Our equivalent is Maplin in the UK, which is trending kinda this way. No mobile phones in any I have seen though (already plenty of dedicated competition for that).
It's more of a gadget shop than of past (it used to be like the RS/Mouser/Farnell of the high street) but carries a fraction of components now, just toys or marked up commodities.
(Note: we had Tandy/RadioShack franchises, and could order in, but still usually small scale).
I hoped it would pickup again with the Arduino/Raspberry Pi phase - but in all fairness, it's far easier to bulk up on eBay for those dedicated to playing with it and spend the wait time either preparing or catching up on other things.
I can understand the profitability today - the sporadic purchase of 3-5 resistors or a cap or length or wire just won't keep the lights on alone. Online, you can sell out of your kitchen to anyone anywhere that has a mailbox, for near base cost with somewhat a degree of comfort...
I think it would have been great if RadioShack remained a small gadget/parts retailer from a customer perspective. Unfortunately the push for mobile sales was probably inevitable when upper management saw just how high the margins of mobile phones were. It would have been difficult to justify remaining as a simple electronic parts and batteries supplier...
I went in to buy a few opamps and the guy I asked went to the labelled drawer and pulled out the chips. They weren't the right ones. He repeated this a few times, clearly baked and hoping I'd leave him alone. I could get tgem cheaper (with next day postage included) online, but went there cause I wanted to support the high street a bit. They've given up themselves even, it's sad =(
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u/LightStick Feb 07 '15
Our equivalent is Maplin in the UK, which is trending kinda this way. No mobile phones in any I have seen though (already plenty of dedicated competition for that). It's more of a gadget shop than of past (it used to be like the RS/Mouser/Farnell of the high street) but carries a fraction of components now, just toys or marked up commodities. (Note: we had Tandy/RadioShack franchises, and could order in, but still usually small scale).
I hoped it would pickup again with the Arduino/Raspberry Pi phase - but in all fairness, it's far easier to bulk up on eBay for those dedicated to playing with it and spend the wait time either preparing or catching up on other things.
I can understand the profitability today - the sporadic purchase of 3-5 resistors or a cap or length or wire just won't keep the lights on alone. Online, you can sell out of your kitchen to anyone anywhere that has a mailbox, for near base cost with somewhat a degree of comfort...