Yeah, when you think of the typical Shack employee or customer, isn't physical fitness the first thing that comes to mind?

Yeah cause those 14 year old chinese hookers putting together Nike track shoes turn in some amazing 440 times.

unless the shack is going to be like the buy. there is no chance.

:lol: Nice.

Yeah, them and 497 of the Fortune 500 see it that way.

It's a great sport with a lame business model. The fact that for a variety of reasons its athletes are far more susceptible to doping temptations than any other pro sport doesn't help.

A baseball player can play clean, hit 15 HRs instead of 25 hrs each season, and still get paid $5 million annually. If you feel that it's dope or go home (or finish outside the top 10 in a Grand Tour if you're a star rider) that's different. And the more cycling does to get a handle on doping, the more guys they catch, and the more the corporate money stays away.

I have an idea. Let's put the Europeans in charge of running things in pro cycling. They'll know what to do.

Well they had a pretty good year on paper...that's because they downsized their staff. I'm not sure that they are going to show that much growth in 2010. Seriously though, 'The Shack'? Did they hire an ad agency from a South Florida retirement home? Welcome to the 1980's.

As if elctronic geek do it youselfers give a crap about image.

I remember going there to by Heathkits with my dad when I was a kid..my dad was the epitome of electronic geek do it yourselfer....

My Dad was an EE, 39 years with Bell. And a Ham Radio geek on the side. I learned to solder stuff on boards at 8 years old. Many trips to Radio Shack. So im a second generation Geek.:thumb:

That said, this "The Shack" stuff is crap.

i wish they were team shake shack instead

400m these days. And they're 12.

So, in a past job I did a 2 year onsite consulting gig at RadioShack HQ in downtown Fort Worth. That building they recently sold/leased back was brand new, they moved in during my time there.

I've done a lot of consulting for big companies, I've travelled all over, seen lots of showplace hq's.... this place is at or near the top of showplace hq's. Every. Single. Chair. was a Herman Miller Aeron. over 5,000 of them.

The art in the place was all commissioned, some amazingly cool stuff, can't even describe it, moving sculptures, beautiful and technically leading edge. The cafeteria has 3 story glass walls looking out onto the Trinity River, and from the ceiling hang dozens of diodes and capacitors and such... except they're all 5 feet long, and hand made.

The fitness center is as nice as any pay gym, and not much smaller. I got free vo2 testing, coaching (not Carmichael, but hey it's free), yoga classes, spin bike use with an awesome stereo, on and on.

So yeah, they overspent a bit on that.

Now the other thing is, I learned how they make money. First, they are a big NASCAR sponsor. You may be aware, NASCAR fans are extremely loyal - so Ricky Bobby shops at Radioshack for his RC cars and batteries and computers and TVs and stereo's and cell phones. Not a bad audience, considering.

The other thing is, their stores are usually pretty small, so their $/sq foot is really high, so they don't need to sell much to make money.

The problem is, as you've noted... their brand image is way out of date and they have no clear position / unique space in the American consumer's mind... other than the diodes, which are still there, stuck in a drawer, way in the back.

Yeah my dad was an EE, head of computer peripherals for the FAA for 30 years..I learned to do all that stuff as a kid as well..glad I did too it's come in handy as an adult...and yes "The Shack" is crappolla.

Yea, I amazed friends and family the other day. Boom box left out in the rain wouldn't turn on. A bad voltage regulator. Picked one up at Radio Shack, whipped out the ole soldering iron and it was good as new :lol: Thanks Dad.

I hope they don't decide to stop selling parts, would be a pain to have to order everything.

I'm holding my opinion of the name change until I see the ads. The jingle alone might win me over.

Their financials look pretty decent for a large corporation in the current economy. Their stock price has been underperforming the Dow over 5 years, but they do make a steady profit (and have not missed a profitable quarter in the past 1.5 years.)

Plus they gave me a scholarship.

Good news CK, but come on.

'The Shack'?

By the way, you don't want to get into a creaky knee contest with Uncle Pcad. I don't think you can win.

The HQ is amazing. All of the artwork is staying in place for the Community College. It's going to be a hell of a campus.

Just 2 pages and less than 1K views? You're slipping Pcad. You might want to consider changing your name to "The Cad."

It worked out absolutely brilliantly.

How many people became re-branded (emotional invested) in Coke when they thought it was going away and when they raised such a stink that The CoCo-Cola Corp had to 're-introduce' the old coke.

Genius I say.




"The Shack?" Not so much.

bring it, n00b.

these knees have been creaking since before you figured out which way to move the shifter to find that easier gear you need.

I popped my right ACL in 1986.

Your turn.

Bring it 'noob'?

I may be many things, but 'noob' is not one of them. I wish.

I bet they paid some image consultancy heaps of cash to come up with that - to connect with 'Today's Youth' or some crap like that (see London 2012 logo for another example of this gone horribly awry).

Radioshack is one of those iconic brands that just doesn't seem to die. There's one across the street from a Best Buy near where I now live - when the Best Buy came in, everyone figured the Radio Shack was toast - but it's still there, years later. There was a good Onion article not long ago about a CEO who couldn't figure out how the company remained profitable, yet it did.

I thought it was nifty that they'd be sponsoring a pro cycling team, but this whole 'The Shack' crap is crap.

RadioShack becomes "The Shack?"

GatorAde becomes "G?"

Ad agencies are getting paid big money to try to be wannabe rappers. Thing is I'm around high school students all of the time (it's my job) and they still call it GatorAde. RadioShack is a place for cell phones but only if you're not at the mall.

And these people get paid really serious $?