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The collapse of Radio Shack can be attributed to an obvious lack of sales support. And by that, I mean, for the sales people that they actually hired, what they gave them to sell, and what the operation as a whole needed to do to perform was absurd. Radio Shack, as a job, was/is a step above fast food, and a step below clothing, in terms of status. If Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons wasn't selling comic books, he'd be a Radio Shack employee (if you were lucky). The people attracted to that job were not serious sales people, and the things they were made to sell were mostly undesirable, or worse incomprehensible without expertise. The store was filled with trash items that sold at christmas and broke by valentines day. All of this, right next to certain niche and high-end items that rarely moved. Because Radio Shack sold a lot of cheapskate wares, everything bought from Radio Shack felt like a gamble (as the store's very name should suggest). The revolving sales associates had distractions about battery sizes mixed in with thousand dollar sales, so if there was commission to be had, they were still forced to swat flies. Radio Shack was usually a hole in the wall. 900 square feet would probably be a large-ish Radio Shack. Without zones or departments, every Radio Shack employee was always selling everything, which means they were pulled in every direction, and their motivation landed somewhere in between selling fuzzy slippers that sing Jingle Bells in electronic chirps, and selling sub-par desktop competitors to Gateway 2000, without fully understanding or caring about the difference between an Intel 386 and an Intel 486DX. Because Radio Shack was a high school summer job at best, or a 9 to 5 career move at worst, it's interesting that they lasted decades longer than maybe most people would have expected. |
They were once a great store, staffed by smart people, and had quality goods.