And we all watched Radio Shack run face-first into the same wall, over and over and over and over. The market was exploding and it was theirs to lose, and boy did they ever.
I worked at a CompUSA in high school and college. The money was around the PC sale, which was pretty high margin until around 1998/9. I’d come in in the morning before class to do freight… one time we built a pyramid of about 300 PCs.
It was a money machine until it wasn’t.
Radio Shack has to sell everything, couldn’t offer a good variety of devices, and didn’t have the staff to support people with complicated PC purchases. If cell phones blew up earlier radio shack would still be around.
I had a small PC Business. When the Internet Rebates came out with a free PC, we couldn't match that. However, the AOL or MSN monthly fee was $35 or $27 for dial-up. We had Brick.net for $10 a month and $500 to $700 mid-end PCs. We couldn't compete and went out of business.
Yeah that really killed the golden goose. Brick and mortar computer retailer and collapsing prices cant mix - you can’t cross sell high margin services and products with a $400-400 rebate purchase.
When I moved out of retail to professional internships, they were looking to enhance margins by selling candy and DVDs. Best Buy survived that era with appliances and TVs.
