[Boatanchors] RS.. was soldering/desoldering

[shoppa_boatanchors at trailing-edge.com]

carolew <carolew at bellatlantic.net> wrote:
> 3. Perhaps they could have carved out a longer-lasting niche 
> if they had stayed more involved with SW receivers, ham equipment, 
> stereos, home entertainment equipment etc.

Well, I don't know of any retailer that stuck it through with SW
and ham equipment. Radio Shack pretty much gave up on ham stuff by
the early 70's (although they did continue to dabble in 11-meter oops
I mean 10-meter and 2-meter stuff.) I remember when the Radio Shack
catalog came from Boston and had Collins stuff on the back cover :-).

And for stereos and home entertainment, the big box stores gobbled
all that up years ago.

> Maybe more of an emphasis on computer stuff would
> have helped.

Profits in PC-clone computer hardware vanished off the face of the
earth in the late 90's, unless you're Dell or Compaq or Gateway.
Oops, Gateway is no more (and they were doing damn well in the mid-late-90's.)

HP of course bought Compaq and ex-Digital stuff but they pissed
all the tech away to become an also-ran in PC-clones. Yech.
At least Agilent split off (not that I was a big fan of HP test
equipment in general but they have some specialty stuff that is
still outrageously wonderful, and they still do their own
semi fabbing for all the necessary exotic stuff, something Tektronix
lost years ago.)

Could "Tandy" have stood up against Dell or Compaq? Maybe. But
they were right to get out of that business before all the profits
disappeared, there's no way they could support their retail overhead
and have stayed competitive on hardware. They could've branched
out into software/accessories (and they already had some of the
gizmos) like CompUSA but they didn't, and that's probably a good
thing. Can you imagine trying to find a fuse when everything is
stacked from floor to ceiling with PC-clone games?

> 5. I think another chain making a similar mistake is Sears. 
> Several years ago, they opened their Sears Hardware stores, 
> which had a very large inventory of tools, hardware and 
> home-repair gadgets. About a year ago, they went into 
> appliances. This forced them to cut drastically their 
> inventory of tools, hardware and
> home-repair gadgets and the amount of space allotted to 
> those items. When I go through Sears, I never see 
> anyone even looking at the appliances.

I don't think I've ever seen a "Sears Hardware" store, but if I
need a semi-special-purpose tool on a Sunday morning the local
full-line Sears store is the place to go. Some will tell me the
Craftsman brand isn't what it used to be, but I don't believe
it ever was what it used to be :-).

Home Depot is pretty bad for tools unless you want a hammer.

On a weekday there are still some contractor-type lumber stores
that have absolutely incredible tool and lumber selection. But
the good old-fashioned retail lumber stores here have been driven
completely out by Home Depot. That's really sad. You can't find
anything you need at Home Depot unless you're building a deck.
But I suppose nobody builds anything but decks anymore, huh?

Tim.