There was a small electronics parts store near my workplace that had been around for years, then right before Christmas- bam, it’s gone! I am fortunate to have a Radio Shack store in a mall nearby for impulse electronics needs, such as LEDs, so I go there, but the part I was looking for was not in stock. So, I go to the OTHER Radio Shack nearby at a second nearby mall. I go in and when I get to the location for that second store, it’s not there! Instead, an “under renovation” sign is posed on the plywood covering the store frontage. What I wanted was some 3mm warm white LEDs- just a few, for a particular project. What I ended up doing was going thru EBay online to get a bulk purchase (far more than I needed) but at a price that made the offer too attractive to pass up. The whole point of this is- it’s not just that old reliable LHS that is now a memory, but other specialty retailers, as well as local availability of many things. Need some Plastruct or K&S styrene or brass stock for some project? That Hobbytown store only stocks a few things, if at all. (Forget Michael’s Crafts, as well), so you are forced back online to do your shopping, where you pay for shipping which drives the price back up near retail in the end. Same thing goes for railroad-specific model paints; you might as well buy at least a dozen that you don’t need right away, as well as the one you actually do need, because they’re hard to get locally as well. It seems that Internet shopping is rapidly becoming the only way to get those small things you need for modeling. Cedarwoodron
OK.
Rich
Yup, it’s the same everywhere. Book stores are closing left & right. Same with CD & Video stores. Ditto for Furniture stores. We had a local, small supermarket chain here in Maine that had 11 stores. In the past 3-4 years, they’ve cut it down to 6 stores. We still have an electronics store in the nearest town, 15 miles away, but I don’t know for how much longer. It’s still open…but with a For Sale sign out front.
We are fast aproaching a time when there will be only two places to buy anything…one of the big box stores or online.
Small shops of all types have been disappearing for several years now.
Radio Shack doesn’t have anywhere near the number of parts they used to carry in the stores for making things. They have a lot of cell phones and other ready to use stuff instead.
One LHS owner near by told me he has discontinued carrying paint.
So you’re right, with shipping and handling you want to order a bunch of stuff at one time to save money.
Or for model railroading parts I shop the train shows - primarily the Great Scale Model Train Show.
It’s a different world now.
Paul
Many small shops and stores here have gone the way of the dodo in recent years. True the internet stores had quite a bit to do with it but blame must also be laid at the feet of the economy. As the cost of staying in business goes up prices go up to pass that expense along to the customer. Many customers will find someplace else to get what they want at a lower price and that puts even more strain on the business which eventually goes out of business.
Radio Shack’s been little more than a cell phone store for many years now. ANd I guess it is finally catchign up with them, having stores on liek every other block.
For the price of one LED there you can buy 10 LEDs elsewhere, from an actual electronics supplier that will have the part you want and every other part. Ditto on pretty much ANYTHING they sell there anymore.
–Randy
Randy, how well I know that as a former teenage perfect board circuit builder in the 1960s. When you go in a Radio Shack store, the kids that work there would’nt know a resistor from my sister! I picked up 100 round warm white 3mm and 100 flat top warm white LEDs for 7.95 with free shipping. Guess I will light the restrooms in my structures and all the cabooses in the inventory! Cedarwoodron
I have just hit the half century mark and all I can say is… “the times they are a changing”
This could be a hot topic.
I believe there are several things at work here.
1} the economy. Lets face it, it has been bad and is only going to get worse I think before it gets better. Remember those European GOv’ts that are in trouble? well, even with bailouts. they are a long way from “recovery” let alone “recovered”! When the ecomony gets bad, small specialty store close.
2} the falling of the dollar or inflation or both will contiue to cause problems. Taking it off a the gold standard and letting it float amongst other currencies was a big mistake,
3} the internet is a previously unknown entitiy. People in 1965 were NOT ordering “online”, they may have had catalogs to order from, but no internet. True, shipping costs are added, and a lot of business liek the “added revenue” of “handling” part of “shipping and handling”.
4} a warehouse has fewer costs to run than a store or chain of stores…and after all the stores need a warehouse full of stuff to order from to stock their shelves too-why not sell direct form the warehouse.
5} food prices are forecast to go up 6%. That’s hogwash. More like 25%. In the last week alone I have seen prices JUMP by that amount from last weeks prices!!!
6} fuel prices are going to always climb, even when they go down, they will still ultimately go up. A warehouse reduces the fuel used to ship to stores.
7} people actually like ordering form home in the comfy easy chair they sit in every day. They don’t even have to get dresed in any manner!
8} UPS has downgraded their forecast of shipping heading into the Xmas season. Perhaps they are on to somehting?
We are still in for a bumpy ride, I am sure/assuming/educated guessing. I don’t think the economy will turn around very fast and “recover” very soon. I could be worng, but right now band-aids and Duck tape and bubblegum stop-gaps will onlyhold so long before the dam burst. There are manyeconomists who say the same thing.
Will there be a world whe
megh.
There is always Digikey and Allied for the electronics stuff…
Should try looking for DIY synth parts…
As for our brick and mortar stores…we still have The Source by Circuit City up here…and they still have lots o’ parts…
I was just reading yesterday about how much trouble Best Buy is in. I thought they’d thrive after the demise of Circuit City a couple of years back.
I’m happy to report that here in Massachusetts, where the economy is doing relatively well for the moment, stores are generally not closing. We have a few LHS’s within easy driving distance, and mine is even within bicycle distance. In town, our long-time appliance store closed, possibly due to retirement, and another appliance store opened in its place. I was very happy to see that.
No, the idiots that run Bes Buy didn;t get the hint when Circuit City went under, instead kept their prices high and continued to hard sell extra warranties and useless accesories. And they wonder why their sales kept dropping…
Once upon a time you cold get anything and everything at Radio Shack. For a while in the 80’s there even was at least two stores where you could ask a question about electronic components and get actual answers - both my friend and I worked there while in college [:D] Until I got sick of having a quota of credit card applications to get, meaning having to harass everyone who came in just for a couple of batteries to fill out an application. More “will they ever learn” - these days it is too easy to look up prices on any number of highly reputable online sellers and compare before buying. And hopefully I think the word is getting out about what an overpriced ripoff anything with the “Monster” brand is.
–Randy
Not to say every situation is the same, there are exceptions, but the fall of small stores is by and large the fault of…us. Walmart would not be as big as they are if we didn’t shop there in droves. They take a chance at first and lower their prices getting more and more customers to where their buying power is dtrong enought they can undershoot most places. Mom and Pops and even small chains can’t compete because they simply cannot buy their products as cheaply as Walmart. Their prices remain higher because they have to pay in someinstances more for an item than Walmart does. I know of several items that Walmart sells taht are priced to the cosumer for just pennies above what they pay for them. I know a bar owner who says he wishes he could buy his beer at Walmart because it is priced cheaper than what he has to pay from the distributer.
It is hard to get this train stopped because the sidings are getting few and far between. The only solution is to buy as much as you can from the little guys and not fom the Giants. Can it be done. I think so. WILL it happen? I doubt it. Bottom line for the consumer is dollars and as long as the Walmarts and the internets are going to sell things cheaper people will go there. All the talking and complaining and armchair analysis over why will not change a thing. Only action will make change and reality sets in. The few who feel small stores are the best are really too few to cause that change. Doesn’t mean you can’t try or shouldn’t, you never know.
Someday you just may here from the next generation or two that there used to be these big places where you could just go to one store and get most everything you needed under one roof. Ah the good old days.
Just like the news reporter after a press conferrence, the preceding is just my view of what I see and hear. Not necessarily the way it actually is or what was really said. You’re opinions may vary.
OP: There are places where you can still get almost everything under one roof- presently known as regional malls- but also soon to fall victim to changing times and marketing methods. That other Radio Shack I went to was located in a mall that was built only three years ago in Tampa, near our airport. Already, they have lost a major anchor department store and other interior storefronts have changed repeatedly. Originally, many early regional malls, such as the progenitors- Southdale Center in suburban Mpls, also had grocery stores included in their retail mix, but that has also gone away since the mid - 1960s, with changing chain store operations. Remember when most drug stores we in a strip mall or annexed to a grocery store? In the late 80s, both Walgreens and CVS started building their own stand-alone structures. Even if you could convince WalMart to add a niche aisle or two for modeling hobby-related merchandise (including plastic models and RC), their marketing plan may not allow it to last more than one holiday season cycle, as their margins are narrow to begin with, and there well may not be enough volume to validate such a scheme. The Internet will likely become “more intrusive” as marketing software evolves, but it is now the “everything under one roof” entity of today and tomorrow. Now, if only we could be issued tactile gloves to virtually touch the merchandise… Cedarwoodron
Radio Shack hasn’t had a clue in decades, this is nothing new.
Stamp Collecting could be your new hobby ,but the post office is bankrupt this week.
Learn to plan ahead and keep a stock of items, it’s much nicer to have inventory so your not running around the county in search of “fill in the blanks”. Plus you don’t get worked up about little things that you have no control over.
But that’s just me.
Not their prices per say that hurt them but the fact that they make it too easy to compare prices with their little android app on all items in the store. Means someone can scan the item and go online to find the cheapest price which appeals to people. Also their geek squad may be good at this or that but they generally don’t know alot, they should at least know as much as me and no, I am not a techy.
Yeah, we lost our electronics stores in my area. And Radio Shack isnt the Radio Shack I grew up with. They used to be populated by electronic geeks. Today they just have sales clerks, most of whom haven’t a clue, and a store full of skin packed overpriced junk. Even their WalWarts don’t last, put out irregular voltage and are overpriced. And people wonder why old people are grumpy. It’s cause we’ve seen better days, and they aren’t coming back! [:-^]
I’m in the bowling business. We had 4 bowling centers close down within a month here in Dallas/Ft.Worth. Things are bad for anything leisure.
RMax
I worked for Best Buy a few years back in a regional office. When they killed Circuit City they hired a lot of their managers and put them in what they called MIT or Manger in Training. Problem was they still had the Circuit City sell warranties or die mental attitude. They also stopped shopping their competitors and no longer had the best price. The complete culture of Best Buy changed. At one time it was a great company but ended up being run in the ground by bad management. Another thing that hurt them was opening stores in other countries without knowing the cultures and commerce of those countries. I saw on TV that Best Buy took a hard hit dealing with the way of doing business with the Chinese. European ventures were not much better either.
RMax
Radio Shacks became The Source stores up here. One thing most people don’t know about The Source is they are owned by Bell Canada. Weird…