Who's the new Radio Shack?

[HenryC]

Now that Radio Shack has gone belly-up, where do you go for obscure or rare and hard-to-find electrical and electronic items?  If you needed a replacement cable, switch, plug or adapter, or a hard-to-find European or Japanese component, or some discontinued or obsolete part, Radio Shack either had one in stock, or could order it for you in no time.  More important, the goofy dude that worked there always seemed to be familiar with your problem, and could either suggest a work-around or some alternative.

I know, the Internet is supposed to do that for you now, but the little on-line images displayed on websites rarely give you the information you need to decide whether or not the gadget being sold will do the job or not.  And nobody seems to have people you can actually talk to who are familiar with your problem.  In fact, most companies today don't even have customer-service numbers on their web pages, and if they do, you have to spend half the day on hold, or talking to someone reading off a script who hasn't a clue what the widget your're trying to locate does, much less what its called, or where to locate it.

But the problem goes a lot deeper than that.  All those folks on the phone line, or in shops, who really knew the product and the application and their industry, who had developed years learning this skill and familiarizing themselves with the literature, who had access to a network of other people like them who could help them out if they didn't know the answer, are now out of work.  These helpful, useful people are now unemployed or underemployed.  These are priceless skills, and the folks who have them are no longer being rewarded for using them, or trained to develop them.  All that experience, education and memory is going to waste, and will soon be forgotten. And we, as customers and consumers, are being denied their expertise, experience and counsel.

This is a bad situation, and its getting worse.  These examples of retail craftsmanship are becoming rarer and rarer, and when you do find them, they are often replaced by functionally illiterate  and uninterested minimum wage youngsters.  We are all experts on something, but its getting harder and harder to hook up with each other and share that knowledge.  The Internet is a great resource, but it is a mass produced product, chances are it won't have exactly what you need, or know how to answer your question.

[slode]

I couldn't agree more, I sorely miss Radio Shack.  And this is coming from a person on the very edge of being either a millennial or gen Xer.   I have found no other option for a storefront shop that can compare.  There are other options in most urban areas with all of the industrial supply companies out there.  That is if they are willing to deal with individuals, sell in less than bulk quantities, or you have an in on a corporate account.  But for suburban and rural areas, where Radio Shack used to be no more than the next town away, it seems we're now stuck waiting the day or more to receive a package from an online retailer. 

As for the knowledge, It may not be as available to the masses, but don't think for a second that it is lost or not being used.  I am good friends to a former Radio Shack store manager who is now doing free lance computer repair and website design. Anyone with a half a brain and the education and experience with electronics is going to make it in todays world if they want to.  It may not be in customer service but there are more than enough jobs to fill.  Radio Shack did not pay well at all, and my friend is much better off now.  If not for being let go he may still be living in his parents basement!

[kahpho]

You don't say what in particular you're looking for. But at least in my neck of the woods the expertise you describe went lacking at Radio Shack over a generation before they closed their doors. They became little more then cell phone and battery merchants. Still, they did have a few items handy and local.

For advice and information you will need to search the internet now. For parts Sparkfun and Adafruit serve the DIY, hobby, experimenter. For components Digi-key, Newark and Mouser have tons of stuff but you need to know what you want. There are others but those are the ones I'm most familiar with. If cables and connectors are all you want any of them will cover it.

Most electronics today is surface mount components and not easily worked on by the home hacker. It's mostly swaptronics. When it breaks throw it away and buy new. Even manufacturers don't repair much anymore. It's usually cheaper to just build another one in our automated factories then repair by hand.

Still, I understand your frustration. My first instinct is to try to repair something if I can. Sometimes it's just not worth it anymore.

[brackish]

In my area of the world, that would be Bluff City Electronics.  Founded in Memphis, operates in several cities in TN and fortunately they have a branch in Tupelo. 

[Jim in TC]

Back in the day, when I was that goofy dude, we made fun of Radio Shack since they were light on components and expertise. But as Lafayette, Burstein-Applebee and others went down RS was the last one standing (at least with any kind of national presence). Locally we had a decent shop with reasonably knowledgeable clerks, as well as good local sales and service from computer specialists. Radio Shack and my favorite computer shop, both gone and alternatives are not easy. I agree there is more plug and play out there now, and the need for components is reduced. But sometimes a bright, loose LED, a resistor and the like is what one needs. Anything like that is now an online search for me, and I suspect the goofy dudes out there have their favorite sources.

[moonlight]

It's all internet now, sadly.
But gladly, when my coffee pot died a couple of months ago, I flipped it over, took out all the screws I wasn't supposed to, bypassed all the warnings, didn't find a nuclear reactor, didn't get cancer, and found a burnt inline thermal fuse next to the heating element.  Googled it, Amazon had it, I got 10 the next day.  A bit of a nip and tuck, almost like surgery, and one is installed and the other 10 hiding in there in the only place I'll ever need another one. 
I think it was $0.73.  Minimum quantity 10.  $7.30.  Still took some time, maybe even two hours since I had to diagnose twice (interruption by 3wks of child in hospital erases certain memory banks), but my combination 12-cup coffee pot w/ attached cappuccino/espresso maker (why for you traditionalists say?  Because frothed milk chocolate goes over very well with the kids and guests, which goes over well with the wife, which as you know leads to celebration of the sacrament of marriage!) lives to fight another day.
Thanks Amazon.

[Tim Gardner]

A happy wife = a happy life.  Coffee helps, too.

[brackish]

It's all internet now, sadly.
But gladly, when my coffee pot died a couple of months ago, I flipped it over, took out all the screws I wasn't supposed to, bypassed all the warnings, didn't find a nuclear reactor, didn't get cancer, and found a burnt inline thermal fuse next to the heating element.  Googled it, Amazon had it, I got 10 the next day.  A bit of a nip and tuck, almost like surgery, and one is installed and the other 10 hiding in there in the only place I'll ever need another one. 
I think it was $0.73.  Minimum quantity 10.  $7.30.  Still took some time, maybe even two hours since I had to diagnose twice (interruption by 3wks of child in hospital erases certain memory banks), but my combination 12-cup coffee pot w/ attached cappuccino/espresso maker (why for you traditionalists say?  Because frothed milk chocolate goes over very well with the kids and guests, which goes over well with the wife, which as you know leads to celebration of the sacrament of marriage!) lives to fight another day.
Thanks Amazon.

Things are made in a manner that RS had become no longer relevant.  Remember those old mechanical, rotary washing machine cycle controllers?  Generally the first thing to go on the machine, $50-60 bucks to buy a new one.  But 20 cents worth of tiny brass screws with the heads filed down, drill out the old burnt contact(s) replace with screw and good for another five years.  Recently I found out those had been replaced with a $300 service part cost mother board that defies repair when bad without a full electronic lab. So what people generally do now is just throw the whole machine out, repair cost often being over 60% of replacement.  These machines are loaded with conservation features but I would bet the cradle to grave net impact is far worse than the old.

[Potcake boy]

It seems that today retailers only survive if they promote the perception that they are selling their stuff really cheap. I would interpret that to mean that the average working class person has less disposable income than in times past. So disposable products may be less to blame than disposable jobs.

A trip to Radio Shack was a pleasant diversion and a browse through their hardware and electronics almost always produced a solution. A search for trivial parts on the web is time consuming and not pleasant, and delivery times are often way longer than you'd like unless you are willing to pay 10X the merchandise cost for expedited shipping. As soon as they figure out how to tax all the internet orders, then we will have been pushed another notch lower from where we will never return. So perhaps we should view Radio Shack as the canary in the coal mine.

I love to go sailing, where everything is perfect, even when it's not. I am so thankful that you can't buy a 12 knot breeze on the beam, or a sparkling sunny day on blue colored water. It seems the free stuff is still the best, and everyone can afford some.