Believe it or not, Radio Shack (I’m sorry… I’m sorry… The Shack) was once a significant, dare-I-say epochal company.
In 1977, it introduced the very first fully assembled microcomputer, complete with keyboard, monitor, processor, memory, and programming language.
The system (called the TRS-80) was a huge success. And by 1983, computers made up 34.5% of Radio Shack’s revenues.
Then they lost it all to Apple and IBM.
Since then, things haven’t been so good. According to Ad Age, some of the company’s persistent little problems include “an indistinct position in the marketplace, stores a fraction the size of competitors’, and a reputation for less-than-stellar customer service.”
But all that was before “The Shack.”
Surely, this ingenious re-naming will magically fix all of those aforementioned business liabilities, particularly by accentuating the fact that you’re purchasing highly intricate technology components from some guys in a shack.
The only success story here belongs to Butler, Shine, Stern, and Partners—bartering for the clothes of a dying animal.
Had we any shame, we might not even watch.
Tags: Exercises in Futility, Obscure Battery Types, The Shack