About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

RadioShack

Encyclopedia : R : RA : RAD : RadioShack

Typical RadioShack mall store
Enlarge
Typical RadioShack mall store

RadioShack Corporation (formerly Tandy Corporation) (NYSE: [RSH]) runs a chain of electronics retail stores in the United States, as well as parts of Europe and South America. As of 2003, it has more than 7,000 stores in the USA and reported net sales and operating revenues of $4.6 billion. It will reopen stores in Canada after losing its former subsidiary InterTAN (independent since 1986) to a purchase by Circuit City in 2004. The head office of RadioShack is located in Fort Worth, Texas.

RadioShack's current proprietary brands include Presidian (audio and video equipment), Accurian (audio equipment and video equipment), and Enercell (batteries and power accessories). Discontinued brands include Realistic (sound equipment), and Archer (wiring and antennas).

Contents

The first 40 years

The company was started as Radio Hut in 1921 in Boston, Massachusetts, by two brothers, Theodore and Milton Deutschmann, who wanted to provide equipment for the cutting-edge field of amateur, or ham, radio. The store's name was taken from the name of the small structure that housed a ship's radio equipment at the time. ("Radio Shack" also refers to the room where a ham has his/her equipment.)

The company issued its first catalog in the early 1940s and then entered the high-fidelity music market. In 1954, Radio Shack began selling its own private-label products under the brand name Realist, but was subsequently sued and consequently changed the brand name to Realistic. After expanding to nine stores plus an extensive mail-order business, the company fell on hard times in the 1960s. Radio Shack was essentially bankrupt, but Charles Tandy saw the potential of Radio Shack and retail consumer electronics when hardly anyone else did and bought the company for $300,000.(http://www.radioshackcorporation.com/media/newcomen.html)

Tandy Corporation

Radio Shack's old logo
Enlarge
Radio Shack's old logo

In 1963, it was bought by the Tandy Corporation, which was originally a leather goods corporation, and renamed Tandy Radio Shack. Tandy eventually divested itself of its non-electronic product lines.

Tandy (through InterTAN) also operated a chain similar to Radio Shack in the UK under the "Tandy" name from the 1970s until the late 1990s. The stores were sold to Carphone Warehouse in 1999, and over the next few years were converted to that format, or sold off.

Tandy entered the Australian market in 1973. In 2001 Woolworths Limited acquired the Australian operations and merged them with their Dick Smith Electronics business. There were over 300 Tandy stores across the country, but most have been closed or rebranded as Dick Smith Electronics.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Radio Shack marketed its free battery card; a wallet-sized cardboard card, free, which entitled the bearer to free flashlight batteries when presented at one of their stores.

In 1977, Radio Shack introduced the TRS-80, one of the first mass-produced personal computers. Affectionately known as the Trash-80, the machine became a big hit. In the late 1980s, Radio Shack made the transition between its proprietary lines of 8-bit computers to its line of more-or-less IBM-compatible Tandy series of computers. However, shrinking margins and lack of economies of scale led Radio Shack to exit the computer manufacturing market by the mid-1990s.

Radio Shack had another big hit with products designed to take advantage of the Family Radio Service, a short-range walkie-talkie system. Since the mid-1990s, the company has attempted to move into the consumer small components markets, focusing on marketing wireless phones.

Its slogan since 1994 has been "You've got questions, we've got answers."

RadioShack Corporation

In May of 2000, the company dropped the Tandy name altogether, instead opting for RadioShack contracted into one CamelCase word. The logo had been changed from the '70s-style bullethole lettering to the current stylized R in 1996.

Also in 2000, the company-owned Realistic and Optimus brands were discontinued when the company entered into an agreement to carry RCA products, although RadioShack hasn't made products under the Realistic name since the early 1990's. When the RCA contract ended in 2004, RadioShack added their own Accurian brand, and then reintroduced the Optimus brand in 2005 on low end products, and has since been discontinued. RadioShack still has its own brand of batteries. The name of this brand is Enercell.

Many RadioShack stores still carry products dating as far back as the 1980s. Older RadioShack products feature the old logo, or an older Realistic or Archer brand name. It is not uncommon to see a few generations of packaging variations on slower moving products [[Citing sources citation needed]].

Until 2002, RadioShack routinely asked for the names and addresses of customers who made purchases so they could be added to the mailing list. Personal information is still requested when purchasing a cellular phone, service plan, mail order part, Direct2U item (which is a fee-free special ordering of a product not in stock), returning an item, or paying with a check. The Seinfeld television program satirized this practice in one episode.

RadioShack and Blockbuster partnership

In August of 2001, RadioShack opened new kiosk style stores inside Blockbuster. The project ended in Feb. 2002 when CEO Len Roberts announced that the stores did not meet expectations. The project lasted about six months. [link]

RadioShack sells river front headquarters

In December 20, 2005, RadioShack announced that they have sold their newly built river front headquarters to German based KanAm Grund. RadioShack will continue to lease the property for 20 years.

CEO résumé scandal

On February 20, 2006, the company announced that its CEO, David Edmondson, had resigned over questions raised about his résumé. Leadership then immediately fell to Claire Babrowski as acting-CEO, chief operating officer and president for RadioShack. She had just joined several months prior. Her previous employment was as an executive for McDonald's Corporation.

Edmondson, who became RadioShack's CEO in May 2005 after being groomed for the spot, admitted that he had "clearly" misstated his academic record on his résumé and on the company's Web site. RadioShack promised to hire a lawyer to investigate the matter surrounding Edmondson.

RadioShack had also admitted that 2005 fourth-quarter earnings had fallen 62 percent after a switch in wireless providers led to an inventory write-down. The news sent the company's shares to an almost three-year low.

Major Store Shutdown

In early 2006 RadioShack announced they were shutting the doors of 480 stores nationwide. This accounts for roughly 10% of all of their stores in the continental United States. Future closings are a possibility as the company continues it's restructuring plan.

International operations

Operations in Canada

Pre-2005

right The Canadian counterpart of RadioShack, also known as Radio Shack, was run by a company called InterTAN, acquired in 2004 by Circuit City. However, RadioShack sued InterTAN one week after the purchase, claiming InterTAN had breached the terms of their agreement. On March 24, 2005, a U.S. district court judge ruled in favor of RadioShack and cancelled their agreement, meaning that all 950 RadioShack stores in Canada must stop using the brand name in any of their products, packaging or advertising by June 30, 2005. As a result, all of the InterTAN stores were rebranded under the name The Source by Circuit City and RadioShack Corporation plans to open its own stores in Canada under the RadioShack name.

Post-2005

After preventing InterTAN from using the RadioShack trademark, the company announced its intention to re-enter the Canadian market itself with a Canadian division. InterTAN is pursuing court action to prevent Radio Shack from using the trademark in Canada until the original 2010 expiry date of the original licensing agreement. The company had planned to have 20 to 30 stores operating in Canada as RadioShack by the end of 2005, mostly in the Toronto area, but progress has been slower than this. As of February, 2006, nine company owned stores had been opened and 14 dealer stores across were operating under the name RadioShack, signing new agreements with RadioShack Corporation.

Operations in Australia

InterTAN Australia ran Tandy stores until 2002, when it was announced that Woolworths Limited would acquire them for AUD$114 million and merge them into their existing Dick Smith Electronics business. After the merger, Woolworths found Tandy to be in poor condition and has been trying to rejuvenate that part of the business since.

Operations in France

InterTAN operated Tandy stores in France, selling standard RadioShack brands, Realistic, Optimus, and Archer. Sales people sometimes came from the French-speaking Québec. The French subsidiary went bankrupt and closed by the end of December 1993. Sales representatives blamed this on the practice of selling non-store brands (such as IBM laptops) with margins that were too low.

Operations in Belgium

Tandy stores were introduced in Belgium in the early 1970s. The opening of a Tandy store was usually accompanied by a publicity campaign where free 5-D cell flashlights were given away, with free batteries available through the Tandy battery card. Initially, the Tandy stores only sold their proprietary brands such as Realistic, Archer or Optimus. By the mid 1980s however many Tandy stores had closed however, and by 1990 Tandy had fully disappeared from the Belgian market. In the last years of operation, they also stocked mainstream brands, which made the stores lose a lot of their peculiar character.

Trivia

References

External links

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: