[TriLUG] Radio Shack: was Old Dog In Need of New Trick - Digital TV Recording

[Steve Litt]

On Mon, 10 Feb 2014 11:53:10 -0500
Bill Farrow <bill at arrowsreach.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 10, 2014 at 11:17 AM, Brian <lugmail at cheetah.dynip.com>
> wrote:
> > source for components.  They'll have to stop charging $1.99 for a
> > single ordinary 5mm LED to get there, though.
> 
> Opening a retail store to sell electronics components in this area
> would be very risky financially. Sure, there is demand from the local
> makers and do-it-yourself-ers, but you would have to charge a lot more
> than the mail order places to cover rent and payroll. You would need
> to carry a large amount of stock, some of which won't turn over for
> very quickly at all.
> 
> How would you structure this type of business to make it profitable ?

Big challenge. Not easy. For starters, you'd need to become nationwide
like All Electronics, via a descent website.

> 
> I think that local hacker spaces could fill some of this niche. They
> could stock kits and basic essential parts, with a self serve honor
> system for purchasing at the space. I think Splatspace in Durham
> already does this for electronics kits.

This is a second thing. Besides web marketing, you could get to know
all the local hacker spaces. This might justify the actual store, as
opposed to a warehouse.

I spoze you could also market to hackerspaces across the country.

SteveT

Steve Litt                *  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance