I figured you were going to get your two cents sooner or later. Dean Price [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Stephen Hoffman said: > > The reason RadioShack's selection of small electronics and parts has > dwindled over the years is actually simple, MONEY. As a former > employee (by no means a disgruntled one), I have seen what the markup > on consumer electronics is there. From a business standpoint, > RadioShack would love nothing more then to wipe out all the parts in > the store taking up valuable shelf space and sell nothing but > cellphones and satellites (the highest profit margin). Not that > parts don't have an extremely high margin, the SPST momentary switch > someone mentioned retailed for around 2.00 but I assure you it cost > no more then $.10 and probably even closer to $.05. Not a bad > return, the only thing is you have to sell dozens of them to get the > same return as one cigarette lighter adapter for a cellphone (Retail > $29.99, warehouse $5). And cellphones; they had a store cost of > maybe $30 and retail for say $99, but the kickback from the provider > (verizon, sprint, alltell) is $200 for every customer they sign, PLUS > they get a percentage of your monthly bill from the provider until > you cancel. So just one cellphone costs $30 to RS, but they > instantly produce $300 in revenue and a profit of say $250 after you > pay the bills plus you get a few pennys each month from it. > Sadly, I occasionally neglected a parts customer to make the > cellphone sale (we were commission based), even if I knew right where > the part was, but you were the "ask too many questions" type. > Matt, don't be fooled, you can still get the 6.5536 MHz crystal, but > no salesman making $5.15/hour is going to drop everything he is doing > to look it up in the commercial catalog for 4.99 (of which he only > gets 6% of). Don't quote me on this, but I believe you can even > still get mercury switches from said catalog (just raises a bunch of > eyebrows when you do). > So when Jim calls it "Radio Shaft", I have to agree with > him...somewhere down the line, you're gonna get it from them. > > My $.02 > > Steve > > -- > TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug > TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ > TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ > TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc > -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc
