Ok, radioshack is dead. It use to be great a long time ago when you could go into one of their stores and buy electronic parts. But now they hardly stock anything. Should be called toyshack now. Radioshack has faded away and now needs to be replaced. How about a Sparkfun Franchise in every city.
Bryan
why would anyone shop electronic components on retail shops. radioshack was for complete noobs anyway.
As much as I would like to see that happen for Nathan and Sparkfun, you have to think about why Radio Shack has faded into a shell of what it once was. People these days aren’t interested in playing with electronics and ham radios like they were years ago.
-Bill
I can choose from hundreds of thousands of parts on-line, from RS (UK) and Farnell, and always get them the next morning, with free delivery. There isn’t any point these days in old-fashioned electronic component shops.
I personally wouldn’t want this…
I have to admit, A Sparkfun store in a few major locations could be pretty cool. London, New York, San Fran…Think of the Apple store back when it was cool to go to the Apple store. But really, we are going to be carrying a line of products in a few electronic stores around the country in the near future. But we likely will not be opening a Sparkfun store anytime soon. Here’s to hoping though.
Don’t for get Saint Paul/Minneapolis… I can definitely see the difficulty with this but maybe if sparkfun tried to pair up with a local university to provide parts for Electrical Engineering Undergrads, It could maybe work. I just recently finished my degree and it would have been way cool to have a store like that locally and I know that A lot of the EE’s from my program would hit up a store like this for there school/fun projects. Especially since all we have was a radio shack for last minute parts and there proto-boards did the trick but they were kinda crappy.
I am supporting you that spark fun store is available in every city and if it not possible in every city then they will try to deliver its products through online in every city in the world. Customers likes its product.
I grew up when families walked into Radio Shack to test bags full of tubes for televisions and radios. When I was young, everyone who owned electronics, worked on them. They were like old cars back then, they needed constant maintenance. Unplugging parts and testing them was easy to do. Everyone liked the warm glow of a tube. People liked parts much like gasoline for cars now, as they made things go. Many became inventive and created amazing things with those parts. Radio Shack was a thriving business back then. Everyone had their catalog. Electronics was our culture.
The world changes fast. Now we live in a day where we throw away cell phones after several months. I can only dream of the past.
I bought a house next to Radio Shack several years ago thinking it was so cool. I only went to that store a few times… 
If it wasn’t for radioshack back in the good old days I would have never made a career out of electronics. They (RS) was instrumental in helping me acquire knowledge as well as experience in working with electronics. My eight grade science project for which I won first prize was a Radioshack (tandy) shortwave radio kit. I still have it and it is still working. That was almost 40 years ago I think.
Sure you can buy things online but to walk into an electronics store is like a 5 year old walking into a toys-r-us store for some people. Even other people who had no previous experience can become attracted to electronics just buy building some small kit. To build something as a kid and have it work does wonders for ones self esteem and motivation.
It did for me and radioshack was there to help.
Brian
Just my two cents.
“Good old time” was when electronics was new, attractive and affordable to lot of people. It was a lot cheaper and easier to buy and build devices by yourselves.
Now, you can ear electronics from birth, if not before :lol: and is common for everyone. With the SMD era, it is hard to work with. And prices are so low you don’t need to build your phone, PC, DVD,…
With internet and efficient postal services, you can receive your box at your door next day. Why drive several miles/hours in traffic jams to discover item is not in stock, even when vendor said it was.
It is time to wake up boys. Just imagine what would be the prices increases on all articles just to pay salaries, building, logistics, etc… of a shop. You will never buy anything from them.
Angelo
Not enough electronics diddlers per square mile.
Even near big engineering schools.
if you come here in north norway (mo i rana) i promise I will be in the shop buying bigtime (and saving on shipments and toll taxes) at least twice a month.
I’ve noticed something about hobbies lately. Hobbies are great and still around. Look at railroad and model building at least in my area are rather big. War gaming/table top stuff is popular as well. Robotics and electronics are completely dead. I live in Pensacola,FL. Here is a run down of whats within 20 mins of here. University of West Florida, Pensacola Christian College, Pensacola Junior College (they changed their name so something else I forget) and the Naval Air Station. West Florida and PCC both have engineering majors in multiple disciplines both include EE degrees and West Florida use to have a UAV design club on campus and might still not sure.
Ok potential clients but no place to go. The local hobby store I hang out in has monthly aircraft and armor model groups plus war gaming groups and others. No electronics or robotics clubs. I tried to start one but do that have the time to organize it. With MAKE and other groups building a following I think there is a gap that can be filled in Hobby stores and someone needs to jump on it. MAKE might already be doing this in some area.
Sparkfun doesn’t need to run stores but I think they are on the right track getting retail packaging and looking at getting into new markets. I’d spend less money on table top games and more cash on robotics if I had people to bounce ideas off of and work with locally. Sitting in a workshop alone doesn’t motivate me enough to spend a lot of time working on stuff specially when I hit a wall. Also lets not forget the power of the impulse buy. I tend to think longer and shop more for online stuff instead of grabbing something. And who has 2 days to wait. If I’m in the middle of a project I want to work on it now not in a week when I have my parts.
There is a reason that Radio Shack moved away from component sales; and it was not with the goal of being the overpriced cell phone store that they currently are. To stock a tiny fraction of the parts stocked by Digi-Key, the store would have to be bigger than walmart! Can you imagine trying to find the correct part in a store the size of walmart, with shelves that look like what radioshack had for components? You would need to use a website just to find the correct isle.
Also, you can hire anyone to sell cell phones; it is a lot more difficult to find qualified sales people that know the difference between a PCB and a LCD.
Back when I was in high school, I tried to get a job there. They told me quite frankly that they were not looking to hire nerds…they just wanted sales people, and they are not required to know anything, nor are they required to take classes. I bought 20 project boxes on the spot (with the DIY PCBs)…I told the guy that I wanted to get them while radioshack was still in business.