Radio Shack History

Radio Shack was founded in 1921 by two brothers, Milton and Theodore Deutschmann. The company's office was situated in the center of Boston, Massachusetts. The idea of this initiative was to provide necessary equipment for radio officers and ham radio operators. That's why the name "Radio Shack" had been chosen. The term "Radio Shack" stands for a small cabin that houses a ship's radio equipment.

In the early 1940's the Radio Shack Company published its first catalog. A few years later it entered the high-fidelity music market. The company opened the very first audio showroom, which gave customers an opportunity to compare various radio and electronics equipment, such as amplifiers, phonograph cartridges, speakers and turntables. In 1954, the company started to sell its private-label products under the name of Realist, but soon it changed the brand name to Realistic.

The company developed dynamically. In the early 1960's it ran nine retail stores and operated a mail-order business. It was a leader in electronics parts distribution. However, in a few years the Radio Shack Company encountered problems due to poor operation and subsequently faced bankruptcy.

The company was sold for $300,000 to Charles Tandy, who saw a big potential in consumer electronics market. He saw the Radio Shack store chain as a great opportunity to enter the market and grow rapidly. Charles Tandy developed a plan that led the company to a great success. The Radio Shack Company became one of the leading networks of retail stores and its revenue grew to $4.6 billion.

Radio Shack's growth in 1970's was very impressive. The company opened numerous new stores, which offered a wide range of quality and sophisticated consumer electronics products to customers.

During this period, Radio Shack issued its free battery card on the market. It was a small cardboard card, which gave the cardholder the right to get free flashlight batteries when presented at one of Radio Shack stores. The cardholder was restricted to get the batteries once a month, although many people had several cards and used them in several stores. The cards also served as business cards for the salespeople ind it was used until the early 1990's.

In 1997, Radio Shack introduced its first personal computer, TRS-80 (also known as the Trash-80). It was a fully wired model, not like many others available at that time in the market. By today's standards it was a primitive machine, but it became a big hit in the late 1970's. The demand was very high. The company sold more than 200 000 TRS-80 models in four years. In a few years Radio Shack introduced its first IBM compatible computer. However the company shut down computer manufacture in the 1990-s.

There were other high demand goods that Radio Shack offered to its customers: the first digital stereo receiver at an affordable price, the first cellular phone and the first high performance satellite TV system.

Since 1994 the company's slogan has been "You've got questions, we've got answers".