http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post--i ... radioshack

theyre gonna die. say goodbye to cheap virgin mobile phone deals

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Even CEO Can't Figure Out How RadioShack Still In Business
NEWS • Economy • Products • Technology • Business • Electronics • ISSUE 46•52 ISSUE 45•01 ISSUE 43•17 • Apr 23, 2007
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FORT WORTH, TX—Despite having been on the job for nine months, RadioShack CEO Julian Day said Monday that he still has "no idea" how the home electronics store manages to stay open.


CEO Julian Day

"There must be some sort of business model that enables this company to make money, but I'll be damned if I know what it is," Day said. "You wouldn't think that people still buy enough strobe lights and extension cords to support an entire nationwide chain, but I guess they must, or I wouldn't have this desk to sit behind all day."

The retail outlet boasts more than 6,000 locations in the United States, and is known best for its wall-sized displays of obscure-looking analog electronics components and its notoriously desperate, high-pressure sales staff. Nevertheless, it ranks as a Fortune 500 company, with gross revenues of over $4.5 billion and fiscal quarter earnings averaging tens of millions of dollars.

"Have you even been inside of a RadioShack recently?" Day asked. "Just walking into the place makes you feel vaguely depressed and alienated. Maybe our customers are at the mall anyway and don't feel like driving to Best Buy? I suppose that's possible, but still, it's just...weird."


A RadioShack store that somehow manages to bring in enough paying customers to turn a profit.

After taking over as CEO, Day ordered a comprehensive, top-down review of RadioShack's administrative operations, inventory and purchasing, suppliers, demographics, and marketing strategies. He has also diligently pored over weekly budget reports, met with investors, taken numerous conference calls with regional managers about "circulars or flyers or something," and even spent hours playing with the company's "baffling" 200-In-One electronics kit. Yet so far none of these things have helped Day understand the moribund company's apparent allure.

"Even the name 'RadioShack'—can you imagine two less appealing words placed next to one another?" Day said. "What is that, some kind of World War II terminology? Are ham radio operators still around, even? Aren't we in the digital age?"

"Well, our customers are out there somewhere, and thank God they are," Day added.

One of Day's theories about RadioShack's continued solvency involves wedding DJs, emergency cord replacement, and off-brand wireless telephones. Another theory entails countless RadioShack gift cards that sit unredeemed in their recipients' wallets. Day has even conjectured that the store is "still coasting on" an enormous fortune made from remote-control toy cars in the mid-1970s.



Day admitted, however, that none of these theories seems particularly plausible.

"I once went into a RadioShack location incognito in order to gauge customer service," Day said. "It was about as inviting as a visit to the DMV. For the life of me, I couldn't see anything I wanted to buy. Finally, I figured I'd pick up some Enercell AA batteries, though truthfully they're not appreciably cheaper than the name brands."

"I know one thing," Day continued. "If Sony and JVC start including gold-tipped cable cords with their products, we're screwed."

In the cover letter to his December 2006 report to investors, "Radio Shack: Still Here In The 21st Century," Day wrote that he had no reason to believe that the coming year would not be every bit as good as years past, provided that people kept on doing things much the same way they always had.

Despite this cheerful boosterism, Day admitted that nothing has changed during his tenure and he doesn't exactly know what he can do to improve the chain.

"I'd like to capitalize on the store's strong points, but I honestly don't know what they are," Day said. "Every location is full of bizarre adapters, random chargers, and old boom boxes, and some sales guy is constantly hovering over you. It's like walking into your grandpa's basement. You always expect to see something cool, but it never delivers."

Added Day: "I may never know the answer. No matter how many times I punch the sales figures into this crappy Tandy desk calculator, it just doesn't add up."

They should have went out of business 20 years ago.

Where will I buy my Tandy computers now?

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I feel the same way about K-Mart....went to the one in Forest Park a few months back and there was probably 5 people in the store, including me and my brother. And this was on a Saturday morning.

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This is the best line. Probably one of my top 5 favorite onion articles ever.

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When I was a kid, I'd play the keyboards there until they kicked me out.

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i think their cell phone sales are what keep them going

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the world will always the world. your entire existence is defined by your response.

why do they ask for your phone number when buying batteries ?

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Remember Roger Kaputnik? All the Roger Kaputniks are now dead.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

hey , where else are you going to go when you need some diodes and capacitors at 8:30 on a Tuesday night ?

Cables (ethernet/audio/video/etc) are 1/10th the price on Amazon vs brick-n-mortar stores. Even Best Buy marks up cables like crazy.

Ugh. This job was the worst. The video training things they would show you online were terrible, and completely unrealistic as well. They would have a realistic starting point, like a middle aged lady coming in to buy blank CDs and a cordless phone battery, and it would end with the sales person talking her into getting a cellphone plan for her entire family, complete with car chargers, cases, and other accessories. So you had to ask every customer who their cellphone provider was. Yeah, because the high school nerd buying replacement parts for his RC car was going to get a cellphone from me.

Then, they would give you these "Plan O Grams", as if giving them some fun name made them fun to do! It was pretty much POP setups, and merchandise rearranging. I know all stores do that, and it needs to be done, but there are so many damn items in the store you would just get used to where everything was, only to have to tear it all down and start all over again because some idiot from corporate think the speaker wire will sell better if its sitting in this location in front of the headphones. It was woeful.

Now there, on Friday and Saturday night closing shifts, I drank on the job all the time because I didn't give a shit

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you make fun of that, but ive been there hundreds of times. i like to think radio shack stays open just for me

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the world will always the world. your entire existence is defined by your response.

I do go there a few times a year for stuff but it must be the phones or beats headphones?

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-Hank Kingsley

well last 3 times i went there were to buy $10 android jellybean phones... not sure if im keeping rs in business with that though...

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the world will always the world. your entire existence is defined by your response.