Radio Shack to close 20 percent of the stores it actually still has

By Sean O'Neal | March 4, 2014 | 9:46pm

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In news that will surely prompt a candlelight vigil of a million burning Battery Club Cards, Radio Shack has announced that it will close around 1,100 of its stores/boxes of loose cables soon. That massive cut—representing about 20 percent of Radio Shack’s 5,000 remaining stores—followed an especially bad fourth quarter, in which not even a tongue-in-cheek Super Bowl commercial starring ALF and Hulk Hogan succeeded in convincing America that Radio Shack was more than just a barely remembered ’80s relic. Thanks in no small part to the exorbitant appearance fees of Teen Wolf, the company reported a $191.4 million loss during that period (compared to $63.3 million last year), making for a total 2013 loss of $400 million—or approximately 10 million weather radios.

Speaking to the New York Times, Radio Shack’s recently, surely regrettably installed chief executive Joseph Magnacca attributed that dramatic downslide to “a holiday season characterized by lower store traffic,” when not even the Christmas season could help Radio Shack compete against the vast selection and far more competitive pricing of Amazon, or the modern child’s apathy toward remote-control cars. Still, soon-to-be-laid-off employees of Radio Shack can hopefully find new work by being retrofitted into one of Amazon’s delivery drones, provided they can find the right adaptor. Maybe check Radio Shack?