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Part science outlet, part Radio Shack, part curio cabinet—American Science & Surplus is unique:
It was shortly after moving into Chicago's Jefferson Park neighborhood that I saw the sign for the first time: American Science & Surplus. My curiosity piqued, I pulled into the strip mall and walked into a store filled with an unimaginable variety of lab equipment, military surplus, tools, electronics, toys, and so much more.
Now, nearly 90 years after its launch selling "reject lenses" as American Lens & Photo, American Science & Surplus is facing an existential threat. The COVID-19 pandemic and increased costs hit the business hard, so the store has launched a GoFundMe campaign looking to raise $200,000 from customers and fans alike. What's happening in suburban Chicago is a microcosm of the challenges facing local retail, with big-box retailers and online behemoths overwhelming beloved local institutions. It's a story that has played out countless times in the last two-plus decades, and owner Pat Meyer is hoping this tale has a different ending.
Launching a fundraiser was a tough choice for Meyer. "I don't like asking people for money," he said.
With his voice catching, he continued: "It's hard for me to talk about sometimes, because the more I'm in the store, the more I see how much people care about it and don't want it to go away."
And the current environment is tough for small business owners. "Banks... are real hesitant [about lending] money," Meyer told Ars. "Interest rates are high, too. So we decided that we were going to try and reach out to the community that we built over the last 88 years."
[...] Over time, the store has moved far beyond lenses and lab equipment. There's a science toy section and an aisle devoted to Etsy-style craft supplies. But other, once-thriving areas of the business have suffered. When I first discovered American Science & Surplus in the early 2000s, I would always linger at the massive telescope section. The store staff was always more than happy to answer my questions and explain the differences between the scopes. Now, telescopes are just a small corner of the store, and sales are infrequent. "People come in to ask questions and then buy the telescopes online," Meyer explained.
In many ways, American Science & Surplus is a physical manifestation of the maker ethos. There is an endless array of motors, switches, cables, tools, and connectors. "Sometimes our customers will send us photos of their creations," said Meyer. "It's always cool to see how people are inspired by shopping here."
The store should feel familiar to those who were alive in the peak days of Radio Shack. In fact, there used to be a Radio Shack in the same strip mall as American Science & Surplus' old store in the Jefferson Park neighborhood on Chicago's northwest side. Meyer said that Radio Shack would frequently send customers a few doors down to his store to find things Radio Shack didn't stock. And one time, the surplus store sent a customer back. "Radio Shack sent one guy over to us after telling him they didn't have the item in stock," Meyer said. "We didn't have it, but one of our associates knew Radio Shack did, so he walked the customer back, pulled the part out of the bin, and handed it to him."
[...] American Science & Surplus has adapted over the years. There's now a well-stocked section of science toys. And Meyer has started hosting science nights. The next one, slated for June 7 at the Park Ridge store, will double as a fundraiser—in addition to the usual science experiments and demonstrations, there will be a silent auction and live music.
What will Meyer do with the money if the fundraising goal is reached? "We have to move our warehouse," he said. "It's too expensive, it's too big." Other plans include updating its operating software and updating the website. A quick look at the About Us page of the current site shows the need for an update. It contains a warning that the "heavy use of tables" may not be supported in all browsers—paired with a suggestion to download Netscape Navigator.
As of this writing, the GoFundMe campaign has raised $136,903. Meyer says contributing isn't just about supporting American Science & Surplus; it's about supporting local retail during a very challenging time. "Who wants to buy everything at Amazon, Walmart, Temu, and Target?" he asked.
[Ed. note: I've purchased oddball optics from them before and they truly are unique --hubie]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 10, @04:03AM (11 children)
If you manage your business such that if anything ever happens, you can't afford it -- then you will lose your business.
If you manage your life, living paycheck-to-paycheck, with no way to deal with something happening -- you'll lose your house, your car, whatever saves you don't have, and be inelligible for credit.
It sounds like this business was charging unsustainably low prices -- or at least unsustainable for maintaining its (massive?) warehouse. End result: it loses its low prices and it loses its warehouse. When you have a fire-sale it usually gets you through these things, until the next going-out-of-business sale.
GoFundMe might make mismanagement someone else's problem, this time, but it probably won't work a second time (almost certainly not a third).
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 10, @07:43AM (9 children)
More and more small and medium US businesses will suffer the same fate.
I hope you are prepared with other explanations, 'cause it may happen the real case is not a sudden epidemic of businesses stupidity in the US, long live the multinational coprorations as, in their wisdom, they can twist the arm of customers to pay more
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Unixnut on Tuesday June 10, @10:37AM (8 children)
It is very much being "stuck between a rock and a hard place" for small businesses. As AC mentioned the business was living on the knife edge of sustainability and part of the problem was that the prices they were charging were too low.
However even with those low prices, prices at online big corporates like Amazon were lower still, so much so that it was not worth buying at the shop even if someone put the time and effort to go there in person to look at the merchandise and ask questions (as referenced by the anecdote about the telescope).
At this point it sounds like their businesses model is dead and the gofundme may buy it some more time, but unless people actively go there and pay higher prices then they can find online in order to support their local business, it will sooner or later hit the same issues it has now.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 10, @12:11PM (7 children)
How sure are you that Joe Average can pay higher prices today?
How about 3-6mo from now, when the choice will be between sending the minors to pick the crops for the same pittance paying, long hours as the (now deported) immigrants [michigandaily.com] or raise the prices for whatever one can pick and let the rest rot?
See also:
- Who's going to milk the cows? [msn.com]
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 10, @01:55PM (6 children)
False dilemma. The people freaking out about lack of abusable illegals are the soon to be frozen out corporate middlemen.
Something like a pint of blueberries are picked by people in poverty for 25 cents, then resold endlessly by multiple stages of middlemen until the consumer happily pays $5 at a supermarket.
If they have to pay $2/pint for labor, thats fine, the customers are still willing to continue to pay $5/pint so there's STILL $3/pint profit for the middlemen, but thats a lot less than the $4.75/pint of profit the many layers of middlemen were getting and they are freaking out now.
All we need is a nice startup to automate CSAs and maybe a gig economy delivery truck and we can cut the middleman profit to $1/pint for the startup, perhaps.
Big corporate is REALLY mad they won't own slaves anymore, but overall the world will be better off.
The existing system of endless layers of 100% profit middlemen is about to expire and big corporate and their bootlickers are MAD about it, but everyone else will be very happy.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday June 10, @06:29PM (5 children)
Rrrright, because the mighty US economy allowed rent-seekers middlemen that don't do anything useful to proliferate. UberEats or whatever tech brotherhood should be able to disrupt them and get yesterday-picked Florida/California oranges delivered into Fairbanks Alaska, at a price $1/pound.
Come on, enlighten us, which of the grow -> wash/pack -> transport -> cold storage-> distribute -> retail intermediary your disrupting gig-economy techbros are going to eliminate?
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 10, @06:36PM (3 children)
I'm already in two CSAs, which could eliminate the last four. "Some kind of automation app" could help with subscription and delivery.
The farmer makes more money and I pay less for food, it already works, but could be optimized quite a bit. Lots of sales by seeing flyers and word of mouth and payment by paper checks LOL.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 10, @11:28PM (1 child)
Gotta love acronyms: first page of the search on CSA returns Child Sexual Abuse. Oh, not quite, the bottom of the page offers Child Support Association too.
Do you care to translate it for me?
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by deimtee on Wednesday June 11, @12:03PM
The first few results were Christian Schools, Commercial Systems, and Crime Statistics Australia, but I think he means about the 10th result on DDG. - Community Supported Agriculture
https://afsa.org.au/csa/ [afsa.org.au]
200 million years is actually quite a long time.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Tuesday June 10, @11:43PM
Whatever the CSA stands for, do any of the two solves the "oranges in Fairbanks Alaska" problem eliminating the transport step? Maybe some nifty wormhole or teleporter involved?
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 10, @10:16PM
That actually sounds like there is a business opportunity for someone to buy the 3kg packs from the farmers, repackage them into 250 & 500 gram packs and sell locally.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Whoever on Tuesday June 10, @02:29PM
Remember when those large businesses all needed a bail out in 2020?
Were they running unsustainable operations?
(Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Tuesday June 10, @04:23AM (1 child)
Never heard of them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday June 10, @06:50PM
Its a midwest thing. Product line in the 80s was more harbor freight than microcenter, maybe 60:40.
It is/was the shipping crate ebay model, but done brick and mortar. So a company making table top radios would go out of business, they'd buy an entire shipping crate of knobs or gears or similar for a hair over what a recycler would pay or they'd haul it away for free (rather than paying to dispose of) and then they'd sell new but weird parts for not much money at all, like aliexpress prices because really all they're paying for is salaries and operations, the product was nearly free.
What they sold ranged from nearly raw materials up to untested but probably sellable products in what for the time would have been considered a big warehouse or "Big Box Store" although by modern mall/box store standards it wasn't really that huge. It was like maybe an acre or two sized warehouse. IIRC the decor was very "harbor freight" so polished concrete floor, flickering overhead industrial lights.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday June 10, @01:07PM
It's a cool store, and worth a visit. They have a hula-dancer orbital shaker table. :)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday June 10, @01:48PM (3 children)
Me, I suppose. Although the quote is totally wrong.
I've been to their store in the 80s and ordered from them online and made special trips when in the area, I guess they have two in Chicago now. I think the Milwaukee one moved "decades ago" I've not been there recently.
I would advise if you're in the area for business or convention or whatever to visit "The museum of science and industry" and also the downtown museum complex the one with the Field Museum and the aquarium. But I digress.
They see three post 1980s problems:
1) Ebay destroyed the last line in their title. "Surplus". They used to pay scrap value or less pennies on the dollar, sell to retail customers for a quarter, rake in the profits. Now there's WAY too much competition selling on ebay for ... a dime on the dollar and no middleman (well other than ebay and paypal). I remember buying the most insane junk imaginable in the 80s for next to nothing and now they have minimal/no surplus.
2) As a reseller of amazon/temu/aliexpress plastic slop, their prices are simply too high. Nobody needs a middleman between themselves and aliexpress/temu/amazon. Retail is dead in that sector. Go do something else.
3) "Back in the day" employee health insurance was $20/month, you'd pay a high school kid $3.75/hr and he'd think he's rich, land cost/rent was minimal, we still had a functioning middle class economy so you had plenty of customers with spare time and spare money and technical interest, so you could make a profit selling a grocery store sized bag of junk for $10. Those days are over. Labor and real estate simply cost too much for this kind of business to work. Their customer's never had kids or don't have $10 left after paying the bills and they are trying to melt up by selling a grocery store sized bag of fancy imported plastic junk (instead of surplus metal junk) for $200 but there's no supply/demand curve intersection there.
I REALLY don't think Target and Walmart are their competitor unless they've changed wildly in the last decade since I've been to amsci.
Their 80s/90s catalogs were works of art worth viewing. Like a radio shack catalog but with a soul. Are they still that cool? They reminded me of Lindsay Publications catalogs (also loooong gone)
I mean, come on, their prices are higher than Amazon, much less aliexpress and ebay etc, and the place is way out of the way its not a convenience store and they sell NOTHING you can't get faster cheaper and probably better than online.
My friendly locally owned independent model railroad store is doing very well financially and have expanded but they've pivoted into online; they're really a warehouse for ebay that happens to sell direct during limited store hours, undercutting ebay. I don't know if amsci could do it.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 10, @02:35PM (2 children)
This is the same story of why electronic surplus stores died in Silicon Valley.
What is left are ecyclers and bottom feeders that go to ecyclers selling on eBay
with no retail presence at all.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 10, @06:38PM
Yeah they died all over. I'd suggest part of it is logistics. "In the old days" recycling may not have been as prevalent, they built stuff on shore, gotta get rid of "junk" somehow, the surplus store pays more than the garbage trucks charge, so...
Now the factory for small cheap junk is in China, they don't drop ship it here unless its semi-guaranteed to sell, so there is no surplus.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 10, @06:42PM
Another thing, DAK had other additional problems however DAK was ahead of its time. If they hadn't had a little misstep with computers they would have gotten steamrolled by ebay/aliexpress etc exactly like the surplus dealers and amsci.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Tuesday June 10, @04:03PM
I had completely forgotten about AS&S.
A few years ago when I tried to get back on the mailing list for "Things you never knew existed and can't possibly live without" and found out they had gone out of business I didn't think to also check AS&S. I used to buy a ton of stuff from them years ago, then when i got laid off I had to tighten up my budget so I got dropped form their mailing list. Now I've got a positive cash flow again and can start buying stuff from them again.
thanks for the reminder.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."