I used to hang out at a "Radio Shack Computer Store" in high school. One day the manager said a businessman was coming in to see the TRS-80 Model 16 he had on the floor and that he had no idea what to show him. I had been playing with it for a while (tricked him into giving me root) and I hooked up a couple of TTY's to it and setup the accounting software they had on the shelf with some dummy data. The customer came in, I demo'd it all to him showed him how someone could change a customer on one terminal and the person on another terminal would see the change. He bought it on the spot. The total was $20,000 with all the parts, TTY's, terminals and everything. Needless to say from that day forward the manager of that computer store gave me free reign. I could order anything from the catalog they didn't have on the floor and as soon as it came in I'd set it up and play with it and then connect it to the floor setup. I'd demo using multiple printers (A/B for Dot Matrix -vs- Daisy Wheel) and other cool features. Over a time I started getting requests to help people set this stuff up in their offices and that lead to my first business when I was in 10th grade.

I keep thinking RS could join forces with someone like Adafruit and create this same thing around the Maker movement. That said, I'm not sure the retail space and labor costs plus insurance would pay off, it would be a tricky model. But if somehow they could capture and bottle up this sort of thing for the next generation of technologists and do it at a scale that paid the bills they'd be back in the pole position on a massive trend.

However, with online purchases and AdaFruit being able to deliver stuff to me in time for my "weekend hardware time" I'm not sure there is a place for this in the malls of America. It would require a massive cash infusion and a complete redesign from top down of incentives and management to even get a crack at it. Perhaps someone with the money will buy the name and retail space and gut the rest and try a shot at it. That said I think stuff like TechShop [1] might already be headed there and they're aware of the challenges of cost of space and having the right vibe for hackers.

It's easy to underestimate just how insanely expensive retail space is in a mall, plus having labor, insurance and marketing costs it would be hard to justify selling parts against companies that have 1/10th the cost in their business models. In order for RS to succeed it would need to focus on the personal one on one wonder and discovery experience. That's harder then it sounds to staff and execute against and maintain margins to support the costs to operate the business. If I had the capital to fund it I'd love to take a run at something like this but it would have to be a big change and most likely the best route would be to take them private so you can make brutal sweeping changes rapidly and get the right kind of people in along with rebuilding the culture and the branding. Even after all that it would require a burn rate on a daily basis that would equal what some startups spend in a year. I’m not sure you could make the argument that it would be money well spent. If I were going long and had the capital I’d love to dig in and work out the model but the scale of this thing will most likely never allow the kind of entrepreneurial sprit it needs to be revived unless Elon Musk is bored and wants to back it, but I think he’s a bit busy.

[1] http://www.techshop.ws/