Why RadioShack is dead

I spent an hour at RadioShack on an ill-advised attempt to buy a Net10 Sim card for my ‘unlocked’ Verizon phone. Wasn’t easy.

While there I saw who shops there (it was busy!):

1. A blind guy who wanted a line filter for his landline phone

2. An elderly couple that needed a new landline handset

3. A woman in a wheelchair with caretaker returning a clock radio

4. A woman that wanted an mp3 player

5. The Verizon wireless rep came in and chatted for a while

6. A young woman that wanted a fan to ventilate a hot closet. She looked at a geeky fan component, realized she couldn’t power it. Left

7. An older guy who wanted some batteries

(Older here means 65-70 years old)

8. A guy came in for a sec, checked the price on an iPhone charge ($24) and vanished in a flash. He knows better.

And so on! The people coming in need help. With basic low-price stuff. The higher price stuff is a crazy rip-off and sophisticated buyers won’t come.

As for me, the guy managed to get me to spend an hour there trying to make the $15 SIM card work. It didn’t. I returned it. And mistakenly he refunded the whole receipt – which included some other piece of junk I thought I’d try.