by Cubdriver » Mon Sep 15, 2014 10:41 pm
I don't think we can really blame online purchasing for Rat Shack's demise - I'd say they slit their own throats starting back in the late 90s when it seems by my recollection that they began cutting down on parts and kits, and became a Christmas toy store that sold some other electronic stuff. If you REALLY want components, I think there are some in the corner in that dusty little cabinet, go take a look. Oh, a what? What's that? I really don't know what those are. Sorry, we don't have any of them. But wait - before you go, can we talk about your cell phone plan?
Online purchasing is one of the nails in their coffin, for sure, but it seems they've been rudderless and adrift for quite some time now.
It's interesting - when I first started getting involved in electronics back in the mid-late 70s, Digi Key and Mouser had little catalogs that were like thin magazines, Digi Key's being what, 30 or so 11 x 17 sheets stapled in the middle and folded over? Now both have catalogs the size of phone books. It hurts to look at the Rat Shack catalogs from the 60s - how much they changed, even by the time I started in the 70s. Perhaps if they'd had more of a mail order presence to begin with (as DK & Mouser did) that could have naturally morphed into online dealings, they'd not be in such dire straits. As it is, their website seems almost an afterthought, and is not in any way user friendly as far as searching for parts goes. I just called up resistors. I can filter by power rating, but beyond that the options are best sellers, or price H-L or L-H. Values in any of the sort modes are all over the place, and you have to slog through to find anything. Digi Key on the other hand has an amazing search engine that lets you drill down to exactly what you want - RS is a joke in comparison.
It will hurt to see them go because they played a huge part in my early interest in electronics - P-box kits, Archerkits, XXX-in-one project kits, a local source for components, etc, but at this point they're no longer even a shadow of what they were. I was in one in New Mexico a few months back and one I visited there actually had (to my great surprise) some kits and experimenter's boards. I'm not sure if this is part of the re-vamp that's likely too little too late, or a function of the owner of the store (he was an older gent, and had a few big transmitting tubes on display up on the shelf, so he seemed more of an electronics guy), but it was a pleasant Radio Shack experience for a change. Sadly it was also an anomaly as a Radio Shack experience in the past 10-15 years. And he had the switches I needed, as well.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this other than to say that I'll miss them, but I think it will be more of a nostalgia thing than practical since they've moved so far from what they once were.
-Pat