I am unemployed and careerbuilder.com shows they are hiring here. Never been much of a public greeter kind of person, tho, so I'm not sure I would last 2 weeks.

Just wondering what someone who has been there would say.

I ran a Radio Shack store at the Orange Circle in Orange CA late Spring and Summer of 1975. I was the ONLY store employee during most of my tenure. I opened the store at 10:00 AM, closed it at 9:00 PM M-S; SUN 12:00-5:00 PM. It always took a couple hours after closing to clean up, do the books, etc. LONG DAYS. The pay plan was basically minimum wage (based on a 40 hour week....), plus a "bonus", which could (should) be most of the pay. 80-120 hour weeks. It was BRUTAL.

They seemed to have preference for retired military folks, who have always worked their butts off, and don't know any better, don't complain. Former military, out of a job at the end of Viet-Nam, degree in Math, I lasted a little over 6 months as a manager. They used to send new people [prospective managers] to training (all expenses paid) to Dallas to the corporate offices for a week of training, which actually was pretty good. Training periods in local stores varied according to how much manager turnover there was at the rest of the local stores.

I quit, did not get fired, and never got yelled at for not doing what they wanted. I got good bonuses, and doubled the store volume over the previous manager. If I have ever had a worse job, it does not occur to me at the moment. It cured me of ever pursuing a career in retail. Turnover of employees seems high, to me. The man that replaced me evidently left after losing a day's reciepts; he didn't last too long. He claimed some kind of armed robbery. Two weeks after the investigation, he was no where to be seen. He told me someone stuck a very large handgun in his face, and demanded money at closing time. It might have happpened that way. I had previously noticed some seedy looking characters floating around near closing time, on a couple of occasions. Not good. Radio Shack never cheated me in any way, and I never cheated them.

Another manager down the road a piece left suddenly, after he failed to give a "shopper" (security person in disguise) a reciept. There are two things you can do to get fired from Radio Shack: Fail to give a reciept for each and every sale, and fail to make a daily deposit of the days reciepts. They are inflexible, and unforgiving. That's probably a GOOD thing.

The worst of it is that they sell a LOT of what could be gently termed "crap", or "Fluff" - very low cost items, prepackaged in a way to sell a lot more than any customer really wanted or needed. The Stuff marked "untested" mean that the items started a test series but could not complete the testing because of a failure. Useful for some purpose or other, no doubt. But, not fully functional. Radio Shack saw nothing wrong with this practice.

Other items look a LOT like more expensive equipment of other (sometimes presitgious) brands (Sylvania, Jensen, and others), much the same way Sears labels things form Maytag, RCA, and others as "Kenmore". The derivative brands are almost always de-rated, or downgraded in some way. Prices are lower, but profit margins are actually higher.

Quality Consumer electronics is worth (on a per-pound basis) about the same as Live Maine Lobster delivered to the West Coast. Check it out, you'll see what I mean. Radio Shack electronics items are REALLY LIGHT, but cost only slightly less, compared with similar-looking items at other stores. If you need what they have, by all means go there. It is not all bad.

The gross profit (average markup) at Radio Shack then was about 45%, where ordinary retail stores ran about 30%. It was in fact, highly profitable for Mr. Tandy, et al. During 1975, Radio Shack had Radio Shack, Tandy Wire and Cable, and Allied for industrial stuff.

Allied Electronics was acquired by Radio Shack (Tandy) in about 1965. Federal Gov't. forced divestiture some time after 1975, owing to monopoly concerns, or something. Allied is now Allied Industrial Electronics, and is whole once again, not burdened with the fluff Radio Shack seems to love.

Our local Radio Shack (L&S Enterprises, an SMIA store [as opposed to a "company store"] recently closed in our town. There have been two or more radio shacks here (at the same time!). Both are gone like a cool breeze.

Radio Shack USED to have 3 kinds of stores:

Company stores - Company owned and operated
SMIA stores - Manager Incentive Associate Stores where an individual fronted a lot of money for inventory, and then operated the sotre for a larger share of profits
Dealers - Stores which were not primarily Radio Shack stores, but which were authorized to sell Radio Shack branded items.

If you need a lot of "fluff" go to Radio Shack.

Just my $0.02

Thats a lot of information. Thanks.


Brad

Well my experience is a little more recent. I worked at RS while I went to college (91-95). It was an easy job if you like electronics and can talk the talk. The pay was ok It was based off commission. You got an hourly rate plus a small percentage of your sales. It was also tiered, the more you sold the more percentage you got of the total sales. EX if you sold $100.00 and hour you would get 9% if you sold $120.00 an hour you would get 10.5% If you didn't make a certain sales amount you were just paid min wages or whatever your base pay was. They had pretty good medical but it was pricey. The only way to make decent money is to like selling electronics and be willing to learn their methods. They have a training program for each type of product they sell, knowledge is power when it comes to selling, about 12 books in all. Since i last was there it has seem to gone down hill. The people lately are stupid and don't care about what they are doing.
If you want to do well go to a mall store or search for a really good strip store, they make the most. You can tell by their total sales volume of the store and where their sales people rank among all the district. Volume is king, but mall stores are harder to work, most people are just looking where as the strip stores have mainly people who know what they want but volume isn't always there.
hope this helps

[This message has been edited by Grim001 (edited 02-10-2009).]

I'm a 10 year veteran of RadioShack, am currently an assistant manager. I'm content with the job, I live two blocks from the store.

The training you need is supplied at an easy pace. If you watch the other employees, follow the instruction, you'll be fine. I've trained many people over the years, some aren't cut out for retail, some are. With in four or five days, you'll know if you can hack it.

If you get a good manager, it makes a world of difference. I've worked mall stores and strip stores. Used to be, the malls were the busiest, but over the last few years, the strip stores are selling more than the mall stores.

I've been the top salesperson for the last 5 years, and in the top five since I started in my district. The selling isn't hard, learning to help the customers find what they need when they ask for a "whatyacall" is a challenge.

As posted already, the pay-scale is what you make it. If you "clerk" then min wage, learning to sell cell phones and other products that pay "spiffs" will earn you more. Add on items are a great way to sell more. Assume the sale, when a product needs batteries, bring then to the counter, say you will need these to make this work. Don't ask, would you like batteries ? If you give a customer a yes or no question, they will say no.

Learn to ask for the sale. This is thing hardest for most people to learn, showing a product is one thing, but asking for the sale, it can be done in many ways. Would you like that in blue , or my favorite, would that be three or four of those ? (when it's obvious they only need one) This case would would protect your new product. On and on, there are many ways to ask for the sale, just ask.

My customers know they can trust me, as I don't BS them. when a question is asked, and I don't know, I'll help them find the answer. If I have three products, and the expense one is chosen, if I know it's a crappy product, I'll tell them, this one would be better, it's less, but works better. They love that, and usually buy more from me.

Another thing to learn is, if a customer asks for a fuse or resistor, take then to the drawer location, say you can find these in this section, then add let me know if you need anything else, then walk away. Spending time watching a customer pick out three dollars worth of crap, when a larger sale might walk through the door is stupid. If the customer is asks how do I wire this, or what resistor will make this work, we say sir , mamm, we don't have have that knowledge. It's up to them to know what they need from the drawers. It's a complete waste of time. Sound unkind, but trust me, a three dollar sale, vs a 450 ring credit for an air card that is free to a customer. It's a no brainer, the larger sale.


The former management team with Len Roberts in the headquarters used to have a saying, "There are two jobs at RadioShack, those that serve the customer, and those that serve the servers"

Back then, the support we got at the store level was great. Need something, headquarters will help.

That has changed, now, the store level people are the lowest form of life in the company. The economy is down, the pencil pushers still don't understand that people just aren't buying crap like they used to, but they still insist we sell more each day to beat last years numbers.

When we don't make the numbers, they lambaste you, and tell you your not doing your job, threating your job over it.

I often want to scream at them, Hey, wake the fark up and shut the fack up ! But it wouldn't do any good.

I worked in Md , near Washington for 25 years, made the money I needed for life, brought it to Florida, so I'm not to worried over the threats.

[This message has been edited by CoolBlue87GT (edited 02-11-2009).]

aside from the responses here.....no offence either

Chuck,
I think you are brighter than "most " RS employees.
I would think SOME knowledge of electronics would be needed for the job, but not in my town it seems. Luckly for them I know what I am looking for there

to some..it is just a paycheck.

Well, it's a lot to consider. The bottom line for me I guess is that I'm not especially comfortable dealing with the public in a retail setting, regardless of the nature of the product (technical, shoes, fast-food = doesn't matter). Sounds like at RS, what I don't know I could learn, and that part is attractive to me. But very little else I have heard is.

I think I will wait and leave it as a last resort, and if there are no openings available when I get to that point, then fine, I won't be upset.

I just now finished filling out a very long aptitude questionnaire thing for a Satellite Technician Apprentice for DRS who contracts for Dish Network. With proper training, I think I would enjoy that.

But I NEED to get back into a school for some training in something new. I have known that for a long time and keep waiting to find out what programs/courses would best apply to me. Guess I need to make a decision quick and get started on something.

I appreciate all the replies!