""You've got mail! ...and no job!" Radio Shack fires Employees viaE-Mail.

"http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/0831radioshack.html"

"Radio Shack has been stung by sluggish sales and has been slow to
adjust to the loss of Verizon Wireless."

("http://www.thestreet.com/_googlen/newsanalysis/retail/10303115.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA")





"Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else
in the universe." John Muir

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› See More: ""You've got mail! ...and no job!" Radio Shack fires Employees viaE-Mail.

On Fri, 01 Sep 2006 10:16:13 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>"http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/0831radioshack.html"
>
>"Radio Shack has been stung by sluggish sales and has been slow to
>adjust to the loss of Verizon Wireless."
>
>("http://www.thestreet.com/_googlen/newsanalysis/retail/10303115.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA")

"And now for the rest of the story:"

RadioShack has been stung by sluggish sales and has been slow to
adjust to the loss of Verizon Wireless -- a joint venture of Verizon
(VZ - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Vodafone (VOD - commentary -
Cramer's Take) -- as its cell phone service partner. Cingular,
co-owned by AT&T (T - commentary - Cramer's Take) and BellSouth (BLS
- commentary - Cramer's Take), has replaced Verizon Wireless, but the
transition has been difficult.

Earlier this year, RadioShack set itself on a turnaround course by
closing low-producing stores and expanding successful outlets. The
company says it has so far closed 480 stores and now has about 6,000
stores in total.

The Verizon problem actually began long before Radio Shack dumped
Verizon for Cingular in the hope of doing better than with Verizon.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Fri, 01 Sep 2006 17:27:22 GMT, John Navas
<[email protected]> wrote:

>The Verizon problem actually began long before Radio Shack dumped
>Verizon for Cingular in the hope of doing better than with Verizon.

And that's the point. People want Verizon Wireless, not Stinkular. Who
ever's decision it was to drop one another (either VZW from RS or the
other way around) must have been high on drugs. The current
Cingular-RS arrangement is just not working.

Bue I agree, RS has been a shell of its former self for a number of
years. Years ago, when people wanted electronics parts - they went to
RS. Now they either to to Beast Buy, Circuit ****ty, or go online and
buy the parts they need (either computer or bare-bones electronics).

For me, it hasn't been the same since they dropped their yearly paper
catalog in 2002.

Dave

Diamond Dave wrote:

> And that's the point. People want Verizon Wireless, not Stinkular. Who
> ever's decision it was to drop one another (either VZW from RS or the
> other way around) must have been high on drugs. The current
> Cingular-RS arrangement is just not working.

There is an escape clause for Radio Shack, but at this point Verizon
would not even want to go back into Radio Shack. Even though Radio Shack
was doing extremely well with Verizon, it wasn't as profitable to
Verizon as selling through their own stores and on-line.

Diamond Dave wrote:

> For me, it hasn't been the same since they dropped their yearly paper
> catalog in 2002.

To be fair, you can't survive selling resistors, cables, and batteries,
no matter how good the margins are, the volumes are low. Wireless was a
high-margin, high-volume business for Radio Shack, but they got greedy
when they thought that the better spiffs from Cingular would turn into
higher profits. They failed to take into account that "it's the
network." Cingular has a significantly poorer network in many metro
areas (just look at the Consumer Reports survey), and wireless is a
mature enough market that customers understand that it's not just about
how many peak minutes you get for x dollars. In the San Francisco Bay
Area, the dealers are livid about the loss of Verizon.

John Navas wrote:

> "And now for the rest of the story:"
>
> RadioShack has been stung by sluggish sales and has been slow to
> adjust to the loss of Verizon Wireless -- a joint venture of Verizon
> (VZ - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Vodafone (VOD - commentary -
> Cramer's Take) -- as its cell phone service partner. Cingular,
> co-owned by AT&T (T - commentary - Cramer's Take) and BellSouth (BLS
> - commentary - Cramer's Take), has replaced Verizon Wireless, but the
> transition has been difficult.
>
> Earlier this year, RadioShack set itself on a turnaround course by
> closing low-producing stores and expanding successful outlets. The
> company says it has so far closed 480 stores and now has about 6,000
> stores in total.

Funny, all of the material you've quoted above completely substantiates
Steven's interpretation of the facts...

> The Verizon problem actually began long before Radio Shack dumped
> Verizon for Cingular in the hope of doing better than with Verizon.

....and does not support *your* interpretation, one iota.


--
E-mail fudged to thwart spammers.
Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply.

Isaiah Beard wrote:
> John Navas wrote:
>
>> "And now for the rest of the story:"
>>
>> RadioShack has been stung by sluggish sales and has been slow to
>> adjust to the loss of Verizon Wireless -- a joint venture of Verizon
>> (VZ - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Vodafone (VOD - commentary -
>> Cramer's Take) -- as its cell phone service partner. Cingular,
>> co-owned by AT&T (T - commentary - Cramer's Take) and BellSouth (BLS
>> - commentary - Cramer's Take), has replaced Verizon Wireless, but the
>> transition has been difficult.
>>
>> Earlier this year, RadioShack set itself on a turnaround course by
>> closing low-producing stores and expanding successful outlets. The
>> company says it has so far closed 480 stores and now has about 6,000
>> stores in total.
>
> Funny, all of the material you've quoted above completely substantiates
> Steven's interpretation of the facts...
>
>> The Verizon problem actually began long before Radio Shack dumped
>> Verizon for Cingular in the hope of doing better than with Verizon.
>
> ...and does not support *your* interpretation, one iota.

I think maybe what John was trying to say is that Verizon sales at Radio
Shack were not at their highest historical level, back in 2005.

What he doesn't understand is that just because sales may be lower than
prior quarters doesn't mean that changing products is going to make
things better. You've got to look at the big picture. There were many
more Verizon company stores, as well as other Verizon outlets (Circuit
City, Costco, etc.) coming up to speed in 2005, so naturally Radio Shack
was not going to be able to maintain the same volume of sales. Basically
you had all these stores clamoring to sell Verizon, because Verizon was
doing so well in terms of net additions, while no one was all that
interested in selling Cingular.

Radio Shack got a sweet deal with Cingular, and didn't have as much
competition. Unfortunately for Radio Shack, the wireless market has
matured to the point where people are smart enough to select a carrier
based on other factors than the reseller.

Now Radio Shack is running around blaming Cingular for their worsening
financials, but I don't think anyone forced Radio Shack into a deal with
Cingular, they made their own bad decision.

I stopped going in there years ago, after they started asking for phone
numbers and pushing their batteries, which do last as long as other alk
do...Really crap, at a premium price


"John Navas" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Fri, 01 Sep 2006 10:16:13 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
> wrote in <[email protected]>:
>
>>"http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/0831radioshack.html"
>>
>>"Radio Shack has been stung by sluggish sales and has been slow to
>>adjust to the loss of Verizon Wireless."
>>
>>("http://www.thestreet.com/_googlen/newsanalysis/retail/10303115.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA")
>
> "And now for the rest of the story:"
>
> RadioShack has been stung by sluggish sales and has been slow to
> adjust to the loss of Verizon Wireless -- a joint venture of Verizon
> (VZ - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Vodafone (VOD - commentary -
> Cramer's Take) -- as its cell phone service partner. Cingular,
> co-owned by AT&T (T - commentary - Cramer's Take) and BellSouth (BLS
> - commentary - Cramer's Take), has replaced Verizon Wireless, but the
> transition has been difficult.
>
> Earlier this year, RadioShack set itself on a turnaround course by
> closing low-producing stores and expanding successful outlets. The
> company says it has so far closed 480 stores and now has about 6,000
> stores in total.
>
> The Verizon problem actually began long before Radio Shack dumped
> Verizon for Cingular in the hope of doing better than with Verizon.
>
> --
> Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
> John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

SMS wrote:
> Diamond Dave wrote:
>
>> For me, it hasn't been the same since they dropped their yearly paper
>> catalog in 2002.
>
> To be fair, you can't survive selling resistors, cables, and batteries,
> no matter how good the margins are, the volumes are low. Wireless was a
> high-margin, high-volume business for Radio Shack, but they got greedy
> when they thought that the better spiffs from Cingular would turn into
> higher profits. They failed to take into account that "it's the
> network." Cingular has a significantly poorer network in many metro
> areas (just look at the Consumer Reports survey), and wireless is a
> mature enough market that customers understand that it's not just about
> how many peak minutes you get for x dollars. In the San Francisco Bay
> Area, the dealers are livid about the loss of Verizon.

It speaks volumes that Verizon is continuing to close the gap on
subscribber numbers, while Cingular has consistently higher churn.
Clearly, Verizon was not hurt in any way by RadioShack dropping them as
a carrier, and Cingular certainly hasn't felt much of a benefit.


--
E-mail fudged to thwart spammers.
Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply.

"John Navas" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Fri, 01 Sep 2006 10:16:13 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
> wrote in <[email protected]>:
>
>>"http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/0831radioshack.html"
>>
>>"Radio Shack has been stung by sluggish sales and has been slow to
>>adjust to the loss of Verizon Wireless."
>>
>>("http://www.thestreet.com/_googlen/newsanalysis/retail/10303115.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA")
>
> "And now for the rest of the story:"
>
> RadioShack has been stung by sluggish sales and has been slow to
> adjust to the loss of Verizon Wireless -- a joint venture of Verizon
> (VZ - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Vodafone (VOD - commentary -
> Cramer's Take) -- as its cell phone service partner. Cingular,
> co-owned by AT&T (T - commentary - Cramer's Take) and BellSouth (BLS
> - commentary - Cramer's Take), has replaced Verizon Wireless, but the
> transition has been difficult.
>
> Earlier this year, RadioShack set itself on a turnaround course by
> closing low-producing stores and expanding successful outlets. The
> company says it has so far closed 480 stores and now has about 6,000
> stores in total.
>
> The Verizon problem actually began long before Radio Shack dumped
> Verizon for Cingular in the hope of doing better than with Verizon.
>
No, Johnny- you don't get to have it both ways. The article clearly states
how much of a void Verizon leaves in their sales strategy. Besides- it was
Verizon that did the dumping

Isaiah Beard wrote:

> It speaks volumes that Verizon is continuing to close the gap on
> subscribber numbers, while Cingular has consistently higher churn.
> Clearly, Verizon was not hurt in any way by RadioShack dropping them as
> a carrier, and Cingular certainly hasn't felt much of a benefit.

Actually it has helped Cingular's net additions numbers, and hurt
Verizon's. Verizon would have had even more additions if they had still
had Radio Shack's 5000 or so outlets.

What Radio Shack believed, and what turned out to be untrue, is that
they could sell Cingular or Sprint to a large percentage of the
customers that came in for Verizon.

Financially, Verizon is better off without Radio Shack, because it was a
less profitable sales outlet than their own stores and e-commerce site.

On Fri, 1 Sep 2006 22:01:12 -0400, "Saul" <[email protected]> wrote:
: I stopped going in there years ago, after they started asking for phone
: numbers and pushing their batteries, which do last as long as other alk
: do...Really crap, at a premium price

I guess you meant to say "do not last". Who makes their batteries, the cheap
Chinese supplier of the week?

The next time they dump their CEO, they should do that by email too.

SMS wrote:
> Isaiah Beard wrote:
>
>> It speaks volumes that Verizon is continuing to close the gap on
>> subscribber numbers, while Cingular has consistently higher churn.
>> Clearly, Verizon was not hurt in any way by RadioShack dropping them
>> as a carrier, and Cingular certainly hasn't felt much of a benefit.
>
> Actually it has helped Cingular's net additions numbers, and hurt
> Verizon's. Verizon would have had even more additions if they had still
> had Radio Shack's 5000 or so outlets.

I have to disagree with that assessment. Both before and after
RadioShack and Verizon parted ways, VZW was and is making headway
towards closing the subscriber gap on Cingular. They continue to lead
in net additions, clearly without RadioShack's "help." And in all of
the regions that I've traveled and seen VZW outlet stores, they all seem
to be pretty close in proximity (often in the very same shopping center,
or next door) to the nearest RadioShack. I think Verizon realized a
redundancy, sought to do away with it, and did so successfully.

Regardless, any assertion that continued partnership with RadioShack
would've helped Verizon even more is purely academic.

> What Radio Shack believed, and what turned out to be untrue, is that
> they could sell Cingular or Sprint to a large percentage of the
> customers that came in for Verizon.

This would indicate to me that Verizon Wireless was helping RadioShack's
sales, not the reverse.


--
E-mail fudged to thwart spammers.
Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply.

Isaiah Beard wrote:

> This would indicate to me that Verizon Wireless was helping RadioShack's
> sales, not the reverse.

In reality it was both.

Losing 5000 sales outlets all at once probably did have a negative
effect on Verizon's sales. Sure they are still leading all carriers, in
terms of net additions, but they'd have been doing a bit better with
those 5000 outlets. Some people are dumb enough to buy whatever it is
that Radio Shack is selling.

Losing the carrier that has the best reputation, the best coverage, the
best data network, and that is consistently top-ranked by every unbiased
survey definitely hurt Radio Shack more than it hurt Verizon.

Still, it's getting pretty tiring to hear Radio Shack blame its current
problems on poor wireless sales. No one held a gun to their head and
forced them to do such a stupid thing. Whoever made the decision to drop
Verizon in favor of Cingular is probably long gone with a nice golden
parachute, leaving the stores to suffer with significantly lower sales,
forcing the closing of hundreds of stores, and causing the layoffs at
the corporate headquarters.

At 05 Sep 2006 13:53:03 -0700 SMS wrote:

> Still, it's getting pretty tiring to hear Radio Shack blame its current
problems on poor wireless sales. No one held a gun to their head and
forced them to do such a stupid thing. Whoever made the decision to drop
Verizon in favor of Cingular is probably long gone with a nice golden
parachute, leaving the stores to suffer with significantly lower sales,
forcing the closing of hundreds of stores, and causing the layoffs at the
corporate headquarters.


Radioshack isn't blaming the poor wireless sales on losing Verizon- it's
the softening in the wireless industry overall. The wireless business is
very saturated right now. There are very few "new" customers, just
renewals/upgrades and the folks you can steal from other carriers.

Radioshack, in their illustrious history, has rode one wave of tech after
another- wired telephones and CB radios in the 70s, computers in the 80's
and 90's, and cellular in the 90's and 00's. Cellular isn't the huge
revenue stream for retailers that it once was, and retailers with all of
their eggs in the cellular basket (like RS these days) are going to feel
the pain, regardless of who their carrier is.

Radioshack is very good at what they call "demystifying" technology-
meaning they are good at explaining "new" gadgets to the uninitiated-
once that tech is mainstream, like wireless is today, nobody needs to pay
RS' inflated prices for it anymore.



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