February 9, 2015

Radio Shack  is the electronics equivalent to your local hardware store. DIY’ers can find otherwise difficult to come by products like specialty fuses, capacitors, resistors, solder, LED diodes…all sorts of items that, ten years ago, were hard to get your hands on quickly.

Internet outlets have largely changed that. And now,  the once juggernaut has been pushed into bankruptcy.

Are you being wooed at the notion of purchasing a TV for 10% less online over the cost at a physical store? Well if you’re an electronics nuts-and-bolts geek, then you’re aware that for the price of a single piece of electronics hardware at Radio Shack (let’s say, a capacitor as an example) you can purchase and have shipped to your door an entire bag of the same product from an online source.

Enter,  the demise of Radio Shack. Though wildly more expedient than ordering online (especially when your parts are coming from China), Radio Shack simply can’t sustain itself with their core offerings…even when marked up 2000% (because honestly, even if the part costs $0.05 and you sell a couple for $1.00 each, how do you expect to keep the lights on at such quantities?).

This fact is not lost on Radio Shack executives. They have been desperately attempting to diversify and compete with box juggernaut retailers, cramming all sorts of products into their generally small foot-printed stores.

It seems that they haven’t quite found a formula that works.

In an effort to save the company, it was announced on January 15, 2015 that it was preparing to file bankruptcy. On February 5, they announced they filed for Chapter 11 protection. Shortly after,  a list of 1,784 stores  (at the time of this writing, there are  4,297 locations ) was published which detailed the retail locations that would closing by the end of March.

I’m not sure how the vast majority of consumers feel, but I for one am troubled by this. Not due to some nostalgic love for Radio Shack, but because it’s terribly frustrating not having a particular piece of hardware that a project requires! No one is going to miss another retailer that sells TVs. Or radios. Or telephones.

But a physical store you can go pick up some 12 volt switches, a couple uncommon bulbs and a glass fuse? That’s a store that will be missed by a (rather small) group of hobbyists from a wide range of interests, including myself. Fortunately for me, my local store isn’t on that cursed list!

Larry Bellomo is a Laguna Hills bankruptcy attorney who has over three decades of experience serving Orange County, California. If you’re in need of the best Laguna Hills bankruptcy attorney, give us a call for your  free  no obligation consultation.