RadioShack's tale of woe gets worse

[RKP5637]

It's stranger than fiction what keeps them going, and why bother. Cut losses and move on.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/11/investing/radioshack-earnings/index.html?iid=HP_River

Shares of RadioShack fell 7%Thursday and have plunged 80% this year. The stock is worth just 51 cents.

RadioShack (RSH) reported a net loss of $161 million, larger than expected. Sales plunged 16% from a year ago to $650 million, which was also below Wall Street's forecasts.

The company also said that it finished the quarter, which ended on November 1, with just $62.6 million in cash and available credit. RadioShack has $841.5 million in debt. A quarter ago, the company had $182.5 million in liquidity and debt of $658 million.
That is bad news, especially since the company is currently involved in a dispute with a top creditor about whether or not it has violated the terms of its credit agreement.

RadioShack has struggled to compete with larger rival Best Buy (BBY) and also faces stiff competition from mass merchandise retailers Walmart (WMT) and Target (TGT)as well as online shopping king Amazon (AMZN, Tech30).

RadioShack has even made light of that fact, with a popular Super Bowl commercial featuring '80s celebrities this year and a current holiday ad campaign with Weird Al Yankovic.

[TlalocW]

1. Sometimes you just got to know when to quit

RadioShack is dead. They just won't admit it, and frankly, from what I've heard, the higher-ups aren't that smart and shouldn't be running a company in the first place.

TlalocW

[NYC_SKP]

2. They went in the wrong direction, they should have gone back to their roots: DIY electronics.

They should have become a Maker supply store with Makerbots, Arduinos, 3D printers and supplies, logic boards, soleniods and all the stuff that makes tinkering special.

[RKP5637]

3. Yep, they could have hooked whole new generations on it. Just absolutely piss poor management. n/t

[caraher]

4. So true

Instead they decided to be... what, a bad phone store?

[Gidney N Cloyd]

7. That's an intriguing idea. 'course then they'd also have to go back to hiring clerks who knew stuff.

[NYC_SKP]

8. You can still buy a bridge rectifier from them!

Some of the new goods made sense: rechargeable batteries, and maybe some of the toys, but they cut way down on the hobby stuff and these are the hardest things to find.

Toy chains don't seem to sell anything that isn't tied to a movie or TV show, and hardly anything is hobby related the way hobbies shops used to be.

People who tinker, who follow robotics and Maker Faires and Make Magazine, and science geeks, need places to go.

[yeoman6987]

5. I have only gone in RadioShack one time

in 20 years and they didn't have what I needed. I ended up getting it Amazon. Sorry but their inventory is horrid at best. I feel for those losing their jobs or soon to be, but they never kept up with the times.

[RKP5637]

6. Same here, it was my place of totally last resort. I hated going into RS and I'm a techie. The

help was generally surly and/or inept. RS was always just an unpleasant experience and seldom had what I was looking for. For years now I get supplies cheaper and far easier online. I do feel sorry for the employees, it must be horrible what they are going through.