RadioShack's 'Bleak' Ending Is Playing Out Online

Depressing tweets as once-giant retailer shuts more than 1,000 stores
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 1, 2017 9:45 AM CDT
RadioShack's 'Bleak' Ending Is Playing Out Online
Where are we going to get our three-band amplified listeners now?   (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)

As we all headed back to work after the Memorial Day weekend, little did we know that our options for purchasing germanium diodes, walkie-talkies, and electrolytic capacitors were starting to cruelly be yanked away. RadioShack has shuttered more than 1,000 of its storefronts since the holiday weekend and says it will have only 72 company-owned locations by Thursday, though USA Today was given a list that showed just 70, mostly in New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas. There will still be 500 or so dealer-owned stores that carry RadioShack-branded products. It's an anticlimactic fadeaway for a chain that used to be one of the most well-known and ubiquitous electronics retailers in the country—it once boasted more than 7,000 stores—and it was done in by online shopping, filing for bankruptcy twice within a two-year span, per USA Today.

Fortune laments the online "carnage" that played out on Twitter as RadioShack offered a massive liquidation sale over the weekend, in which it opted for "unadulterated bleakness" as it tried to answer a question spurred by today's social media: "How do you toast a brand's final days when the world is watching?" Tweets included photos of empty store display equipment now up for purchase, as well as products with hugely slashed prices and "grab-bag" events. "This could be your last chance to shop at #radioshack. See if a location near you is closing forever!" read one of the store's posts. A press release offered a similarly poignant announcement: "Many … nostalgic items will be up for auction over the next 30 days." (So much for Nick Cannon helping transform the retailer into the "must visit electronics destination.")

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X