When I worked at RadioShack (several years ago) there was a near-constant stream of people coming in to purchase cellphones. As an employee I got a fairly good cash bonus every time I sold one, so I imagine RadioShack made a LOT of money off cellphones and accessories. For example: The cellphone sale itself was $X cash to me but accessories were $2X, $3X, or $4X as more were purchased. A brand new featurephone with 3 accessories and a warranty netted me roughly $75-100 cash for the sale. The warranty was actually good, too. We sent lots of different kinds of phones back in a re-usable plastic box to a repair facility somewhere. People seemed to trust Radio Shack more for cellphone purchases than the brand stores across the road.
However, that was back when Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T stores weren't as easy to find as they are now. I imagine they're not able to attract nearly as much cellphone traffic as they did before.
One of the metrics they kept track of was something like "dollars per sale" (they had a slicker name for it, of course). That salesperson had probably just checked the store's $/sale listing (quickly available to the salespeople on the sales terminals) and was grumpy because his wasn't quite right.
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When I worked at RadioShack (several years ago) there was a near-constant stream of people coming in to purchase cellphones. As an employee I got a fairly good cash bonus every time I sold one, so I imagine RadioShack made a LOT of money off cellphones and accessories. For example: The cellphone sale itself was $X cash to me but accessories were $2X, $3X, or $4X as more were purchased. A brand new featurephone with 3 accessories and a warranty netted me roughly $75-100 cash for the sale. The warranty was actually good, too. We sent lots of different kinds of phones back in a re-usable plastic box to a repair facility somewhere. People seemed to trust Radio Shack more for cellphone purchases than the brand stores across the road.
However, that was back when Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T stores weren't as easy to find as they are now. I imagine they're not able to attract nearly as much cellphone traffic as they did before.
The last time I was in an RS it was for a capacitor. I found the bin (in the back of the store), dug out what I needed, and went to pay for it.
The salesman just sneered at me and didn't even trouble to ring it up; he just gave it to me and waved me out the door.
I haven't been back.
I'll stop by one this morning, I'm curious if they've changed at all.
Since when is free stuff an insult?
One of the metrics they kept track of was something like "dollars per sale" (they had a slicker name for it, of course). That salesperson had probably just checked the store's $/sale listing (quickly available to the salespeople on the sales terminals) and was grumpy because his wasn't quite right.