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The company that arose from RadioShack's 2015 bankruptcy saga could soon itself be filing for bankruptcy.
General Wireless is reportedly on the brink of seeking protection from creditors and entering the liquidation process. The biz could not be reached for comment. The formal paperwork for the bankruptcy could be posted within a matter of days, it is claimed.
A liquidation of General Wireless will effectively mark the end of RadioShack, which opened its first store in 1921 and became a mainstay of electronics hobbyists through the rise of the home computing era.
The retailer was nearly liquidated outright in 2015 after years of struggling to keep up with competition from online stores and a financial plummet that saw the value of its stock fall so sharply it was removed from the New York Stock Exchange.
Micro Center remains, but in the era of Adafruit, Seeed Studio, Sparkfun, and others are big-box retailers still relevant?
(Score: 2) by theronb on Tuesday March 07 2017, @11:44PM (1 child)
We can pitch in and help the employees. Like a lot of of folks, I often buy electronics at the local big box store - their prices are pretty competitive for common stuff and I can take it back if something isn't right. I agree about not expecting the employees to know everything about everything so when I get the opportunity, I help educate a sales person on something that I know about. Last week I was looking at a display next to where a sales guy was being questioned by a woman looking at camera filters. He was stumped but I knew something (I use filters), so I offered to help and they both went away happy.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday March 08 2017, @06:32PM
Good for the customers. I doubt it helps the sales droids though.
Last time I was at an electronics store, it was with a coworker who was looking for a prepaid SIM card. So we ask at the front, they look it up and say they don't think they have it -- even though their own website said they did. So we decided to look anyway, went back to the electronics section and asked there. They say they don't carry prepaid SIM cards. We walked around to the opposite side of the aisle where those guys were standing, and found an entire display of nothing but prepaid SIM cards, including nearly a half dozen different options from the carrier we'd been asking about (H2O Wireless).
So yeah...not only can they not answer questions, they can't even tell you what they have in stock. They can't even tell you what CATEGORIES of items they have in stock. They couldn't possibly care less.
Lately, if I can't find a product in a store, I use their website to find it. Seriously, it's usually faster to pull out the smartphone, find their website, do a search across the entire inventory for what you need (even if you even don't know exactly what you need) and then figure out what aisle it would be in based on what category it's under on the website rather than trying to find an employee that has a clue.