Radio Shack Nearly Gone and Forgotten

RadioShack filed for bankruptcy and will shutter more than half of its 4,100 stores, which comes as a surprise, because I thought the Shack had collapsed years ago, which is how long it’s been since I’ve been to one.  With the name Radio, this place really hasn’t been relevant since the mid 70’s, when transistor radios, and tape recorders were still popular.  By the time the 80’s rolled around, and brand name stereo components took off in popularity, people started buying electronics at the big chain stores like Best Buy, Micro Center, Lechmere, Sears, Circuit City, Bradlees, Wal-Mart, K-Mart and smaller stereo shops like Custom Audio and Cambridge SoundWorks. No serious customer with any pride would have purchased a stereo from RadioShack or anything with the name Tandy on it.

It really is shocking to me that Radio Shack has survived for so long.  Even back in the day, I’d go in to buy speaker wire, or a TV antenna and there would be no one but me and the sales clerk in the store.  The place to me was more like a hardware store where I’d go to buy wire, batteries, electrical tape, tiny screwdrivers and needle noise pliers.  Honestly, the last time I went to a RadioShack was about 3 years ago when I bought a $2.00 cable that allowed me to plug my smartphone into the headphone jack on my car stereo to listen to stored music.  The place really was like a shack, housed in the back of a mall next to a Sears loading ramp.  Business looked slow, and I might have been the only customer that day.

Of course they could reinvent themselves and sell say, bait to fishermen – minnows, worms and stuff and call it the BaitShack. Or they could specialize in pork and launch the PigShack selling sausage, pork rinds, bacon scented scratch tickets, piggy banks, chitlins, ham hocks, hams of all kinds, barbeque ribs, barbeque sauce, liquid smoke, jerky, pork chops, Spam, canned pork and beans, and serve a Southern style breakfast of cheese grits, bacon, biscuits  and white gravy with sausage.  But there probably already is such a place somewhere I reckon.