@dave
I think that you’ve missed the difference between a household product and a household hack.

Sure you can put a $50 development board inside an alarm clock, but your household product isn’t likely to make it to many houses as it just won’t be competitive with the $5 alarm clocks sold everywhere.

@bhtooefr
What’s the point in that? if I want it now I don’t want to wait four hours, and if I want it next day then I can get it delivered to my house and not have to go out again.

Better to stock a full catalogue of parts in each and every store, have a maximum stock of 10 with a reorder level of five.
re-order in bulk so that you’re not just shipping five resistors, but shipping hundreds or millions or different components at different values.

indeed your idea of having components delivered specially is only going to drive up costs of parts even more as they have to be couriered to store especially for you!

sorry, I realised that after posting…

I guess I should have qualified what I was writing more.

Arduinos are pretty cool, and offer a great entry point (shallow learning curve). but as we’ve both said now you’ll find them in household hacks where people put something together themselves. to get a job done easily.
but you (nor other manufacturers) won’t be taking them to market any time soon as there are more complex (steeper learning curve) but cheaper options/technologies available.

I was kind of trying to say that there is a difference between something that you make yourself, and a household appliance.

Not that you can’t make household appliances yourself, but I thought that the guy was asking about commercial products.

Oh yeah, another thought germinated,

Open Source Hardware…

What If? RS stocked a few of the beams, hinges, mounts, gears, brackets designed by the OSHW
community? It would go against the typical corporate mindset of holding onto Intellectual Property with an iron fist, but if every BEAM or prototype builder knew they could get a few basic parts at RS, as well as motors, switches, ardweenoes, LED’s and relays…?

SO I walked into a radio shack today to [pick up some random things I had been thinking about on my way home from work. I asked the clerk if he knew when the store would be getting the new products aimed at the electronics hobby market. He had no idea what I was talking about. ouch.

The Shack was originally started with hackers as an intended demographic target. There was a book (sold by Radio Shack) about its origins. The title was something along the line of “To Catch A Rabbit, Make A Noise Like A Carrot”. It tells how Tandy started out selling war surplus electronics, knowing it would be disassembled and used for cheap parts. In the ’70s and ’80s, you could buy an etched circuit board for a power supply or a stereo delay line, or other similar projects, with schematics, parts list, and instructions. Every part was carried by the Shack. They lost me when thay stopped offering this hacker-friendly kind of merchandise.

I’ve definitely had occasion of needing single chips that used to be stocked at radioshack. I just bought 100 inverting shift registers online. Why 100? Because the shipping cost of 5 was completely unreasonable. I now have 100 components for 25c each, whereas I only needed 4. If radioshack sold something so basic for $2.50 each then I’d happily have paid, and they’d have made good profit in doing so.

I think radioshack should design itself similar to Maplins in UK, a store that is “sharper image meets computer store”, but has a large range of components and project kits with knowledgable staff.

When will these things start being stocked?

I stopped by my local RS the other day and didn’t see any new or different items yet.

I cant stand the customer that comes and wants a part then says it is too much. Our little parts our 2 or 3 dollars if that and the reason why we dont carry as much parts as we use to is becuase you are the customer that come in once year to buy that 2 dollar product and it is not worth it we want repeat customers and also i hate when you buy something online like a part or hdmi cable and it works half ass and you come in wanting me to show you how it works and why isnt working. You guys also buy everything online and then get all pissed off when everything in your town is closing up shop. But we all know it is not your fault that it happens because you are the baby boomers and wiz kids who do nothing wrong. You also like to get on here saying how much you hate radioshack kind of like you are sticking it to the man. GET A LIFE and dont complain about a company that still employees quality people with families.