I was in the same boat. I had the top PBA (parts, batteries, and accessories) sales in my district by 3x over #2. Even though PBA was the stuff with the highest profit margin, I still had to go to those cell phone meetings because I only sold about one phone a month, on average. Nobody else in my store would go near the parts section, so that was essentially my job. And we had enough business in that area that it was my /full time/ job. So I had two choices: help those customers, or don't because I'm too busy trying to sell cell phones. As anyone who's ever bought or sold a cellphone knows, it's a long process to get everything set up and see the customer out. When a cellphone transaction is happening, everything else stops, so customers looking for help finding a fuse or battery are SOL and end up leaving.

In my (anecdotal) experience working at 2 different Radio Shacks in different parts of the country with vastly different demographics, RS didn't need cellphones (or laptops, or TVs). I would claim that the cellphone business drove away more customers than it brought in. If RS was a simple, no-hassle PBA retailer, I am convinced that it wouldn't be in the shape it is in now.

"they made two critical mistakes"

I'd say there's a third critical mistake, harvesting the customer stream and selling them an "every two years" phone which they pay for by postal mail bill and never have a reason to return to your store again and if they did you know they'd have $100/month less to spend at your store. And abandoning whatever reason the customer stream had for visiting so you will never get any new customers.

It would be like a bar forcing all its employees to do absolutely nothing other than convince thirsty patrons to quit drinking and start going to AA meetings in the church basement, and paying them a commission when the customer agrees to leave and never come back to the bar. And doing this for so long that everyone in the drinking community knows theres no reason to go to that bar anymore other than to get harassed to go to AA meetings. Hmm I wonder how long a bar managed like that would last?

I recently bought some BNC to RCA adapters from Radio Shack at $7 a pop. I thought they were screwing me on it, but I needed them that day so I bought them anyway. But if you look online, the average price for them is about $4+shipping. About a 70% markup, not that bad really considering a lot of the stuff they carry is pretty obscure.

Selling an item for 70% more that others sell at a 400% markup ≠ 70% markup.

Do you know of any retail stores that still sell electronics components besides Radio Shack? Honestly, that will be what makes me the saddest when they go - when I really need a switch, resistor, or LED I just don't know of any other store that I can walk into and have it right now.

Fry's has a decent component selection depending on the exact store, but nothing in the Bay Area I've seen compared to HSC in Santa Clara; it's a huge warehouse full of everything from aisles of reels of surface-mount components to shelves and shelves of used test equipment.

Not everyone lives in California. I did for 2 years after getting my BS in EE, and Fry's was something I had never seen the like of in my life. Both northern and southern Cali have an unusual concentration of electrical engineers.

RadioShack is the only retail store I have heard of, in Delaware or Maryland or southern New Jersey, that has resistors, capacitors, bread boards, etc.

I think, at least where I live, that role is filled mostly by local speciality stores. I can think of a few in the Toronto area, and they don't exist outside Southern Ontario.

Ah Active Surplus. There is one thing that I miss from my Canadian days!