This company has a bright future.

I spent over 4000 dollars there between 1980 and 1988. The biggest was the sta 2100 reciever. Most powerful one they ever offered. Still plays till this day.

To me, Radio Shack was like Disneyland for audio and electronics geeks. In the 90's, when Radio Shack abandoned electronic enthusiasts for cell phone sales, Fry's Electronics kind of took over, but Fry's didn't offer as many raw components as RS and their staff was totally incompetent. I still remember those drawers of transistors, resistors, MOSFETs, caps, pots, and so on at Radio Shack. Back then, when I asked for 5 kOhm resistors with 5% tolerance I didn't get that "Bambi in the headlights" look from the guy at the counter. He even knew which drawer to open, and he recommended 1% tolerance resistors instead as they were only a few cents more expensive! Try and find this kind of knowledgeable service today. Bare speakers, receivers, cassette decks, EQs, and those legendary Mach 3 speakers. What great memories! So sad it's all gone. Man! I miss the 80's!

Back in the days and before when you can walk into a Radio Shack and at least one salesman had a ham license. You could spend hours in there getting ideas, looking at new equipment. A lot of good memories.

Rumour has it Marty went delinquent on the cordless phones

This was an actual RadioShack located in near mid-city LA. They should have done a training video on civil unrest, cos everything you see in this store was looted (even the front store sign) during the 1992 riots. The sign somehow made its way to a privately owned signage museum.

At the 23:40 mark I am surprised Marty doesn't drop his pen and say "HEY I'M RIGHT HERE I CAN HEAR YOU!!"

Oh, Lord. A "brown store" I managed 6332 in Roseville, MI from 2001-2002. All the other stores had moved on to the gray store model, but we were waiting for a new space in the Eastgate Center. The next mgr did that move, while I was promoted to the Oakland Mall store (Troy, MI). A little boy asked me why my store was different. I told him we were standing in a time capsule from 1972. 😄

Makes me want to own and run a Radio Shack!

"please make you ashtrays remain clean". It's hard to believe there was a time in this country where people could freely smoke anywhere.

Man, I miss Radio Shack.

This video is pre-1990, before they incorporated The Technology Store 'look'. That said, they mention CD or Compact Disc, in the beginning of the video, so that places the time frame in the late 1980's. I'd guess the video came out in 1986 or 87. Dry as the content may be, 'corporate' was pretty inflexible on their expectations, especially when it came to store presentation. Keep in-mind the timeframe in which this video was released predates the likes of Best Buy, Target, MediaPlay, Circuit City, etc... The Internet didn't exist as we know it, there was no Amazon or ebay. Sears, Kmart, JCPenny, Montgomery Wards, & Prange's were some of the main retailers of the day. Radio Shack in those days was very unique in the product lines that it carried. TV/Stereos, Computers, Phones, CB Radio/Scanners/Shortwave Radios, Car Stereos, Burgler Alarms, & Electronic Parts - just to name a few. No other retailer covered all of those catagories under one roof, at that time, on a nationwide basis.

Turns out Marty was an easy mark and was talked into opening 15 high interest credit card accounts that week.

Radio Shack should have morphed into a Circuit City or a Best Buy. Sears should have morphed into Amazon. They both dropped the ball and paid the price.

I miss these stores already.

4:34: last *new* 8-track player -- sold until 1990!

I still have the Tandy 1000 PC, in good working condition, shown in the video, handed down freely to me from a family friend back in the mid 1990s. 04/19/24

They also did repair on all make&model. This just in Radio shack is back! In Oakville,Ontario Canada

"But what do we tell a customer if he's been declined?" (Smiles) "We tell him to get his broke ass outta here!"

I don't remember the local Radioshacks having so many walls....

So my battery of the month card is worthless ??

10:30 Keep those ashtrays clean!!!! LOL :)

I owned a Tandy 1000 when it was new and cutting edge. It was a piece of shit. I very soon moved to IBM. I also had a model 100. It was a great piece of gear. I used the hell out of it years beyond it's intended life.

Really cool video, thanks for posting! This "model" Radioshack of the past looks like a small "Bestbuy" maybe they failed because they stayed "Small" and easy to forget

The store here said " be sure and stack the radio control cars and planes in front so the customer can see them before entering . "

16:52 - The CitiLine Credit Card was Radio Shack's first credit card. The CitiLine was accepted at Radio Shack, as well as Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Diners Club, and Carte Blanche.

The Radio Shack in this video is massive! Every store I set foot in while they were around was 1/4th the size.

Mistake 1... fill out the app for the customer asking them all the questions.. and "most applications approved" heck i recall there being maybe 25% approval rate..

23:08 They really stressed that $20 minimum, note the balance is due in 33 months, so only true up to $660. Yet approval cedit lines up to $25,000. I never really understood the business model of this store being an early 80's baby and having worked there a short stint in the early 2000's. By this time their model was built off cell phone sales and lies. Employee moral was low. Daily returns that employees avoided due to backlash from management. Felt dirty everyday going in to work. They were in desperate need of store managers. In my mid 20's at the time, glad I changed course and went back to school instead of persuing a career with them.

2:18 There used to be Disney games about the structure of Government? wow 😂

Radio shacks always had a really cool smell

I wish I would have had some foresight and invested in technology and Internet stocks

I like how their "colour" game demo is blue lol. I guess that counts

You can fit just about anything you see here one single cell phone!

Ahhh the good ol days.

This would've been better if all the 1st cumeomer wanted were "AA" batteries

Everything in that store is now on your phone.

Those mustaches thou...

Why am I watching this?

Couple of academy award winners here huh?

Radio Shack was my life as a kid and for several years when I was old enough to work. I worked at the very first franchise store (22-F002) before later working at a couple of company-owned locations. Here's a video taken in 1989 at 22-F002: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ebqafq-dlquvh40.html

This video needs a few Freakazoid cameos (the blue kid-friendly deadpool, for those who don't remember)

In 2015, Radio Shack filed for bankruptcy and all 9,400 stores have closed down.

do you have a top loading vcr with a dew light.

“Hi, I’m interested in buying a clock that is also a radio. What are your options?”

I want all the stuff in that store. :)

@26:22, he was proud of that sale.

Awesome

30-40 minutes to get credit approval?

Where is the PCworld employee video?

Citibank, the issuer of Radio Shack's Citiline credit card, is still the issuer of more MasterCard and VISA cards than any other financial institution in the world.

An answering machine and two phones for $500 in 1980s money??

The only place in the world where you would walk in, buy a 9 volt battery, and be asked for your name, address, phone number, SSN, and DOB. They drove a lot of people away.

alot of that stuff is the same price today

They sell COLOR computers? Sounds super expensive

How about a cordless phone , you'll love it Mister Customer as it breaks and you make 12 return trips to the store so I can try and sell you more crap . It's Radio Shack way of getting you back in the store, by selling you defective merchandise.

Wow. Thanks for posting this. What year is this? 1984?

4:59 my neighbors hated the Mach 2

21:19 Marty is a piece of putty customer. The salesman is rolling on him.

@ my store, the phone box for the mall was in my backroom, we use to hook up a handset via clips and I'd listen to the hot manager next door at slack shack talk phone sex to her boyfriend or I'd answer incoming calls to other stores and pretend I was that store, and curse the caller out for calling lol .

Kids think those phone dials 1abc. 2def. 3ghi are for texting

At least a couple dozen pieces of electronics products, all replaced by 1 smartphone.

Ash trays should be kept clean .

Don't use too many burst signs? Come on! What if everything's on special?

Like many, when I was a kid, RadioShack and Home Depot (and Ace Hardware) were my toy stores. Sure I liked Legos and videogames, but I hated typical toys stores. Around the year 2000, I got hired at RadioShack because I walked in to buy one of those white AC adapter bricks with the blue print for my portable speaker set. The store manager was the first to engage me, he asked me if 500 mah would be enough, I said no, they say 900 mah so I'd have to get the 1 amp brick, I think it's an M plug (remember the spider with all the plug ends, each hanging off a foot of wire?) and then I went to the shelf where they had the display of my speakers, brought them to the adapter wall and tested the plug in the socket, and noted the polarity of the plug. He rang me up, didn't offer me any of the bullshit promo stuff, which at the time was 3 cell phone carriers, cell phone accessory bundles, 2 satellite TV carriers, MSN ISP, a Compaq computer, item of the week, battery card.....probably missing like 20 other things. Instead of all that, he offered me a job, just because I read directions and walked in knowing what I needed. That was the standard, having a grasp of AC adapters. See, as expensive as radio shack was, and because they were primarily commission based, they had got in the habit of hiring salesman at the expense of hiring competent people who had even a tiny speck of technological comprehension. I spent nearly 2 woeful years being the only person on staff besides the head manager that could read resistors and most other components, without a chart, and nobody else besides us could solder effectively. I used to quiz my coworkers, many 10-20 years older than me and years of experience, on everything from ohms law to PC usage just so they'd stop asking me stupid questions and looking foolish to savvy customers. Of course, the more I taught them, the more they retained customers and commission, but the head manager would throw sales my way here and there to compensate. The only thing most of them could do is hook up a Stereo, and they still managed to screw that up from time to time. He just never could find anyone who wanted to work there who both wanted to be a salesman and also knew shit about shit, probably because my city was mid tech boom at the time, literally everyone who knew anything about electronic anything could easily have a better job that didn't have sales quotas. The other problem was, my manager was also a rank asshole, and had a nervous breakdown shortly after I quit to pursue one of those non-commission jobs. I....can't imagine I had anything to do with that...I only told him in front of the other associates that he was driving away the one candidate he had to take his place so he could get a cushy corporate job, and if he left one of THOSE jackasses in charge, he'd look like an asshole before he even saw his new desk. The others laughed, despite being offended, probably just shock because they all tiptoes around and babies his ego. Honestly, I was just talking shit on my way out the door, they all knew it, but it seemed I was incidentally right as well. I can imagine having it spelled out for him with an audience by an 18 year old cocky know-it-all jack ass apparently rang through his head a bit too often. He snapped pretty bad, as far as one can go without assaulting anyone, mumbling about getting shafted. It eesmed the higher-ups agreed with me, the new guy they brought in to replace had only started about a year before this, and he was already being groomed for corporate over the first manager who was a 10 year veteran, and he found out about it. When I think of RadioShack, I still think of the good times, but his permafrown still lurks, haunts those memories. My legacy was that I worked at my favorite store, and damn near burned it down. His legacy is passive aggressively teaching me how to handle an imploding narcissist, though detecting those kinds of people ahead of time took much longer to learn. I guess he also taught me to set boundaries with bosses and not take undue BS. It was the perfect first job. I've never told anyone that whole story before, somehow seemed like the right place to leave it. Kind of sums up everything that went wrong with the company, every time they brought in fresh healthy blood, they pushed it right back out the door again. Don't get me started on those damn Blockbuster injections and mall stores. Blockbuster crossover made sense in concept, but the price points were all wrong, and the color schemes were hideous haha truly what the kids today would call "Farming Ls". Jesus, did you read this whole thing?

How old are these videos

Citiline was a huge pain in that ass. BUt, Can make you a hell of a sale if your patient

Who in their right mind would spend $25,000 at Radio Shack?

Radio shack was always a bout brain washing I know I used to be a Radio shack Sales man.

dammit, I miss the shack..

If the credit is declined , then the application should be destroyed IN front of the customer . NOT need to sent in .

THE ASHTRAYS SHOULD BE CLEAN

Radio shack was going to reorganize and become Suit Shack. but realise that the suits are just as crappie.

1985

Radio Shack started assaulting customers when they walked in and then when you actually needed healp finding a certain component they were dumb as rocks. SO you had to go hunting anyway.

You gotta make it sound like your doing the customer a favor, while peddling junk that won't last a month ..

16:15 for personal future reference

If you have to borrow $500 from the bank to make your radio shack purchase, YOU CAN’T AFFORD IT.

2:23...the what?

40 mins is too long too wait for a credit decision...also too much paper work 😂

That sales trainee with the lisp is a little light in the loafers 😂😂😂

“Can I get the last four digits of your phone number?”

I'm getting paid to watch this, right?

its 2023. AARRGGHHHHHHHH

Just sign away your soul..

those radio shack stores were ugly

ahh neat, the time before capitalism went to a complete disaster!

What a pain in the ass.

Radio Shack was my life as a kid and for several years when I was old enough to work. I worked at the very first franchise store (22-F002) before later working at a couple of company-owned locations. Here's a video taken in 1989 at 22-F002: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ebqafq-dlquvh40.html