I went to a local Radio Shack the other day to get a cheap soldering iron.
There was one person in the store, sitting at a fold-up table with a Sprint table cloth over it. They explained that I wouldn't be able to buy anything except cell phones because the Radio Shack employee had gone on break.
I've said for 10 years now that Radio Shacks problem was its focus on cell phones. Employees were highly incentivised to sell phones, and everything else suffered as a result.
Just as mentioned in another comment...Anyone can sell phones now, and once that became a reality, they began competing with much leaner business models that focused on phone sales with much lower overheads.
There was one person in the store, sitting at a fold-up table with a Sprint table cloth over it. They explained that I wouldn't be able to buy anything except cell phones because the Radio Shack employee had gone on break.
I've said for 10 years now that Radio Shacks problem was its focus on cell phones. Employees were highly incentivised to sell phones, and everything else suffered as a result.
Just as mentioned in another comment...Anyone can sell phones now, and once that became a reality, they began competing with much leaner business models that focused on phone sales with much lower overheads.