RadioShack and hhgregg Can't Bear the Weight, Close Retail Location Businesses
We begin with a super retailer’s death that’s been years in the making – and it’s still not quite over. With 96 years of brick-and-mortar based business in the books and a once thriving retail presence exceeding 7,300 stores, RadioShack is once again waving the white flag and shuttering more stores. As of Memorial Day, 2017, RadioShack closed over 1,000 locations, leaving only 70 corporate stores and 500 dealer stores on American soil. The remaining corporate locations are scheduled to close over the next month.
RadioShack believes it still has legs, and is opting to shift its presence to the Internet, where the company will continue to operate its brand through a virtual storefront on RadioShack.com.
In an effort to raise funds (and cash-in on nostalgia), RadioShack is holding a month-long auction (www.radioshack.com/auction/) featuring prized items from the company’s history. Bidders can win one of several unused original TRS-80 Microcomputers, Realistic Transistor Radios, Tandy computer software games, original brick cell phones, gold commemorative watches, and more.
“We cannot thank you enough for your patronage and support over the years and continued support as we shift to a primarily online business,” the company said in a statement.
Next, we turn to a much shorter-lived member of the larger US electronics retail world, hhgregg. This multiregional consumer electronics chain has been on the ropes from some time, and has finally been dealt a merciful knockout punch. All of hhgregg’s stores and its website have been closed, sadly leaving thousands of workers unemployed.
Traversing to hhgregg’s former webpage takes you directly to a statement from Hilco Steambank, the company charged with auctioning off hhgregg’s intellectual property and related assets. According to the statement, hhgregg operated 220 locations across the Midwest and Southeast during 2016, with revenues reaching $1.66 billion. Its online sales business was smaller, earning $106.4 million during 2016 (up from $93.1 million made in the previous year).
The Indianapolis based business was founded by Henry Harold Gregg and wife in 1955, and grew to be the fifth largest national appliance retailer in the United States. Its growth outside of the Indianapolis area was peppered with stumbling blocks, and the company spent nearly two decades falling to its current fate.
