Yesterday the store shut its doors forever. Not entirely sure about the status of the other outlets around town.
The store at 5125 Sherbrooke W. was everything and nothing.
It was a place of interest and a simultaneously place to be indifferent about.
Mostly your notion of the place was dictated by whether you thought they might solve a problem that you had.
While it might seem like it was there forever, the outlet only opened in around 1998 and sometime during the course of its corporate buyout and leveraging, it became The Source, or La Source.
Whether this rebranding helped or hurt will forever remain a mystery that only God will be able to shed light on in the afterlife.
For many years you - as a customer - would walk in and a super high-tech laser beam motion detector would scream out a BEEEEEEEEEEEEEM - BAAAAAAAAAAAAM loudly announcing your arrival in the store.
Depending on your self-esteem this was either a regal reward to your epic entrance or an annoying announcement that a potential shoplifter had entered the premises.
Customers would be treated to the same noise on the way out.
For the longest time an older anglo gentleman long ruled the roost and could occasionally get a bit snippy.
Once after waiting patiently to consult his expertise he snubbed me in favour of a newer-come arriviste in the form of a wealthy woman from Westmount. I didn't complain. I liked him and that customer looked like she could irresponsibly drop a few hundred bucks without blinking.
Radio Shack was once a wonderland for technology to wide-eyed kids. It opened the universe to the possibility of creating homemade ham radios and circuit boards to build your very first robot.
But that market must have been slim so it became a place to buy gimmick alarm clocks and toys that looked vulnerable to swift breakage and... well I'm not sure because I didn't haul a ton of stuff to the cash in my various visits.
In spite of its flaws, perusing the shelves was always amusing and the store will be missed.
As for being a worker at such an outlet, I urge you to read this account from an American Radio Shack employee, possibly my favourite article published anywhere in 2014.
Electronics stores, stereo centres, etc., have always had to endure competition and many have come and gone over the decades.
ReplyDeleteDollar stores have routinely outpriced Radio Shack and La Source. Even Walmart's electronics department still charges $20 for an identical cable sold for a few bucks at Dollarama.
Furthermore, much of what consumers want can also be found in "grey market" stores such as those on St. Lawrence Boulevard near Ontario Street. Many of them do not charge sales tax, or at least, they eat the tax for you. Great places to buy batteries, for example.
Another recent and annoying problem: many items which are advertised on a store's website can only be purchased online requiring the usually exorbitant shipping charges. The stores themselves won't stock them!
This phenomenon also applies to Bureau en Gros (Staples), Canadian Tire, Rona, Home Depot, etc.
Why does Bureau en Gros stock a million different types of pens on their shelves yet discontinue certain labels they used to carry? They certainly seem to have a lot of underused shelf space!
I'd have to say I have far fonder memories of the NDG location when it was formerly a Radio Shack than The Source, or even The Source by Circuit City ("The Source", incidentally, is owned exclusively by Bell Canada).
ReplyDeleteI've walked in a couple of times this year and there was little to see except vastly overpriced generic consumer junk (gone are the days where you could get electronic parts to build and repair things, or interesting and unique gadgets). Not to mention laughably overpriced smartphones, tablets, TV and laptops that you'd be better off shopping for at Bestbuy, Staples or Walmart instead. The two staff were young guys who knew absolutely nothing, and I mean zilch, about products and technology. I think being owned by Bell, the only things mandatory for their sales staff to know are cell phone packages and Fibe TV sold by Bell. Basically a Bell boutique that happens to sell a few electronic odds and ends on the side.
Don't think anyone will miss them, especially since there's a Staples just a few doors down. And most of their staff are quite helpful and knowledgeable when it comes to technology.
Still, it's another hole in the neighborhood. Keep seeing so many stores and restaurants closing shop in NDG.
I had wondered when that store appeared, for some reason I don't remember.
ReplyDeleteBut there used to be a Radio Shack at Decarie Blvd and Sherbrooke, I'm
not sure when they morphed, but it's a similar type store now but not
connected to the chain.
The one at Vendome was handy, it would often have stock of flyer items when the downtown ones had sold out.
People misread Radio Shack. Of course, these stores are now twice removed from the old chain. When Radio Shack came to Canada about 1971, they set up a separate division, which was later made completely independent. At some point, Circuit City bought what was in Canada, morphing it a bit, and then Bell bought the chain, morphing it again. They still sell tools and some parts, but they haven't been featured in the flyers for a long time.
But while Radio Shack started as a small regional radio and parts chain in the Boston area, they were bought by Tandy (there used to be a Tandy Leather store downtown on one of the side streets below St. Catherine) about 1963. And slowly Tandy turned it into something else, and greatly expanding the number of stores.
It was a niche chain, but multiple niches. Circa 1971, the average home had a tv set, some radios, maybe a stereo. But within five years, there were digital calculators, digital watches and clocks, home computers and so on.
Radio Shack expanded as consumer electronics leaped forward. It could sell parts because it was selling to the consumer, just as things were expanding. You could buy a shortwave receiver, or CB set, without having to go to a specialty store somewhere over there. You didn't have to identify as a hobbyist. You could buy that metal detector, or eventually that home computer, without having to go to unfamiliar territory. They also sold lot of stereo equipment. And since the stores were everywhere, you could be in some isolated town and still be able to buy that $100 sampling keyboard. The chain carried neat things at a time when neat things were coming down the pike.
And since they branded everything, much of the stuff was unique, even if similar things could be bought elsewhere. You'd get the catalog in the fall, and see what was new. The flyers would come in the mail, and then the prices were more reasonable on sale. Or wait till they were cleared out before the new catalog.
I ended up buying lots of consumer stuff there, because I knew in advance what there was.
Radio Shack was a lousy place for parts. They were overpriced, and limited in selection. The only time I bought them were on sale, or one time when I was stuck on a Saturday afternoon. But we had real parts stores here. I admit if I lived in East Podunk, the parts being there might matter more.
So perhaps Radio Shack suffered from that image. It's still a very strong image of the chain.
But things changed. Radio Shack was no longer the only game in town. And while the gadgetry kept coming, it no longer hit the hobbyist or some specialty market first, it hit the mainstream full running. Originally you needed the beachhead of Radio Shack, build up the market and word of mouth, and then boost the market. But everyone was ready when the iPod hit, it didn't need hobbyists as "first adopters".
It's a completely different world from 1971 when it comes to consumer electronics.
Michael
In the early 2000's I used to buy all my cell phones at Radio Shack. It seemed the guys there always knew how to scam my wireless provider into giving me another free phone regardless of where I was in my contract.
ReplyDeleteTwo things I will always remember about Radio Shack - my Dad would buy those Heathkit electronic kits from there (he built an entire colour TV set from one in the early '70s and suddenly the Vietnam war was entirely hyper green) and when I got wisdom teeth removed when I was 15, my Dad felt so sorry for miserable me that he bought me a Realistic Clarinette all-in-one stereo set (turntable, cassette deck, radio).
ReplyDeleteThey were also great for 'lifetime warranty' deals on items because you could trust that they'd be around long enough to actually be able to cash in on it. I bought decent Sony headphones there 7 years ago with that warranty and every time the cord went near the plug, I'd get a new set with no hassle at all. I'm still using the same brand/model from that original purchase.
One irritating aspect of shopping at Radio Shack was when, following your purchase, the clerk would pressure you into filling out a form with your name and address; the reason presumably to mail you their flyers.
ReplyDeleteI would routinely scribble "Mayor Drapeau, City Hall" on my form and hand it back to the clerk who didn't seem to notice or care. Indeed, they seemed embarrassed to be bothering you with that form despite the fact it was probably Head Office who came up with the idea which was later dropped.
I remember one customer becoming irate at being asked to fill out the form and shouting, "You don't need my ID for a cash sale!".
I did like Radio Shack's catalogs, however. In fact, I still have a consecutive collection of them beginning with 1976. I found that the part numbers would come in handy when trying to identify and track down an item I had purchased in the past but which they might not have in the store yet still exist sitting on a shelf in their inventory elsewhere. Indeed, I managed to order certain discontinued record player cartridges in that way.
Later on, the clerks became stingy with their catalogs and would only hand them out following an actual purchase. They would even sometimes pretend they only had one store copy!
When on a visit to a Tandy store Australia some years ago, I brought along a Montreal catalog to swap for one of theirs. Many of the products were similar but not identical and their prices were usually higher.