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What Happened to America's Electronics Stores? - YouTube
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[Music]
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[Music]
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this
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is the parks mall in arlington texas
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there's nothing specifically awesome
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about this mall
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it just happens to be the mall i grew up
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around in fact there were three malls i
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shopped at as a kid and
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this was one of them another one was
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called the forum 303 mall
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which was torn down years ago the other
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one was called the six flags mall and it
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too
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was also torn down years ago of course
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there are plenty of other malls in the
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dallas fort worth metroplex like the
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hewlett mall or the galleria dallas
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i never visited these as a kid we also
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had the tandy center mall which i've
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talked about before but it was also
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demolished a few years ago
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so the only thing special about the
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parks mall is that it's the only one of
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my three childhood malls
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that remains standing today which makes
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it more interesting to talk about
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because we can compare what it is like
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today versus in the 1980s
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one problem that has plagued me with
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making a video on this topic is the
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sheer lack of multimedia like pictures
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and video
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of the insides of these electronic
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stores and shopping malls and places
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that i wanted to talk about
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and it's not for a lack of trying in
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fact when i was much younger
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on many occasions i tried to take a
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video camera or even a still camera
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into various electronic stores or
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shopping malls you know what always
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happened
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that's right security always told me to
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leave in fact one time they even
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confiscated the film out of my camera
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these places were extremely paranoid
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about people taking pictures inside of
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their stores and i never quite figured
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out why
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i actually asked the security guard one
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time as he was escorting me out
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exactly what the reason was and his he
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said it was because they didn't want
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competitors to come in
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and document the prices on their
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products and
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you know i counted that with like well
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couldn't they just walk in with a piece
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of paper and a pencil and write them
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down
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or better yet just grab the catalog that
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you give away to pretty much every
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customer that comes in for free
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which clearly documents all the prices
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of all of the products
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and i wasn't really giving a good answer
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to that question but
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i don't think that that was the real
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reason i think it was an excuse
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i'm not quite sure what the real reason
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was for not allowing photographs
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but whatever it was it wasn't just me uh
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basically nobody was able to take
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pictures in these places and
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well you can kind of get away with it
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now because everybody carries a camera
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in their pocket
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there just isn't hardly any video or
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pictures to be found
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from the 1980s or 90s of the inside of
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these places
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but i do have this this is a little
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window into the past of the park's mall
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this is a layout of the mall during the
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1980s and so we're going to take a
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little virtual look at the various
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electronic stores in the mall at that
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time
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granted most of these stores are stores
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that sell clothing
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shoes jewelry or whatever stuff that
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nerds like me really don't care about
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but there were a number of electronics
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and otherwise nerd worthy stores for me
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to shop at
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during that time for example we had
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babbages
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now for those that don't remember
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babbages was a software store
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now um clearly this photo is from a
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later time as you can see they're
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selling games like halo and whatnot but
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in the 1980s this is where we bought
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software for our commodores apples
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ataris among other things the next door
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is camelot music
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this is where we went to shop for our
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cassette tapes and later compact discs
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electronics boutique was another
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software store we had here in the mall
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in fact i think this photo here was
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actually taken at the parks mall because
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this is the exact layout of the one that
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we had
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anyway again this is where we would shop
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for commodore or nintendo games
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later on they actually started putting
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amigas up on display for people to play
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with and
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check out the games next we had music
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land
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this was a competitor to camelot again
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we bought cassettes and compact discs in
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here
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and don't forget radio shack and while
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i'm sure everyone remembers radioshack
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some younger people might not remember
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radioshack the way i do
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in the 1980s they were a store full of
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cool electronic gadgets
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many of which just couldn't find
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anywhere else like this talking clock
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which i've had since the 1980s 5
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17 p.m or roby jr which i've also had
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since i was a kid
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and don't forget the armatron and while
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this is not my original model it's
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pretty much exactly the same but this is
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also the place you'd find portable
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computers like these or even pocket
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computers when nobody else was selling
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them at the time
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one of my christmas rituals was to look
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through the radio shack catalog and
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circle the things that i wanted for
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christmas and give it to my grandparents
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and then usually buy me one or two
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things that i'd ask for
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and that is how i came to be in
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possession of this roby jr which uh this
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was a product that was only available at
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radio shack
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and i've actually had this in my
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possession since i was 12 years old and
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i did in fact get this for christmas
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a lot of radio shack products were
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rebranded japanese products that simply
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weren't for sale in the usa under any
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other brand name
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such as the pocket computers or even the
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model 100 and some products like this
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keyboard were
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also available for sale in other stores
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under the casio brand name
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however the radio shack that existed in
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the last decade or so before their
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bankruptcy didn't hold much resemblance
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to the radio shack i grew up with in the
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1980s
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anyway back to the parks mall so so far
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i've shown
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five of my favorite stores that are now
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gone but there's a lot more
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we actually had this store here called
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the att store
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now the funny thing about the at t
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stores you might be thinking well we
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still have those now
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but we don't at least not the kind of at
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t store we had back in the 1980s
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if you walked into that store what you
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would have seen are
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landline telephones like these and they
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actually had a variety of different
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types of telephones hundreds of them
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actually
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designer telephones garfield telephones
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uh
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telephones that looked like they were
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antiques you know things like that but
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they were all
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landline telephones even the cordless
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phones they had were still designed
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to work off of a landline they didn't
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sell cell phones in the store
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you could get cell phones down at radio
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shack but not at the att store
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and so the interesting thing is i have
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looked and looked and looked
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all over the internet and i cannot find
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a single photograph
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showing what the inside of the att store
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looked like during the 1980s because
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when you search for it all you find are
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pictures of the modern att store so
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i'd love to be able to show you what it
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looked like it was actually a pretty
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cool place for nerds to go we also had a
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tilt located here
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this was an arcade very similar to the
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type of arcade you could see in the
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movie war games
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and while tilt is still in business in
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some locations the one here in the mall
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has been gone for decades
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next up on the list we had a ritz camera
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and this was the store that carried
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everything you might need for
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photography and as you can imagine with
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the invention of the digital camera this
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place went the way of kodak
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we also had a kb toy store located here
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and you might think
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gee why would you care about a toy store
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well besides toys they also sold quite a
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bit of nintendo and sega genesis stuff
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here
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and while not inside the mall we had a
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toys r us right outside the mall that
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shared the same parking lot so
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while not shown on this map i always
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considered it part of the mall and
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toys r us carried not only game consoles
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but actual computers like commodore and
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atari
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plus you can find neat things there like
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the fisher-price pixel camera
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and of course both kb toys and toys r us
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are both gone today
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we also had two bookstores b dalton
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books and walden books and i used to go
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to these stores to find books on
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programming as well as my favorite
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monthly computer magazines like ahoy or
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compute's gazette
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and while we still do have a bookstore
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in the mall today it's a barnes noble
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instead
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and the last thing on the map i wanted
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to mention is sears they used to have
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quite a large electronics department in
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fact
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this exact sears location is where my
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dad took me and my brother
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and bought us new computers of which i
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picked out a commodore 128d
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in fact i still remember my dad having
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to drive around here to the back to pick
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up the computers
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that being said sears just recently went
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out of business as you can see that it's
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all boarded up however the electronics
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department has been gone for a long long
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time already
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and there's one more story i wanted to
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mention at the mall and that's
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suncoast motion picture company and it
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doesn't show up on this map because
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the store wasn't added until about a
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year after this map was printed
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but if i remember correctly it was right
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up here
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and this was the place i shop to find
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all my favorite movies and tv shows on
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vhs tape and eventually even
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laserdisc and so out of all these fun
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stores in the mall
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literally none of these exist today and
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what's worse it isn't like they were
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replaced by competitors
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there are literally no electronic stores
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music or video stores in the mall
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at all unless you count game stop which
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doesn't exactly have a bright future
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as such for the last couple of decades
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there hasn't been much of any good
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reason for me to even go there
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all that remains are clothing stores and
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all of the other things that us nerds
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just don't care about
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but it's not just them all my parents
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bought my first vic-20
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at a store called best which has been
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gone for decades now
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and some of my computer equipment also
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came from service merchandise which was
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part of that forum 303 mall that i said
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was demolished years ago
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we had a computer store here called
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computer city which has
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been gone since the 1990s and don't
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forget circuit city
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although i think they sort of deserve to
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die after trying to unleash that
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horrible divx format on the world comp
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usa was another great computer store
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that's been gone for a long time
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and another store that was actually in
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the parks mall during the 1990s was
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sharper image and they had a lot of neat
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electronics gadgets but
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also disappeared a long time ago of
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course everyone knows
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blockbuster video i can't count how many
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videos i rented from them
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uh and about 20 years ago me and a
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friend of mine put a live
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fish in their return box we had just
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caught it out of the lake it was about
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the size of a video cassette so it fit
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just fine
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then we filmed the crime so we could
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laugh at it for decades and well you
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know here we are
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still laughing at that um anyway uh
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moving along we also had this really
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cool store called
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incredible universe now unfortunately
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they didn't last more than a year or so
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went out of business
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and the building that they were in was
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bought out by fry's electronics who
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occupied it up until just recently
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and i'm sure everyone has heard the news
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by now that fry's is officially out of
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business putting
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one of the last nails in the coffin of
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electronic stores
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and you know it wasn't just large
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electronic stores like these
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there were lots of smaller independently
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operated electronic stores all over the
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country
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too many to count in fact that have all
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suffered the same fate
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so what happened to these stores why did
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they all die out over the last 20 years
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admittedly some of the earlier ones that
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died in the 80s or 90s were probably due
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to bad business practices
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however i think all of them that died in
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the last 20 years or so can be
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attributed to three specific factors
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the first and possibly most important
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problem was the invention of the
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smartphone
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to illustrate exactly what i'm talking
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about let's take a look at this old
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radio shack catalog from 1985 and
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imagine how these products would sell
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today
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oh look vcrs who needs that oh look
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uh portable stereo systems who needs
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that when you have a smartphone in your
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pocket
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portable cassette recorders for
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dictation who needs that
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portable cassette players for your music
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again who needs that
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link media more home stereo stuff
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oh look cassette players for your car
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stereo who needs that
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cb radios for communicating on the road
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who needs that
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ooh landline telephones who uses those
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anymore
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even cordless phones um more portable
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stereos
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alarm clocks does anyone still use those
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even more alarm clocks
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including some fancy talking clock
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portable televisions
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i mean who needs that when you can watch
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anything you want from a device in your
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pocket
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yet even more clocks pages and pages of
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calculators i mean
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who needs one of these when everyone has
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one in their pocket already oh and a
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pocket pager to keep you in touch with
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family
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who needs that oh and automatic
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telephone answering systems yeah does
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anyone still have one of these
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and um portable computers but why bother
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when everybody carries a super computer
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in their pocket
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or even pocket computers kind of
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pointless these days
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that's just the radio shack catalog but
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don't forget some of the other important
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things that disappeared like
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video cameras i mean sure some people
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still buy them for professional use but
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the average citizen has no need of such
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a thing
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same goes for still cameras no need for
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those portable gps systems sort of went
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away for the most part since everyone
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has one in their pocket now
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but it's not just the electronics
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devices that went away but also all of
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the supporting products
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for example why would an electronic
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store have aisles and aisles worth of
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space for cassettes or cds or even
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videotapes or dvds for example
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and nobody buys their computer software
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from a shelf anymore i mean we download
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it from the app store
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imagine taking the menu at taco bell and
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just blotting out
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eighty percent of the items on that menu
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and saying that nobody was ever going to
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buy those again
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and what's worse is there would be no
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increase in sales of the remaining items
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on the menu either
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and that would reduce taco bell from a
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major player in the food industry to
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just a small niche and a food truck or
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something
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i mean it would destroy their business
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and that's essentially what the
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smartphone has done to electronic stores
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but it's not the only cause the second
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nail in the coffin
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is of course the dramatic cost reduction
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of electronics i mean just as an example
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i take a look at this ad from 2001 here
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a decent
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living room size tv could cost as much
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as 3 thousand dollars
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and if you wanted a plasma tv around
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this time the cost was as high as
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fourteen thousand dollars
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um you either had to be wealthy or put
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it on a payment plan that today you can
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go into best buy and buy a similar size
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tv for a little over four hundred bucks
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so i mean let's imagine the profit
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margin on such an item is 10
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considered average these days um that
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means that they make 40
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for selling you a nice living room tv as
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opposed to 300 that they would have made
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back in the 90s
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and if you account for inflation it
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would really be more like 500
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so with most of the electronics items
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the profit margin was literally
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10 times higher back in the 90s than it
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is today
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this is most likely one of the reasons
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they have ridiculous prices on things
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like hdmi cables and
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try to scan every buyer with some kind
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of extended warranty because
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there isn't enough profit to be made on
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the electronics items themselves
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and that brings us to the last nail on
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the coffin which is online shopping and
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more specifically ebay and
[823]
amazon i mean why drive to the store and
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sit through traffic
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just to look at a smaller selection of
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stuff than what you can find online
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instead you can order from the
[832]
convenience of your smartphone wherever
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you happen to be
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probably pay a little bit less for the
[837]
product and have it at your doorstep in
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a day or two
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and so these three things are why i
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believe the electronic stores of
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yesterday
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went out of business and they're never
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coming back and the sad part about this
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is there's a culture that has been
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essentially lost to time um it's
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impossible to recreate the shopping
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experience that we had
[856]
back in the 1980s i mean i i don't want
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to give up my smartphone or online
[861]
shopping but i do miss
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being able to go into a variety of
[864]
stores and look at all the gadgets and
[866]
gizmos that they had on the shelves and
[868]
trying to decide you know which was the
[870]
one i just absolutely couldn't live
[871]
without
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um you know but that's all that's all
[874]
history these days and and i don't think
[876]
people unless they were born in that era
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i don't think people will ever be able
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to experience it again which is a
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somewhat unfortunate but anyway that
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wraps it up for this episode so
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as always thanks for watching
[898]
[Music]
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you
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