes, they even had those giant Lantern batteries for your freaky pleasure devices.
Even 2000’s kids remember radio shack...
Todd L-M I used to shop there
Yep alot of me electronic toys came from there
We used to drive by it but my mom wouldn’t let me buy anything :’(
I never been to RadioShack, but I watch watchwaddle
Todd L-M i miss radio shack I always went there for drones or remote cars just in 3rd grade they changed the shop to a pizza store am in 6th grade i go to 7th on the 26th rip radio shack
I owned a Radio Shack franchise from 1984-1997, store 22-A592. Sold it at the end of Fed 1997. They started hiring people to run the company who had no idea what Radio Shack was about. Shortly after I sold my store, the company got all the stores to put almost all of the small items, capacitors, resistors, audio adapters and plugs, etc, into these big drawer cabinets. I KNEW they were history at that point. Sure enough........
My first trip seeing also those parts was what started a life long endeavour in electrical engineering for me
Glad to see a video from you again Jake. Love your Abandoned Series. 😄
Noah Bundonis Same
jake, i have a concussion right now and im supposed to limit my time looking at screens. ive been so bored just having to sit here and rest. thank you so much for your interesting videos that i can listen to without having to look at the screen.
That was five months ago, but we hope you are doing much better now
I would be going nuts if that was me. I always have to have my brain stimulated.
That's right I think there's some proof on you.
@Ken Mason That is such a sad story. Best wishes. Be well.
Thanks, Jake for covering Radio Shack in your series. I worked for Radio Shack for 10 years from 1979 to 1989, very BIG years for the chain, and a very important 10 years in my life. I managed 4 different stores over that time, 3 in Southern California and 1 in Seattle, before I left the company (well, I left sales, then ended up as the District Secretary for the Seattle stores for almost 2 years). Watching your video was very cathartic for me. I guess there's been some closure that I've never really dealt with, and it really helped to get a good cry over seeing the loss of a place I took great pride in working in, and winning sales awards during my time as a store manager. I loved working with my fellow salespeople, and loved helping customers, but middle and upper management definitely didn't "get it". I found the knowledge level of the salespeople was severely lacking over the years, and I usually ended up helping a customer when I'd be in a store, shopping for myself. I had the know-how, and was glad to share it. I miss that part a LOT.
@krzyfkn Yes they are usually referred to as "The good old days" .. when in fact, we can be standing smack dab in the good Old days and not even know it until they're gone.
It's a shame, I always went to Radio Shack as opposed to the the other places. They had such friendly and knowledgeable staff! Always ready to help! I always had the experience with the other stores that the products weren't very good and the staff were inexperienced in electric. It's so sad!
Very similar background and I credit RS for giving me the opportunity to have a very successful career in Tech. I don’t see it happening without my time there. I just bought a set of Mach Ones which I couldn’t afford when I worked there but always drooled over. Once I saw a store manager outside my local store with a bullhorn (mid 2000’s) I knew it was over.
Man, Radio Shack was such a great store.
........Right up until they decided it would be an amazing idea to dedicate 90% of every store to phones which I can find in every damn store in the world...and then I had no reason to go in there again.
I can remember never seeing anything remotely interesting in those stores. I went to their closing clearance and couldn’t find much of anything I wanted.
I think I got my first phone there from RadioShack and that shit was like mad expensive
Bingo.
"Radio Shack, you've got questions, we've got cell phones."
Op is right, totally true unfortunately. I remember back in the early 2000’s I had a second job at Radio Shack for a couple of years. The majority of the customers we had all came in for parts, obscure batteries, and small electronics like house phone’s, ipods/cd players and cable’s. I think I changed more watch batteries in the time I worked there than I sold cell phones/plans to customers. Everyone that came in knew we were highly trained and knowledgeable and could do these things and answer questions that no other electronics store could or would. I spent lots of time with customers helping them pick
out whatever they needed from leds, resistors, speaker wire to even motherboards and chips to build and repair electronics. We were the only brick and mortar store that had any of that stuff.
Jake, I had a really hard test that exhausted me, and this video came out right when I was done with the test. It really made me happy. Thanks a lot!!!
No problem, hopefully It made you feel a bit better!
I lived in Scott City Kansas for a little while. They have an open Radio Shack in town. Original, never cosmetically updated, never closed, never changed ownership. Truly a living relic.
They are independently owned.
We still have one in arkansas owned by the same family for ages. They used to have I think 3 stores and they're now down to just one.
They have board game nights on Tuesdays after close lol
The biggest loss was the types of products that Best Buy, etc don't offer and never offered - actual discrete electronic parts, such as resistors, transistors, switches, PC boards and enclosures, and all sorts of related stuff. You used to be able to walk into an RS and buy just about anything like that. During their last few years, it became just a tiny corner of the store. Now, there is nearly nowhere to buy any of that stuff, at least in-person.
They changed their motto to “You got questions? We got cell phones.” They completely abandoned their old base market.
I stock all my hobby supplies, resistors, hundreds of all colors of leds, switches, and accessories from Shenzhen China on eBay. No more 8 dollar 2 packs of leds for me!
I ordered on ebay !! i got on line ...
this is true the last 10 years people....
from the 60s , (i think) you could get the components , expensive I know, at RS
also, as I am an expert on electronic components (being on that business for 40 years or so. ...) the quality of RS components were very very high.
mostly parts from USA and Taiwan ... I remember some miniature bulbs, buttons and connector OR you buy from BIG brands or from RS if you want then to work properly.
the quality of RS electronic components were VERY good. They charged you big money, but the worked beautifully .. at that time (60. 70. 80. 90) most of the chinese components were a piece of shit .. that changed the last decade as we know. When closed I bought the racks with shelves for electronic components. They are beautiful and strong !! The shelves with drawers I men. I think RS grew like a monster and its owns weight killed it ...
I personally remember, back between about 2009-2013 my dad ALWAYS travelled the 25 miles to the mall in a nearby city (we lived in the country) just to get things from Radio Shack like transistors, resistors, capacitors, and other things like that. Even now he still buys some Radio Shack branded things off of eBay just because he liked the quality and simplicity of them
Bad Cattitude Not to nitpick, but aren’t motors and generators electrically the exact same thing?
I was the very last customer of my local radio Shack before they closed. I bought a 90 % off HDMI cord. I still have it unopened.
Wow, if you live another hundred years it may be worth more then what you paid for it.
I ended up buying a whole five tubes of arctic silver 5 plus cleaners for about $8
That stuff is still powering my computers today
I got a couple nice small needle nose pliers, a soldering iron, a USB hub, and some random thing, paid about 20 bucks. My first gift I still have is a yellow "robie the bank" robot, that pretended to eat your coin then "lick" his lips in apparent delight of the treat.
thanks Kermit
Did you have Miss Piggy, and the little piglets with you ?😳😳💣💯😂😅
I was pretty sad when this happened. I grew up playing with their R/C cars and loved seeing all the neat things in their stores.
As an adult I'm now a ham radio operator and have acquired 2 old R.S. brand ham radios and they still work!
Wish I would have got one of their ham radios before they closed up for good. Been an amateur radio operator for about 21 years
I remember saving up my money to buy a Soundblaster 16 sound card for my computer, at Radio Shack.
My god that sounds old now.
I remember when pc games ran mostly on soundblaster 16.
No that doesn't sound old.
I remember buying 12AX7 and 6L6 tubes for guitar amplifiers from Radio Shack. Now that IS from a long time ago.
I bought a new technology 1.99 piezo buzzer back in 1978. Add a battery and some bell wire, and I drove my family crazy till it broke from over use
I have a trs80 still in the box i got new in 1984, used for a year, packed it up. Been siting since. In 2009 I plugged it in and wrote basic code, played a game, packed it back up.
Doesn't just sound old, it is old lol
Fantastic video as always 😁
Retail Archaeology, fancy seeing you here. Collab with Jake, that’d be super cool.
Collab with Jake
You, company man and BSF are currently my favorite UA-camrs.
I knew you be here
What pisses me off is these competing stores only offered competition in certain areas.... RADIO SHACK WAS MUCH MORE THAN JUST TV, DVD, Stereo store... Radio Shack carried electronic components such as resisters, coils, timers, and an endless line of other amplification components. Soldering wire etc.... People who actually built things from scratch went to Radio Shack.... They weren't "entertainment stand" shoppers... They took the store serious and went there for the real things Radio Shack sold and had on the shelves. Radio Shack was replaced by people who sold electronics BUT NOT electronic accessories ... and test equipment etc.... REAL ELECTRONICS! If I can't walk into a best buy and buy anything Radio Shack had.... Then what good is Best buy? Best buy is nothing like Radio Shack...
we have a hardware sore not far from our local hardware store still open in 2020 they have anything in hardware you would want and the guys know the business instead of saying uuuh i dont know
Amazon sells everything, problem solved
We still have local stores that filled it like Memory Express, B&E Electronics but Active Eletronics is the direct replacement other than Radio Shacks upgraded The Source which is just an emaciated Best Buy.
I've needed resistors and small electronic components in a pinch before, and it was always, "damn...if only Radio Shack were still in business." Amazon has all that stuff now and it's fast delivery so whatever.
@@haloguru2552 Not the same. What if I need to go inside and compare the components to make sure I'm getting the right one? What if I get it home and find out it wasn't what I thought. I can run right back to Radio shack TODAY!!! and get the right part. Screw waiting 3 days every time I need a little part. Amazon is no better in my book. If you didn't live in the days when radio shack was around... you'll never understand how you might run back and forth in one day to get what you need. People who say Amazon is the answer are the ones that need a part every now and then. When you constantly need components, project boxes, tiny little things for your business.... Amazon is not the answer.
YOS, THE GOD OF COVERING ABANDONED THINGS HAS RETURNED!!
Exploring with josh is the god. This guy is just a joke! Jake the joke! Making long videos about things he sees in news doesn’t even “explore” the places uses other people images and footage. Can’t even film he’s own exploration videos uses other people’s content
@@urban_fox_cub_urbex There is a THICC hint of salt in your voice....
@@urban_fox_cub_urbex Exploring an abandoned store is different than explaining why all of the stores are abandoned. Watching a video of just an exploration may seem cool, but you might find yourself looking up why the chain failed..
@@urban_fox_cub_urbex What kind of argument is that, BSF does record his own stuff but honestly I prefer these types of videos. Josh is alright but overdramatic
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
Worked over 10 years in the late 70’s into the 90’s in the Detroit market. Ran 7 stores. Still have a STA-2250 receiver and a DX 440 shortwave radio. Still working after 30 years!
i have memories of shopping at the Radio Shack on Ford Rd & Mercury, where there was a Franklin Planner store in the same strip mall. I'd run there for cable connectors and such. I wondrr if that was one that you ran.
@@joemachine4714,I ran multiple stores on the west side. Ford Rd near Middlebelt, Ford Rd. And Wayne Rd, , Ford Rd, and Sheldon Rd., Middlebelt and W.7 Mi, Farmington Rd. and W 7mi and Rawsonville road and I-94. I worked a second time round in Ferndale and Royal Oak.
I really miss being able to go buy component parts at Radio Shack.
Back when I was a kid during the mid 60's to early 70's, Radio Shack had these science kits as well as chemistry kits. You could make everything from radios, listening devices to little chemical bombs. These kits came in a few different sizes. I think the biggest Science Kit allowed you to build up to 50 different projects. The stuff they sold in the Chemical Kit was unreal. Couldn't buy that stuff today. These Radio Shack Science and Chemical Kits were awesome at Christmas time. Hours upon hours of enjoyment. LOL!
My first two computers were Tandy's; they were good dos-based computers and about $100+ cheaper than any IBM or Texas Instruments computer at the time (early-mid '80s.)
I had the largest electronic set RS sold, 160-in-1 Electronic Set. You could build 160 different 'things" with this deep shadow box filled with resistors, capacitors, input and output transformers, transistors, diodes, cds cells(cadium-sulfide cells, light sensitive), integrated circuits, led's, potentiometers, 2 different types of switches, and there is more. All of theses were mounted with spring-terminals that were used to wire the components together, according to the schematic diagram. For a kid that took his Novice Ham radio license at 16, it was a wondrous thing that never lost it's appeal. By the way, when I took my written exam for my Novice, I studied from a textbook called "Electronic Theory". This was 1981-82. It even had simple computer functions that worked with the integrated circuit, IF , AND, and NOR. It even had a small solar cell. Edit: I scored a 97 on my Novice exam. My dad scored a 95, so he had to buy me a Yeasu FT-101B ham radio with an 8 digit frequency counter. It cost $600 back in '81-82, and I still have it.
@@MrRuffntumble9
That sounds so geeky cool.
Yeasu is rock solid equipment.
Brought back my 2002/2005 era electronic theory. Though now you can use Arduino and Pis, DrawCircuits & Kano Kits, as well as SCRATCH. In 2005 it was BASIC Stamps. Nothing though on Mechano sets which was similar to the chemistry sets mentioned above.
So wait... If Hobbytown bought the rights to use Radioshack and are opening new stores with that name, does that mean it's still possible Radioshack will get to see its 100th anniversary?
Yeah, but radioshack is another company. They have a partnership with hobbytown, but aren't owned.
It might just happen
We just have to wait an see.
With Best Buy, Target and Wal Mart running things I doubt it
@@morrisonozzy only reason Best Boy has survived is because they aggressively adapt to changing market situations, so does Walmart and Target. Also by offering more brands and things to buy. Visit these stores and you will see they re-arrange the shelves almost every other week. What ever goes mainstream, they bring it in and do away with the old super fassst.
@@morrisonozzy there are 500 stores still operating, so they might just make it.
I am grateful to this company because I grew up in Kodiak Alaska ; and the ONLY connection to the rising tech world of the 80’s was that little store. I had a Tandy 1000 I got from there . Had that computer for years and years . Thanks Radio Shack. Wouldn’t have known about Final Fantasy either without old man Dave that ran the place .
I just recently found this channel and ever since I did, I've been watching his videos. I don't know how he doesn't have millions of subscribers.
I worked for RadioShack for 6 years.......yeah very bad business decisions
Exactly, I spent 15 years of my life in the Circle R corp. I rose to become Store manager of 01-8806 and was working to become district manager of 0595 when I saw the light and realized that after Lin was let go the company was in DEEP TROUBLE. The Digit@l push was just the icing on the cake, I left the company and cashed out 19 days before Circle R filed chapter 11.
Senior Salesmaker, 1997-2001, store 01-8388. The money was really good for someone in college, but the last several months I was there it just went down.
Unafraidzeo so is having an weird anime pic as your UA-cam pfp but you’re still rocking tbst
1989 to 1993.
1977-1983 @2402 + 7631 primarily
Omg I remember going to RadioShack as a kid with my mom and marveling at all their “cool” things. We would stop by Burlington and then to RadioShack before leaving the mall and it was always a good time!
RIP to the $3/ LED Legend. No one could rip you off like they could.
Expensive? Yes. But convenient if you needed one THAT DAY.
Computer User no one said anything about capitalism dude
Yeah, um.. the free market killed Radio Shack.
It did it’s job.
Buying a led for .1$ and marking it up 30x
@Computer User pure capitalism is shit mate the US has stats similar to third world countries.
I genuinely miss Radio Shack. They carried parts no one else did.
theoldar True.
Growing up in a small town before the Internet, they literally were the only place to go.
Same here Ive messed with old electronics my whole life and relied on them for parts for 8 tracks reel to reel players and black and white televisions then one day poof gone .now when I try to find parts I get looked at sideways or laughed at .the guys at rs took interest in my projects .
I grew up and still live in Fort Worth, TX. I remember taking ice skating lessons as a kid at the Tandy center in downtown. I loved that place. It survived into the 2000s because of the skating rink. When they closed it, it was a slow awful death until they finally tore it down in 2012 to build the new square. There's still an old computer in my parent's attic that says Tandy Electronics on it. I remember going to the industrial zone where the electronics division was to get stuff with my dad.
My dad's first job was at a Radio Shack in Ontario, Canada. After he left his job he went on to work in IT for over 20 years and counting. So I think Radio Shack is a really cool place. It's sad I never went there, I never really knew it.
Do a video on the longest stretch of ABANDONED subway line in the world
The Cincinnati Subway
Yeah didn't a the proper people go in there?
Oh how I miss the days where you actually can go into a store like this and get great service. Walmart, Amazon and shopping online killed the wonderful days of shopping in person. I hate this way of shopping. Thank you RadioShack for the great memories.
The end started when they stopped selling tubes for older radio's/tv's. The downfall continued when they stopped selling their own private label products and started selling the same stuff you can find elsewhere. As they lessened the parts they sold, the downward spiral continued. The death knell occurred when they started selling cell phones. RIP Radio Shack.
Totally agree. They removed any reason to shop there. I used to love them in the 80s (it was always called Tandy Electronics in AU) but stopped going there when it became pointless.
The salespeople only knew about cell phone plans and computers,
not having any knowledge of the components used to produce or repair them.
I worked at a radioshack. I'm a DIYer and tinker. For every 500 customers that walked through the doors, one wanted parts. Most everyone else wanted modern electronics. The issue is RadioShack wanted to charge $50 for what could be found at walmart for $20 and a poor quality version at the dollar store for $10.
@@joshuak2872 the very first time I saw a white LED in person was at a Radio Shack and it wasn't very bright, plus it cost the equivalent of 5 USD for a single one.
Well for a while they did sell their own cell phones.
Great video! I grew up with Radio Shack in the 80's, I remember my father taking me there. In the 90's I'd go there for project parts. In the 2000's it seemed like they just gave up and were trying to be a 3rd party mobile phone seller, unfortunately for them every shopping center where I lived had an AT&T/Sprint/T-Mobile store added in also. The culture of the stores seemed to change too where the employees kind of went from experts to people who didn't really give a damn that you were even in the store or even just phone sales people who were so desperate to make their quota that they'd try to sell you a phone and plan even if you were in there just to buy a battery.
vbrtrmn Spot on, started building electrical projects in the 60s thru the mid 70s if it wasn't for RadioShack I would have never scored high in Electronics on the Advab test for the military, brings back some great memories,
After 1999 or so, I started calling them “Cellphone and Satellite Dish Shack”!
I managed a RS in the early 90's and left to start my own Retail Computer store. When they started selling Packard hell I knew they were done. RS was NEVER the cheapest, but they had stuff no one else carried and they had their own brand that was pretty good. I sold a ton of stereos to older ppl who didn't want fancy hard to use units and they also bought their computers and phones while they were there. My town closed the 2 store in little strip malls in order to keep the Mall store open. Their rent was equal to the 2 stores that closed and being a mall, they had little time to talk to people. When RS sold their own branded stuff ( stereos made by Pioneer, not sure who made the home speakers, they were not very good ) the 5+% higher cost could be explained as the equipment was better, or warranty was better. When they carried normal low end brands, they lost the 1 advantage they had. We got trained monthly when I was there, around the mid 90's they killed off the training and by 2000 or so, they stopped only hiring ppl who knew electronics and hired normal no nothing sales ppl. I enjoyed my time there and it taught me a lot about customer service, info that I used the make a killing in the 90's until computers got cheap in 99 or so. I had 5 really great years at my store and 2 ( plus a few more at RS in another state ) more as Mgr in training and then mgr. They stopped letting us solder home cordless phone batteries just before I left. In 1992 they started the slide of customer support and it got worse from there. Talking about phone sales, at the mall store , RS was literally 50ft away from a huge cell phone selling place that carried all of the same stuff RS had and more, and at better carrier prices. If everything is the same, ppl then shop price. RS was NEVER the cheapest, ever. Wasn't even close.
Dale Slover I’m not worried about EMP’s. I have lots of tube gear, and plenty of spare parts.
Last time my dad bought anything from a radio shack was in the mid 2000s. He got a portable dvd player for my siblings and me for a family road trip that summer. Broke half way through the trip dad was able to return it but after that refused to buy anything from again. He was not happy that spent a good amount of money for it to break brand new.
In Canada we still have The Source, which succeeded Radio Shack. They carry the same stuff, and they have pretty good sales, since they are busy in every mall.
@@meltexodus haha I agree they are biased to bell but when I switched with source to bell fiber few years back (almost a year before PS4 launch) they gave me the choice of a free PS Vita or PS3 or anything around that price range with fibe. Pretty cool. Or maybe my mall is just nice since I got 200 off if my pixel 2, returned non-refundable headphones, and got 50 bucks off of headphones that were already 50 bucks off of 200 at best Buy mobile haha
The US is jealous.
Its cus its canada lol. You even have boston pizza still for fucks sake
Same stuff? They have caps/ICs, breadboards?
@@babakbe1514 Boston Pizza is owned by a criminal billionaire, still regret working there.
Tandy and Radio Shack are an iconic duo of my childhood
My dad was a store manager of multiple Radio Shack locations from 1977 until 1986. So growing up in the 80s was pretty nice when my dad would bring home TVs, VCRs, video games, and other electronic toys that were sold at Radio Shack.
They had the best RC vehicles. I remember one particular location at the Westdale mall in a Cedar Rapids, Iowa. During one holiday season in the 1990s, the store had leased out the empty store next to it and set up several tracks for people to tryout the various RCs they were selling.
So sad that "Westdale mall" is not a mall but a large construction zone
J Siemens yeah the malls in Cedar Rapids went downhill in the early 2000s. Lindale mall managed to recover, but not Westdale.
I still have an old 4x4 Radio Shack RC truck :)
Beitie Beitie I have a full shelf of Xmods.
@@1981deloreanfan Oh yeah! I almost forgot about those! I have a Dodge Challenger Xmod :)
God. I remember when sears,RadioShack,K-mart,and circuit city were kings
I miss Radio Shack, the original. The components they sold for surface level electronic repair was killer. It was once possible to walk in and purchase items to build just about anything electronic based.
I actually was only in a Radioshack once. None of the employees knew or cared about anything lol.
That must have been after 2004 as the company just didnt give a crap anymore. The company died after they got rid of Lin Roberts and training became a joke, as the new leadership of the company seemed to only care about pushing wireless and dropped the commission on the PBA's that was the sales staff's bread and butter money makers.
Falkwulf Yep. It was this decade. I remembered that I was with my brother who decided last minute to go in. I tried running down the up escalator I was on to catch up with him.
@Junior Mudd And some RS customers came in and asked and I QUOTE "I need the thing that hooks into the thing and so my thing will work" I heard this personally at least 100 times a week during my time at my store. It sucked.
Wow, and same goes for me, but with a Tandy Electronics location in Australia (that's what they branded themselves there as), and probably only a few times instead of just once. Like with someone's comment here, it may have been around 2004 or so, or even 2005.
@@falkwulf3842 they went downhill when they changed their bonus structure for managers in 2007. If you had a good store you could make close to six figures as a manager. When they changed it we lost close to half our pay annually. We all left for Wireless Advocates.
The only places I’ve seen RadioShacks in the past few years is in dead malls filled with Paylesses and KMarts
Junior Mudd every time I walk I to Spencer’s I feel like I’m going to get gang raped
Junior Mudd we’re not you referring to Spencer’s gifts that is one sketchy store
And now Payless is going too
Like one in Burlington center mall
hu1a121 true
I worked at Radio Shack back in the 80s. In fact, I worked at about a dozen stores over the course of 5 or so years. Radio Shack was the place to get your gadget fix. Whether it was a rebranded Moog Synth, or Realistic Mach 1 stereo speakers. They really did have everything. In fact, I still have Radio Shack products in my house. Packages of resistors, transistors, transformers, speakers, switch boxes, home stereos, VCRs, I have a ton of stuff from Radio Shack. Heck, I remember when my friend got a Tandy Model 1 computer for his birthday....boy did I want one of those! Years later, I have a CoCo1 that runs to this day!
Same story here.. LOL
I'm still a member of the "Battery of The Month" club! 🎶😎🎶
I started my hobby in electronics back in mid-60's. I could buy all kinds of electronic components at the Radio Shack that was on Detroit Ave. a few blocks into Lakewood, from the border with Cleveland. I live in Cleveland at the time and Radio Shack was within bicycle distance. Back in the 90's, I started a repair business for CB's, home stereos and other electronic devices. I could buy just about any parts I needed from a nearby Radio Shack In Canton Ohio. When they went out of business, I did buy a few hundred dollars of things they were selling at a 90% off discount. I'm glad I did as I still have a good supply of parts.
Yaaaaaas our boy is back!
My radio shack is now the 3rd nail salon in that mall. Sad really the second was a GameStop. Blockbuster is the first. ( me sad now)
Mine is like a smoothie store or a verizon
Sadly I hear GameStop is also losing money
@@ryanlevis7532 Ew. GameStop
Mine is a Sprint store
My radio shack turned into a nail place too
The former strip mall where the Radioshack used to be is now a thrift store, with a surprisingly well stocked electronics section. I once saw an old Realistic 4 channel church mixer in there and nearly choked up from the nostalgia.
I got my first stereo speakers(Realistic) at Radio Shack and I belonged to the battery club where you would pull out your RS card and get a new free battery every month. Good times. Thanks Bright Sun Films!
I was there in the final days with the company as a assistant manager. it was very heartbreaking to tell everyone we were losing our beloved store.
Every once in a while I'll drive by it to remember the old days.
One of the great business tragedies. My favorite store for decades. I developed my interest and love for ham radio, SW, CB, and scanner radios and i am a hobbiest to this day because of Radio Shack.
In addition to the 'select' Hobby Lobby locations, there are still a number of independent Radio Shack dealers or franchises, which are scattered across the United States. Some of the stores only occupy a few aisles, or perhaps a corner of a local Ace Hardware Store, while the other locations are complete stores! From what I've seen getting inventory or product in from the Radio Shack Warehouse, & restocking sold items in the store, has been the biggest stumbling block for the independent stores. Local customers seem to regularly patronize them, for things like batteries, telephone & computer accessories, & even some audio/video items.
Case-in-point: ‘Santa’ bought the kids a Super NES Classic, and it only offers an HDMI output. Unfortunately, the kids' TV is a tradition CRT (think scratch-proof glass screen, over the newer plastic flat panel screen, which scratches really easy). This meant we needed an adapter to go from HDMI to Composite Video & Stereo Audio. Best Buy, Walmart, & even Target had nothing in-stock. Our local Sears & Kmart had either already closed, or no longer had an electronics section in the store. Not wanting to mess around with questionable or unknown online sources, we stopped by our local Radio Shack, and they had exactly what we needed in-stock! This is what made them valued by their customers over the years - convenience & service.
From what I’ve seen, & despite many of the nay-sayers out there, the Radio Shack name may just make the 100-year mark, albeit a shadow of its former self.
I was at a Radio Shack a few months ago when I was in Florida. I thought it was a closed up shop that never removed the name but it was a Franchised owned store owned by a dad and his son. I stocked up on electronic hobby items while I was their since my local Radio Shack closed a few years ago.
@@Shwalker07 When the corporately-owned stores were closing in my area, I bought some things, but I limited it to just the essentials. Now that I see how the dealership's stock is hit & miss, when I'm trying to find something, I regret I didn't buy more, especially at those prices. Some of the closing stores were still well stocked right up to the end, when the prices were 80-90 % off the marked price. It was just simply crazy.
@@arbutuswatcher That is good at least you got some good items before your store closed. You ever use the Radioshack website? It seems like they have some items on there that you might want to check out plus free shipping on orders $19 and up. I sound like I work there now lol.
Big fucking whoop
He attacc
He talk about radioshacc
But most importantly
He bacc
He touche my spaggett
He’s from Ontario, not Quebecc
I loved Radio Shack as a kid in the 80's. They had a free battery card where you got a free battery of whatever size every month for free. It was awesome :)
I also was a member of the battery of the month club
Same here
Another great video Jake. I always love your abandoned videos and their some of bests quality videos on UA-cam.
Thanks Jeff!
When I was in high school, we always said the slogan as:
"You've got questions? We don't have a clue."
The only time I ever had someone in a Radio Shack be useful regarding a technical question was when I went on their last day open, and I was seeing what was left on clearance.
😆
That’s only because the marketers got a little confused in their marketing slogan. It was intended to be “If you’ve got questions, We’ve got blank stares.” But apparently that one didn’t fly, so they upscaled it a bit. In seriousness though, they had a great slogan, but by the mid 90s when they came out with that slogan their sales staff was no longer composed of knowledgeable hobbyists who actually knew the merchandise but were instead rather heavily trained and incentivized in cellular phone sales...so they could usually answer a question about a cellphone or plan, but knew very little about any of the other electronics by that point in time. Once they closed the mail order catalog in the mid-90s it was no longer the electronics store of earlier decades but had largely become just another electronics strip mall/hole in the wall store with very little to differentiate it from others. If you were an electronics hobbyist after that time you could no longer drive to the nearest Radio Shack and expect to find all the components your project required, so you still had to visit online mail order stores like Jameco, All Electronics (surplus), Digi-Key (which also had amateur radio origins...as in Morse code “key”), or Mouser (etc.) to find your components, so why drive to Radio Shack if you had to mail order the rest of your items any how?
@@ethanpoole3443
I was rarely able to find the components I needed in those few pathetic bins they kept in the back.
I’m going to respectfully disagree with you. Please let me take you back to a different time and place in life...
In the 1970’s Radio Shack was the only accessible public source in my region (the Northeast) that had staff who were competent with citizen band, police scanners and automotive audio systems. There was a serious reason behind this: As a young child growing up in the early 70’s I remember going to the local RS with my dad. He knew the staff ‘cause they all were drafted and served in Vietnam. The men working at the Concord (New Hampshire) store because of their military training, were experts in fixing and “jury-rigging” these analogue systems. Trust me, these guys knew-their-shit. But sadly as technology developed and became too complex to fix [literally] in the back room, these veterans were all laid off.
So I do remember a time when RS was staffed with highly competent and totally bad-ass, cigarette smoking men. (There was even a coin-operated cigarette machine in the store!) It makes me happy to have those Radio Shack Memories. But shit, thinking back on them now, it makes me nostalgic to the point of tears.
Thanks for listening.
Stay Safe & Stay Strong,
Boston
As a 29 year old, my generation didn't need knowledgable experts. We're all the experts now based on all the tech we've adopted readily. I troubleshoot and repair most of my tech with Google as a near unlimited repair manual.
Two things I remember about the original Radio Shack.
Back in 1979 while in the Air Force I wanted to build a special cruise control for my car. I went into my local RS store and could buy resistors, capacitors transistors and blank boards as well as leds in their early days.
Fast forward to 2000, I needed to replace some internal electronic parts. As I entered all I saw were phones and that is all they wanted to sell me! I asked where the resistors were and they had a blank stare and had no clue what I was asking for.
Big box stores learned from their original design but the fell behind and stayed in the past.
Luckily I work at a big box store that also hired great minds to advance in online sales and delivery and going stronger every year. I have seen the progression after 23 years and amazed at what we have accomplished.
Sad to have seen them go away and hope they can come back AND bring back those parts that us old guys like to build with!
Thanks for sharing this, I worked at Radioshack in its last years... working through its bankruptcy was crazy... Im glad to see it's hanging on a bit. Sprint definitely bought RadioShack for the customer data...
Radio Shack was such a cozy electronic store.
I grew up with Radio shack, and still have some electronic kits I had as a kid and one or two chess computers I got from them. I didn't expect any good news in this video because the local stores all closed, but I found their web site and got a little weepy. Hopefully they will return to Canada someday. Thank you for your work.
*I CAN’T STOP WATCHING THESE. THEY ARE TOO AWESOME*
_"And, who knows? You might be picking up your next device... at a RadioShack."_
*Cries in capitalism*
I did you can still order online radio shack.
I used to shop at radio shack here in Canada , used to go there to buy resistors and capacitors .. just things to fix electronics.. they went downhill when it became the source didn't have half of what i needed .. really miss radio shack and the neat fun commercials they used to have .
Thank you for putting this all together Jake.
I used to work for Radio Shack back in the mid 80's. I still have stereo equipment from them. Some still new in the box.
*STILL IN THE BOX?!?!??! WHAT?!?!??!?!? Open it!*
@@addust Only if he does an unboxing video.
Don’t open it, collectors would pay big bucks for that stuff.
I have some old hi fi from radioshack. Some real gems in a few of those realistic badged cabinets...
If you're gonna sell some please get in touch with me....😎
I'm from Fort Worth so this is pretty cool 😉
Tandy Leather Co is still around albeit much smaller. And the Tandy name isn't plastered all over downtown Fort Worth. The last Radio Shack HQ is now a Tarrant County Community College annex just down from the courthouse and jail.
When I was a kid in the early 80s my dad bought me a Tandy 1000 it was a cool little pc for what it was😎 Did lots of learning games on it.
@@californiagrown7294 My dad owned his own video production company in the early 90's and actually did some work for Tandy Leather Co when I was a kid. He brought home little kits for me to put together that they had given him. I didn't even know about the Radio Shack/Tandy merger until I was much older.
Yep, the decline of RadioShack was bad for Fort Worth I'd say. While there are several large companies based in Fort Worth, few seem based in or near the downtown area. RadioShack was definitely one of the major exceptions.
I absolutely adored Radio Shack. Here in the UK, they traded as 'intertanuk ltd' or as most know 'Tandy'. I was never out of the store, and eventually got a weekend job with them over Christmas 1990. I spent all my wage in store taking complete advantage of my staff discount and best salesman bonus. I miss those days, but still own all the products I bought :)
Imagine how fun it would have been to work at RadioShack in its final days. You and your worker buddies could hang out, watch tv, and get paid for literally nothing since nobody ever came in
You wouldn't really get paid much though :/
@@dx.feelgood5825 just a minimum wage job for high schoolers though
@@M_773 yeah, it would be cool
Though with my luck, I'd be stuck working on retarded essays and shit, lol
It was something, it was kinda funny to just not care and mess around the whole time. We just let people do their own thing and just hung out the whole time. It was kind of sad and in the last few days we ended up just selling things by the bag. You would pay for a certain size bag and you'd just be able to fill it up with as much as you could. i actually enjoyed working there but by the end it had become something not so great.
@@dx.feelgood5825 chill out on the r word, dude.
Radio Shack was a great store!
It helped Johnny 5 in Short Circuit 2!
In early 2000’s I moved to downtown and was job hunting. I went to apply at a radio shack. I noticed that over half of the stuff in the front, for customers to check out, was either broken in some way or just gone. The employees were stationed behind the counter scowling at the sort of homeless looking people. I noticed they had this loud ass harpsichord music blasting inside and outside the store in an attempt to shoe away loiterers. It really wasn’t working, just making hell for the employees instead. The stress and hostility in the air was palpable. When I got to the counter I had to wait for a few awkward minutes while the clerk’s screamed at a couple teenagers. By the time they noticed me I had decided I didn’t really want to work there so I bought a battery for my watch. That place lasted about another year. I went and found an even more miserable job but that’s another story.
What a fantastic surprise jake !!!! Thank you for such a great video as always your in depth analysis and superb editing and videography are appreciated!!!
Your videos are brilliant. Nothing more to say, their amazing! Keep it up!! ❤
As a youngster in the 1980s I LOVED Radio Shack. We were not a well off family, yet The Shack with its multitude of good parts allowed me to take home broken high end receivers & amplifiers from Marantz, Pioneer, Sansui and the like (very similar boards, tuners and amp sections as the Realistic good stuff) and repair them and sell them. I was the go-to guy for any electronic repair, I didn't care what the device was, I'd carefully open it and begin my tests. I still have the Radio Shack Multi-meter I used to test those hi power output ICs and other circuits.
Curses to you Amazon and Walmart, I don't shop at those places at all.
Very well done as always buddy 👌🏻 really enjoyed this one!
Dont call people buddy thats rude af
Rip radio shack
Still have my laptop my dad got us back in 2010 for Black Friday and yes it still works
There was so much interesting stuff in their catalog back in the 80s. I spent hours reading through them
Do Payless next
Let them fully die first
Chinese shoes lol
Do Gamestop after that!
Well, we should wait for a while. Their stores are still liquidating at the moment
Do Chick Fil A after that. Lol 😂
I first remember going into their store in the early 1970's and at that time Radio Shack was one of those places most men loved to browse. Their gadgets were always fun to look at and in those days citizen band radio were very popular and they sold a lot of them. I remember buying a handheld 4-channel crystal scanner and a few years later seeing them carry the very first programmable scanner. That is the Radio Shack I would forever miss but the world was a much smaller place back then.
Just stumbled across this video (FYI I just binged watched all your videos and I'm addicted). I can't believe I never knew the Tandy Center in Fort Worth, Texas was the Radio Shack headquarters. I used to ice skate in the mall portion as a kid. It also had the only subway system in the area to take you from the parking lot to the mall. Sadly, that mall was already basically gone back then, the ice rink was pretty much the only reason anyone went there. But so many fond memories. It makes since now why the Radio Shack in there was basically the only store left that I can remember.
Been waiting for this for a while! Thanks, Jake! Love the series and your channel!
Thank you!
:-( I still have a drawer cabinet full of resistors, capacitors, 555 timers, op-amps, j-k flip-flops, blah, blah, blah from a Radio Shack clearance. They were the ultimate hacker super store.
my dad was a radioshack loyalist to the end for all of kinds of things. i remember running to radio shack many times w my dad for electronic things. eventually transitioning to circuit city. anyway, i went to mexico city a few yrs ago ... having lost my phone charger, i looked online for a store and omg ... they had a radio shack. it looked like i remembered it in the late 90s! friendly and helpful staff and all.
This is a fantastic channel! Excellent research and sources of material.
Amazon, Walmart and Target are the official retail killers. It always seems to lead back to these three retailers in being some of the biggest resons a lot of these smaller stores close. Sad but, I guess people would rather go to a store that has everything in one instead of going to a bunch of smaller places for that one specific item. But for some reason Eventually, I feel like Amazon will kill both Walmart and Target.
I honestly never realized how big Radio Shack actually was, Pretty crazy to think about. Its to bad they didn't make it to that 100 year marker though ;( . Great video as always Jake!
Nah, people love Target for it's specialty items and designer lines. Plus it's so much easier to buy clothes in person.
It was more than just Amazon (and maybe Walmart) that spelled the demise of RadioShack:
Stores were too small, they tried to make up for it with thousands of locations.
As mobile phones were pushed more and more, other products became a footnote.
Their “store within a store” concept for Sprint and RCA, in the end customers just didn’t care - and why couldn’t they bring in a GOOD brand for their TVs and such??
It was hard to bring in good people, and keep them, when the commission structure changed, and when those BS metrics were introduced (i.e. sell phones with accessories or be fired).
I stopped going to Radioshack because they stopped selling parts.
their components were HIGH QUALITY !! I can assura that .. their miniature bulbs were TOP NOTCH , also the connectors !!
I remember they were expensive as hell, but the chinese counterparts of the 80s.and 90s were HUGE piece if shit .
I have some buzzers, connectors, plugs, LEDs, metal case transistors .. all are TOP quality parts. An old professor friend of mine repair and restore OLD vacumm radios and use to buy the parts from quality on line stores or from RS, because most of the ebay chinese parts were a piece of shit and jepardize his restoration .....
eloyex this reads like an ad.
Yes! I totally forgot this was a huge part of Radio Shack.
I went there for part as well. You knew you were always getting the best quality even if it was more expensive. But when they stopped selling parts I switched to digikey because they are only 40 miles from my house.
Last thing I bought part wise was a surface mount 3.5mm jack. The guy had to go look in the stockroom for it as they didn't have components on the shelves any more. It was at "the source" in about 2011
Radio Shack failed because they were not competitive in pricing of anything they sold. And the shift away from electronic hobbyists was dumb. Sure, you could find odd audio plugs and patch cables, but not finding the right value capacitor or other parts really killed sales.
They tended to have too many stores in some areas.
I think you are right Mr Floyd. They tried to move to much into mainstream, opened to many stores and ended failing because they couldn't compete with the big box stores in the mainstream consumer market. Had they stuck to electronic hobbyists, then expanded into computer hobbyists I think they would still be profitable.
They were the place you could find that odd capacitor or weird cable to get your CB radio working. Had they stuck with that, then became that for the computer geeks they would still be chugging along. A store or two per city, that place you can find that odd circuit board or the part to build the ultimate gaming system and I bet there would still be a few stores in every city.
They started out as a small specialty store but they moved to far away from that.
Just my thoughts on it.
No, they failed because they were over leveraged, meaning that they had too much debt to service. Too many US companies were or are in the same predicament(the scariest being our banks). They started to teach leverage financing to mbas (I learned it too as an accountant with lots of arguing with professors, econ too and it's called keynesian) in the 80s and it has resulted in ruin. It's kind of hard to lower your costs during a recession when a large portion of your fixed costs is debt financing.
Here in Los Angeles, there were sometimes Radio Shacks within 1-2 miles of each other.
@@shananagans5 Yeah especially with rise of the maker movement and the DIY culture.
@Eugene Cam You're just rattling off terms you've heard without really understanding how they fit together or economics at large. The "retail apocalypse" does not refer to a decline in how much consumers purchase (i.e. retail), but rather a change in the venue in which they purchase those things from brick-and-mortar stores to online stores. (Amazon is retail too.) Prices being equal, buying from online stores doesn't require any less disposable income. Also, there has been no decline of manufacturing in the U.S. Rather, due to increased productivity from automation, there's been a decline in the number of workers needed to achieve a several-fold _increase_ in manufacturing output.
9:58 “The Shack”... Anyone reminded by Circuit City branding some stores to “The City” focusing on specific stuff too...
That lasted about six months, then they collapsed.
They would still be in business if their employees weren't on commission. Never liked that I had 6 people asking me if I they could help me find something that would take 2 mins to find.
I grew up with Radio Shack in California. I remember when I was first starting in audio engineering, I picked up amazing headphones there and various bits to fix gear. In fact, when I was touring with music and film, we always knew where the nearest Radio Shack was when we needed some bits to repair stuff with ... or when the soldering iron would go on the fritz! I got my first soldering iron there :) thanks for the memories, Jake and you got it right!
I love RadioShack! I got my Amateur Radio License in 1993 and bought my first amateur radio from RadioShack, as well as many short-wave radios of the time. I still remember the first RadioShack catalogs that were mailed to me ! I hope it fully revives !
i just made a SW radio from a non working clock radio! works pretty good! i can get houston, chicago, voice of america, and ESPN+
there was a RS in my town, but it closed. on the last day, i went there, everything was 98% off of everything! i bought every cable, soldering iron, battery, solder, component, connector! i bought $400 of stuff, but just cost $80!
I remember radio shack (Tandy here in the UK) they had some good spring coil project kits that got me started in electronics and ultimately my career. Things have moved on and mostly now I am doing machine automation and control using arduino's. Who remembers some of the brand's?
Science fair, archer, Optimus, realistic.
I was from the time when you can buy resistors & transistors from Radio Shack, I lived the entire bell curve of the company.
I worked at a radio shack in 2013. Loved the store as a kid, it's close to my heart as a hobbyist and tech person.
Grew up with RS and Lafayette Radio etc. in 1960s+. These stores and their offerings spawned many kids' imaginations and helped them progress in to further education in science and engineering and good paying jobs. It was great to actually get hands-on with equipment at a local shop. A great loss to our culture.
The other thing for me was the small electronics parts. Chips resistors capacitors etc..in a pinch I had that outlet all around the country to grab a repair part.
I felt the loss, maybe more than most average consumers.
As a Hobbytown USA Employee, the day we started receiving RadioShack product was magical.
Thats awesome
being a former RS'er, I never thought I would be nostalgic about unpacking "force-feed", but I sure miss it now !
How are sales and is the RadioShack partnership increasing foot traffic?
Major Weakness it’s been interesting. Have people calling for parts to fix their TV’s or Radios the bought in the late 90’s early 2000’s but we mainly carry the things a hobbyist would need such as capacitors, Resistors, fuses, etc... We are also listed as a Radio Shack store so that also confuses people when I tell them we’re a Hobbytown that carry’s RS product.
But yeah foot traffic hasn't really increased. RC Vehicles still make up more that 80% of our daily profits
Dude, your abandoned videos encourage me to get out and shop at brick and mortar stores vs shopping online and shopping at Walmart.
I never realized how amazing all these abandoned retail stores were. The memories are amazing!
It's too bad, back in the day I used to go there for actual circuits and parts to fix things. It was always good to talk to someone there because I was young and didn't know as much but, the guys there knew it all, circuit level repair to very higher level stuff. Then the change over to the cell phones where it took over more of the store. The very knowledgeable people were gone, same with all the stuff I used to go there for. When I would ask for a brand of caps, or circuits or even a breadboard, they looked at me like I had 5 heads... and that is the time I stopped going to radio shack... It really shows you get what you pay for...
From a time when electronics were worth repairing, Radio Shack was the parts source.
How about the fiasco in the early 2000's when they started requiring customers to give all their personal information to make a purchase.
You could not opt out...
They would refuse to sell you a $2 pack of AA batteries unless you gave your name, address, and phone number.
Many stores today still pressure you for info, but you can optionally decline. RS would refuse the sale, and lost many customers.
That goes to show that your data is worth something. Free really isn't free when you're required to give up your identity for a service or product.
I think after 911 radio shack recorded who bought what ever in case something bad happened. It was easier to ask everybody then just certain customers.
Just give fake info whats wrong with you?
Yah that was a really stupid move.
What about Harbor Freight they always ask me for my name and phone number, I only buy from them when I have a 10 or 20% off coupon so I don't know if that information is always needed when purchasing without a coupon. Plus I have not shopped there in a while so I don't know if anything changed