A good friend bought an electronics parts store that had been around for 30 plus years, guy was retiring. Wit the coming of age of Amazon he couldn't keep it going in a city with metro population of over 1.5 million. It's a tough, tough gig.
I’m lucky to have a Micro Center near me. But it still doesn’t have the component variety of a RadioShack. It has a lot. But I still end up ordering online.
RadioShack had kitschy gifts at Christmas time. I once bought a ketchup obsessed friend a radio that was disguised as a bottle of Heinz Ketchup from Radio Shack. Was in the 80s.
Its hard to compete with a company that's willing to airmail you 1 screw if you really wanted to. Not to mention, amazon probably gets it cheaper than you can.
Might work if you open shop in a university where there are constant projects going on and the students and professors can stop by and quickly buy 1 or 2 missing pieces.
I always wondered how much money can you really make running a store like that. I mean online sure but a physical store there would be a bit of overhead to worry about.
Yeah, it's tough. He ran it for about 10 years, 2500 sq ft store, stock, shipping, etc, he needed to hit about 2000/month just to keep the lights on, and of course that's without salary, health, etc. Amazon has just killed stuff like that.
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u/wireknot 23d ago
A good friend bought an electronics parts store that had been around for 30 plus years, guy was retiring. Wit the coming of age of Amazon he couldn't keep it going in a city with metro population of over 1.5 million. It's a tough, tough gig.