Company Overview
RadioShack began operations in 1921 in Boston, MA as a simple, small retail store specializing in ship radio equipment and “ham” radios. After an acquisition by Tandy in 1963, stores were opened across the United States. RadioShack was expanding and began exclusively offering electronics soon after. Strategic alliances were formed with companies such as Sprint, Compaq, RCA/Thomson Electronics in the late 90s. RadioShack had partnerships with several companies throughout the years, including operating kiosks in stores such as Sam’s Club and Target.
RadioShack is in the consumer electronics industry; however, they define three distinct product line platforms within the industry. These three product line platforms are mobility, signature, and consumer electronics. Cell phones (pre-paid and contracted), e-readers, tablet devices, and prepaid wireless airtime are all included in the mobility platform. The signature platform consists of power products, technical products, services, and accessories for wireless, music, computers, video games, and home entertainment. The final platform, consumer electronics, includes music players, computers, cameras, GPS devices, TVs, and other similar products. As of 2012, the mobility platform held 53% of their sales, followed by the signature platform with 30% and consumer electronics last with 17% (Standard & Poor's, 2014).
The diversification of RadioShack’s mobility platform is part of the reason it holds over half of their sales. Partnerships with AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon, over the years, made wireless services the focus of RadioShack. In 2012, RadioShack also entered into a strategic alliance with Cricket Communications allowing them to enter into the relatively new ...
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...y Overview
The outlook of the consumer electronics industry looks bleak. A former competitor of RadioShack, Circuit City, which held 12% of market share in 2008, closed all of its retail stores in 2009 (Waterman, 2012). RadioShack in comparison only holds 5.6% as of 2012.
The consumer electronics industry was recently on the decline with margins decreasing from 3.0% to 2.7% from 2007 to 2012, however margins are projected to return to pre-recession growth (Waterman, 2012). Margins are projected to increase due to rise in per capita disposable income and a higher consumer sentiment index (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Projected per capita disposable income and consumer sentiment index through 2018. Reprinted from “Consumer Electonics Stores in the US,” by Justin Waterman, 2012, IBISWorld Industry Report 44311. Copyright 2012 by IBISWorld Inc. Reprinted with permission.
Sears, a company spanning 131 years that began as R.W Sears Watch Company was once the largest retailer in the United States. Kmart, its runner up, began as a general retailing store just thirteen years after Sears as S.S Kresge Company in 1899. Sears had been the largest retailer in the United States until Wal-Mart rose and surpassed them, and Kmart bought out Sears and merged the two struggling companies in 2005 (Meyer, 2017; New York Times, 2002). From there, Sears and Kmart have been steadily making their way towards what many believe will be an inevitable closing.
Lowe’s Companies, Inc. is the fourteenth largest retailer in America, and overall the world’s second largest home improvement retailer. They are the 108th ranked corporation on the Fortune 500 top corporations list. With an impressive in store stock of 40,000 home improvement items on hand, ranging from lumber to Home décor items, plus an additional 400,000 home improvement items available through a special order program. Lowe’s provides a onetime stop for all home improvement needs, for both the Do-It-Yourselfer, and the ever-expanding market of the Commercial Business Customer.
J. Crew, also known as J. Crew Group Inc., is a private label company known for its preppy fashions that are fashionable yet costly. Essentially, the company was owned by the Cinader family for most of its history. Mitchell Cinader and Saul Charles founded the company in 1947. It was originally known as Popular Merchandise Inc. doing business as the Popular Club Plan, in which Mitchell’s son Arthur was the overseer. The company sold women’s clothing through in-home demonstrations. In the early 1980’s, Cinader and Charles observed catalog retailers such as Land’s End, Talbots and L.L. Bean reporting rising sales in revenue. With intentions to increase sales and duplicate success of these well known companies, Popular Club Plan began its own catalog (http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/j-crew-group-inc-history/).
Walgreen Co. engages in the retail sale of prescription and nonprescription drugs, and general merchandise, through a drugstore chain in the United States. It is the nation’s largest drugstore chain by sales. General merchandise includes cosmetics, toiletries, household items, food, beverages, and photofinishing. It also provides services at the drugstore counter, as well as through the mail, by telephone, and on the Internet. As of October 31, 2005, the company operated 5,000 stores in 45 states and Puerto Rico. In addition, it operated 3 mail service facilities. Walgreen Co. was founded by Charles R. Walgreen, Sr. in 1901. The company is based in Deerfield, Illinois.
Walmart stakeholders like every brick and mortar retailer were concerned with the Amazon apocalypse as more and more retail stores were closing from Target to Macy’s to Sears and thousands of employees lost their jobs. That fear led a lot of traders to hold Walmart stock on short interest as they though that Walmart is going down too as Amazon was a major concern on many stakeholders’ minds from suppliers to customers to investors to banks. However, Walmart adapted to the new game and excelled.
a. Sears Essentials is a new store format that opened after the merger with K-Mart
Channel Exposure- AT&T is adequate in its point of sales. They intend to match most competitors in using Radio Shack, BEST Buy, Walmart, Mall locations, high visible real estate traffic.
PC manufacturers who limit their inventory to reduce the impact of price fluctuations are at a cost disadvantage by failing to reduce costs through economies of scale in purchasing components. Therefore PC manufacturers face high risk when stocking components and essentially loose out on profitability due to changes in technology.
The radio was first invented in 1895. At first, people were unaware of the possible uses radios would eventually hold. Twenty five years after the radio was invented, the beginning of commercial broadcasting radio stations began with the KDKA in Pittsburgh. During that time, the war began a mass production of radios which let to more common households owning
During the fiscal year 2006, mobile devices generated 66.1% of Motorolaaê¡?s total revenues, followed by network and enterprise generating 26.2% of the total revenues, and connected home solutions generating 7.7% of total revenues. Motorolaaê¡?s revenues for the 2006 fiscal year were $42,879 million. The U.S. which is the companyaê¡?s largest market accounted fro 43.9% of the total revenues. Forces and Trends Trend: WiMax aê¡á" Nellie Stewart Description of trend: In the industry environment, Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave
In an interview with James Wetherbe, Richard M. Schulze tells of how at eleven-years-old he became an entrepreneur in St. Paul, Minnesota as a paperboy. This newspaper boy would grow up to be founder of the world’s largest consumer electronics chain store, Best Buy Co. Inc. (Schulze, 2014). As an adult in 1966 Schulze partnered up with Gary Smoliak and opened the company called Sound of Music until 1986 (Bailey, 2015). Schulze bought out Smoliak around 1970 and by 1983 he had changed the name of the company to Best Buy Co., Inc. Four years later Best Buy Co., Inc. secures an entry on the New York Stock Exchange. During the early 1990’s Best Buy Co., Inc., had become the largest consumer electronics store in the United States.
Industry profitability: subpar to above average; fuel and maintenance costs, a growing senior staff division, unionisation of employees and competitive price wars are margins concerns.
Sears has gotten a good start on their Internet venture. They do have a lot of competition in this regard and a “new” business does take a while to get off the ground. Therefore it’s not surprising that they have had a slow start but they are beginning to pick up with the alliances and partnerships that they have entered into to boost their exposure. Their e-commerce trade could become as big as their chain of retail stores. All-in all, I believe that Sears is on the right road to recovery.
Cell phone manufacturers and service providers are at the core of the cell phone industry. These corporations are integral from their research and development endeavors to interactions with the consumer and the marketing of new products. The companies that control such factors of cellular phones are very numerous, so it is difficult to address all the cell phone manufacturers and service providers. However, we have focused largely on only the most significant cellular companies namely in the U.S. marketplace, although many have global ties. Collectively, companies around the world have the same goals in mind – to create desirable cutting-edge technology and to increase consumer satisfaction with hopes of generating sales, and thus profits.
Columbus, Louis ( Contributor). IDC: 87% of Connected Decices Sales By 2017 Will Be Tablets And Smartphones. 12 September 2013. web.