RadioShack Is Preparing to File For Bankruptcy Again (bloomberg.com) 176
BarbaraHudson writes: Bloomberg is reporting that the "new" RadioShack is preparing to file for bankruptcy. From the report: "General Wireless Operations, the RadioShack successor created by a partnership between Sprint Corp. and the defunct retailer's owners, is preparing to file for bankruptcy, according to people familiar with the matter. A filing could happen within the coming days and will probably result in liquidation, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the process isn't public. The beleaguered company, which does business as RadioShack, operates outlets that share space with Sprint's retail locations, as well as franchising the name to other stores." Investors had thrown $75 million in lines of credit and term loans at the business, which was used for "renovated locations and updated inventory." That's less than $60,000 per store -- chickenfeed in today's world, where renovating a McDonalds can run between $500,000 and $2,000,000, and you're not trying to pivot.
Killed by the internet... (Score:1)
Re:Killed by the internet... (Score:4, Insightful)
More than any other? Perhaps you forget video rental stores. An entire industry is gone. RadioShack sticking around this long is actually quite noteworthy!
Re:Killed by the internet... (Score:4, Informative)
More than any other? Perhaps you forget video rental stores. An entire industry is gone. RadioShack sticking around this long is actually quite noteworthy!
People tend to think that the video rental business disappeared just because Blockbuster is gone. But their demise was mostly due to bad business decisions. There's a video rental store a short distance for my house, and judging by their parking lot, I would say they are still doing quite well.
Blockbuster was bought by Viacom. A few years later Viacom decided that they didn't want Blockbuster anymore so it was spun off as a separate company, a process that left it deeply in debt. Blockbuster was always profitable but couldn't generate enough money to pay down the debt so they filed for bankruptcy. The same thing happened to the Borders book stores (bought by K-Mart and then dumped). Massive debt cause by bad management has killed far more businesses than the Internet.
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American companies could do alot more for America if they weren't doing so much for the financial sector. We need to bring this sort of thing out of the shadows.
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I don't think it was the internet that killed radio shack. The internet is nice and all, but what if you quickly need an electronics component and don't want to wait for it to ship? Having a local components store nearby is useful. Unfortunately, radio shack decided to really limit their stock of components and shift to being more of a consumer electronics store, thus becoming just another less interesting version of a best buy, circuit city, compusa, etc.
Other big box stores picked up where radio shack lef
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well that and the fact they started wanting my fing post code when i bought batteries there, they drove themselves out of business.
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RadioShack sticking around this long is actually quite noteworthy!
It was also quite mysterious. I could never figure out how they did it. When I would walk past the Radio Shack in the mall, it was always empty, except for the two guys working there. Maybe a few times a week they would sell an overpriced battery. Yet despite paying salaries and high mall rents, for year after year they stayed in business. It made no sense.
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As a kid, my first soldering irons came from Radio Shack, as did the parts for the projects I'd put together.
And while I'm plenty damned old (get off my lawn!, etc), this was in the 90s.
Later on as a quasi-professional-sort-of-guy, I'd regularly buy odds and ends from them out in the field. Need an SMA adapter? Radio Shack. An audio isolation transformer? Radio Shack had a fairly decent one. A bunch of 160 Ohm resistors? Done. A bipolar electrolytic capacitor of who-gives-a-shit value, a toggle switc
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They sure do! I'll just drive 2000 miles to the nearest Fry's, that'll solve the problem!
Re:Killed by the internet... (Score:4, Interesting)
I haven't seen a videos store on my side of town, but at a recent medical appointment for my daughter, I heard another family telling their kids they could go to the video store if they were good.
So I pulled up a google map of Indianapolis, and sure enought, there are plenty of Family Videos. Just not around the North Side. I think more affluent areas, where people have CC's, are mostly served by redbox. They also tend to have decent internet and you can get almost any video rental from Amazon.
It's easy to forget that not everybody has access to credit or debit cards. This makes kiosk services like redbox useless, and prevents them from purchasing online, even if they have reliable internet. Even Netflix is difficult to access, although you can get prepaid cards now.
I wonder how access to credit and debit cards affects piracy rates?
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The problem is it didn't keep to its roots. With the maker movement it could had positioned itself a place for makers to quickly get parts, and also as a place to do 3D printing. As well to get replacement electronic parts. Where you can get parts faster than waiting for shipping. But for the most part they just focused on selling stuff you can get at other retail stores.
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There is also no really good way to duplicate any old part that comes in off the street. 3d scanners aren't really that good.
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Read that again.
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The problem is it didn't keep to its roots. With the maker movement it could had positioned itself a place for makers to quickly get parts, and also as a place to do 3D printing. As well to get replacement electronic parts. Where you can get parts faster than waiting for shipping. But for the most part they just focused on selling stuff you can get at other retail stores.
Maybe, but I doubt that model would have supported for than a couple stores in each city, certainly not all of the remaining 1700-some locations.
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Yup, it used to be a hobbyist store. But, then they realized there was quick money to be made mainstreaming. That works until the fickle crowds find another shiny bauble.
There's a term for this often failing business model that escapes me. But, it happens to niche TV channels a lot. They get excited when they see the ratings the one night they play "Die Hard" then decide to move that way full time. Then, their core audience abandons them. Then they find out they're swimming in large ocean filled with
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Re:Killed by the internet... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think RadioShack's problems predate turning themselves into a cell phone store. In the 1980s RadioShack was, at least in my town, the center of the community's technical world. The manager was a great guy who would lead teenagers like myself muck around with the latest Model 100 or Model 4, and indeed my first three computers were all Tandy/RadioShack computers. RadioShack was sort of a geek cultural center back in the day, but by the 90s it was trying to transform itself and I remember the stores became a lot more "corporate", with management that was far less friendly. Yes, the slow degradation of the components section of the store had its effect in reducing the hobbyist traffic, but it was also that the soul of the place seemed to die out. Where in the 80s and early 90s you actually had staff who knew something about the products they were selling, by the early 00s, you had kids who could barely read a script.
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Yes, the $0.02 profit on a $0.20 resistor that one nerd bought a couple times a year was going to keep them afloat.
Obviously, no. But any decent retailer would kill to have that level of guaranteed foot traffic every year by people with disposable income. Remember, resistors are at the back of the store, past the flashy displays of geek tech. In The Day a nerd might come in for a resistor and walk out with a flashy new stereo amplifier. Today, if they had played smart, it might have been a 3D printer, gaming headset, drone, or whatever. Even today, if you absolutely have to have a resistor, you have to find a Radio Shac
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Yes, the $0.02 profit on a $0.20 resistor that one nerd bought a couple times a year was going to keep them afloat.
Meh. A lot of us nerds spent a lot of money there. But especially after they shifted to focus on cell phones, they kinda didn't figure that all the cool people who bought them weren't going to come in next week and buy another one.I and a lot of others were there every week. I spent thousands at RS every year, and even tried to preferentially support them. But now it's Mouser for parts, and I have to keep a little more stuff in stock.
And sort of fortunately, there is a for real old school electronic part
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It's kind of a pity in a way. I remember back in the day that I could literally order anything in their catalog, which was huge. I remember ordering a new keyboard for my Color Computer 1, which hadn't been manufactured in a few years by that point. It seems so odd to me that the companies that already had such an advanced warehouse and shipping network couldn't find a way to get that into the Internet age, but they just floundered, and ended their time selling crappy PC clones, before even the Tandy PCs di
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Internet orders take a minimum of DAYS.
I needed some caps to fix my TV; I was able to get them shipped next-day for free from Amazon
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A company that just has no reason to exist any more.
Not quite. Best Buy has no reason to exist, yet they do. Sometimes, you just have to touch the stuff you're buying. TV's, appliances, game consoles. It may not be a big list but not everything gets bought online. There is a similar list of stuff for Radio Shack. Add to that stuff you need now - batteries, cables, a soldering iron. It wasnt without challenges, but Radio Shack could have been saved.
Again? (Score:2)
This must be double secret bankruptcy.
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Upsell Downside (Score:5, Insightful)
Almost nobody will shop at RadioShack anymore because in the 90's they decided that annoying people at the cash registers to buy extra batteries and later to try to switch their cell phone plans was worth alienating the customer base, just as the Internet was coming along to offer people other options.
Meanwhile, retailers like Walmart picked up most of their commonly useful inventory and made mint while not harassing customers with upsales. Apparently Walmart isn't driven by quarter-on-quarter-driven MBA's.
On the other hand, they probably left with big bonuses and nobody knows who they were, and two bankruptcies later they're not black-balled.
Re:Upsell Downside (Score:5, Insightful)
I hated the way they'd want your name and address, even though consumer protection legislation said that you don't have to give it to them. "But the system requires it." F*ck your system. I'm paying cash. So, put down "Johnny Cash." The address? Folsom State Prison.
Too bad the Internet hasn't learned the lesson that when you try to data mine the customer, you alienate them.
Battery Club 4 life! (Score:2)
And GET OFF of my lawn!
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I hated the way they'd want your name and address, even though consumer protection legislation said that you don't have to give it to them. "But the system requires it." F*ck your system. I'm paying cash. So, put down "Johnny Cash." The address? Folsom State Prison.
And if they bother you again, just remind them of what went down in Reno. ;-)
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I worked for them for a few months in '89/'90. I HATED it! They treat their employees like crap! They expected us to sell but didn't really give us the latitude to make good sales, especially if we happened to work at a low-volume store. They would track to see if we got customers names and addresses, and if we didn't ask the question enough they would give us a hard time. I hated asking for that info because I felt like I was invading their privacy. It was also Russian roulette if, when we asked for the cu
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Funny, I always just politely refused and they just rang my purchases up.
Probably because they had run into people like me who had pointed out that it's illegal too many times.
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Amazon did it in. I don't know if anything could have saved it.
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In the early 1980s. I got my first RadioShack computer around 1982, and they were hawking their batteries then. Mind you, the price wasn't bad, so I didn't complain. They also asked for contact information, and I remember being 10 or 11 years old and getting the first mail actually addressed to me, a monthly RadioShack flyer! It seems stupid now, but I remember pouring over the computer section of the catalog, salivating over the speech synthesis cartridge for the Color Computer or Brick Out being played on
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speech synthesis cartridge for the Color Computer
I wanted that so badly. /Was actually looking at trs80 computers this past weekend on ebay. I've decided to buy all the things that I wanted but could never afford when I was a kid. Still waiting for a connection machine to show up, but probably still wouldn't be able to afford it.
It's not over (Score:2, Funny)
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Forget it, he's rolling.
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Privatize the gains, socialize the losses (Score:1)
Lol "RadioShack" (Score:3)
"...The beleaguered company, which does business as RadioShack, operates outlets that share space with Sprint's retail locations"
Let's be honest- today's RadioShack is little more that a Sprint store with a small shelf in back where you can buy 9-volt batteries and red-and-black colored wire for $8.99 a roll.
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This is exactly why Radio shack is failing.
It used to be an electronics enthusiast store which there is still probably a market for.
There clueless management tried to turn it into a consumer electronics store.
Who the hell would buy consumer electronics from Radio Shack?
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That, and the 'electronics hobbyist' morphed from ham operators and tinkerers to 'computer enthusiasts'. Radio Shack didn't make that transition well at all.
Add in mail order, and the computer revolution swept by them like a tsunami.
Now, with the maker revolution well underway, no one buys at stores. Indeed, China Post delivers so much stuff, much of the business is direct to China.
Inevitable. I don't even go the 12 miles to Fry's for simple stuff, Amazon Prime is worth it.
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To be fair, they tried harder than that. They started selling arduinos and other microprocessor kits and the little sensors, shields, and accessories to accompany them. But when the package of 20 male-male jumper wires were going for $9.95 instead of $4 from Amazon prime or $1 from ebay (slowchinaboat), they were fighting a losing battle.
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It used to be an electronics enthusiast store which there is still probably a market for.
Back in the day when most electronics were fixable by the average person. I started taking electronic courses, saw the writing on the wall, and dropped electronics as a college major in the early 1990's. Best decision I ever made. Most of the electrical engineers I knew from back then are doing IT today. And they're pissed I'm making more money than they are because I got into IT ten years before they did.
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This is exactly why Radio shack is failing.
It used to be an electronics enthusiast store which there is still probably a market for.
That's the problem. There is NO market for electronics enthusiasts any more. The majority of the population is now completely retarded and just wants to stare at a phone screen all day. The number of "electronics enthusiasts" is so small that its just not a sustainable business any more. Its sad and I wish it wasn't that way. But that's the world we live in now.
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Radio Shack has been selling consumer electronics for a long, long time, over 50 years at least. And yes, people did buy stuff there. The hobbyist market is not large enough to keep them alive, just not enough people like that around. Amazon did it in. Amazon can run losses for 20 years because its a wall street darling, so its been undercutting everyone else. Antitrust behaviour, if you ask me.
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Aw man, I would love an Adafruit store near me.
That would be freaking awesome.
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Of course this is Silicon Valley (Fremont)
and we also have Fry's and Central Computing, so although I will be sad to see them go I will still be able to get stuff like what they carried and more
-I'm just sayin'
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I'd be there every week.
Every week, I buy all the new sensors, etc that can be plugged into an aruino/pi. This comes out to maybe $10/month. Unless there are a lot more people like me that I don't know about, I don't think it's a large enough market for a retail company to survive. I even see sewer ebay sellers now that there used to be.
The only surprise here... (Score:2)
Re:The only surprise here... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Like Sears. It used to be by far the dominant American retailer, a kind of combination of WalMart and Amazon with its extensive and paid-for retail and distribution network and pioneering mail order business. What killed them is complacency and lack of focus. Management had a money-making retail machine that was so large it couldn't really grow. Rather than focusing on running that cash cow efficiency, management let the retail cash cow fall apart as they tried to grow the company by moving into other t
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Sears is probably still in business because they *own* their real estate, mostly. No rent, easier to make the payroll.
And they will get stuck with that previously desirable real estate as brick n mortar gives way to online sales.
Retraction in retail should really pick up in 2017. All you fast food workers should jump on that and demand your $12 minimum wage, and accelerate the conversion to automated systems.
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Re: The only surprise here... (Score:2)
Read up.
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I used to love buying tools from the backroom order desk at Sears. You could order anything in the catalog, usually for a little off in-store price, and pickup a few days later...and what you paid for was what you ordered, which might or might not be what you got. Orders were packed by people who, quite literally, didn't know a drill bit from a drill press. And of course, if the error went the wrong way, you could always return the item.
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From what I've seen, all the Craftsman power tools are now Chinese made. All the automotive tools (jacks, lifts, etc) are as well. Hand tools, however, are a mixed bag. You can come across the same ratchet twice and one will be Americ
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I still can't find anyone who can explain why Sears is still open at all at this point
Ok, I'll explain it:
as they just sold off many of their best-known brands (including Craftsman, Kenmore, and Die-Hard).
Hmmm....wonder how they have the money to stay in business....
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as they just sold off many of their best-known brands (including Craftsman, Kenmore, and Die-Hard).
Hmmm....wonder how they have the money to stay in business....
That brought in about enough money to keep the lights on a little bit longer. It doesn't bring in enough money to cover payroll for very long. Equally important, it just took away one of the biggest incentives they ever had for people to go to their stores. Why go to Sears when you can get Craftsman and Kenmore at Home Depot or Lowe's? Why go to Sears when tons of tire shops now sell Die-Hard batteries?
Eddie Lampert is living out his Lord of the Flies fantasy with his employees right now, with disa
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Not good for those of us in rural areas (Score:3)
I moved to a fairly rural area about four years ago. Before that, I don't think I'd been inside a Radio Shack in at least 10 years. Now that there are no large electronic stores locally, RS is the only place that I get get electronics. I've probably been there more in the last four years than the entire rest of my life. The selection isn't great, but it's better than nothing if I need something today.
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My experience (as someone originally from a rural area) was that RS's selection wasn't significantly better than Walmart, and its prices were generally significantly higher.
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Missed (Score:2)
I just remember way back when. First place I saw a TRS-80. I still use an alarm clock I bought there in '79 I think. I even remember how COOL it was. Compact. Almost LED'ish, and a auto
Sad ending (Score:3)
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In Austin, there is a Radio Shack across the street from a Fry's. Yes, seriously. A few years ago when they closed a few stores (about two years before the bankruptcy), the two RS locations near where I lived were both closed, and that one was kept open.
Now that I am moving back to San Antonio, I'm going to miss the 15-minute drive to Fry's. They were planning to open a store here right before they had bad financial troubles that made it hard enough for them just to stay in business. It's the largest city
Ghost memories (Score:2)
Was out at the local strip mall today and had a sudden memory of how Radio Shack stores used to smell. They had a distinctive aroma, and no, it wasn't from the workers.
Oh well.
Return to your roots, Rdio Shack (Score:2)
There is a large maker community out there, that currently has to use mailorder for any small components. Being able to make a 20 minute trip is worth a huge markup on a 2.00 component, rather than having to wait 3 days for it to be delivered by mail. Personally, I haven't set foot into a Radio Shack store since I realized their selection of various components suck. Just like their electronics.
Should have listened to me (Score:2)
I told them this would happen when they stopped publishing their catalog.
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I usually pay around $0.85 postage for components from China (aliexpress, etc). Chinapost would charge about 5 CNY for a small parcel to the US, that's 73 cents.
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It might cost you 85 cents to get it shipped from China, but meanwhile the 3 to 5 weeks (occasionally even more) that is typical for shipping from China is a long time to wait for someone that has something broken and just needs a damn resistor to fix it.
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It might cost you 85 cents to get it shipped from China, but meanwhile the 3 to 5 weeks (occasionally even more) that is typical for shipping from China is a long time to wait for someone that has something broken and just needs a damn resistor to fix it.
I know a couple of people who buy guitars from China (counterfeit Gibsons and Fenders that are even stamped "made in USA") and they claim 12 days or less to get one.
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Yeah, I'm hacking some Christmas lights with new regulators and I'm still waiting on one last part before I can start. I've got so many projects going on that putting one on a back burner for several weeks is usually not a problem.
If I need a resistor right away, then yea Radio Shack or maybe Amazon prime would be the fastest. (I have Fry's Electronics, which is great for this stuff, but not everyone has that)
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There are still a half dozen or so little electronic shops in the silicon valley. I frequently go to Anchor Electronics, it's basically operating under the business model that Radio Shack had 50 years ago. Admittedly, Silicon Valley might be one of the few places in the world where a place like that can still thrive.
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halted (hsc electronics) is still the first place I'll go if I need a part, fast.
seriously, its one reason I'm still in the bay area. as a maker type, who does hw+sw, places like HSC keep me pretty well stocked.
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Do what I did and stock up [ebay.com] before you need it.
I'm sure you could bank a larger selection than RS for less than $30. [ebay.com]
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No it doesn't. I get my stuff within two weeks. I just picked up an 80 carat star ruby from India, shipped via China Post. Got it in 10 days.
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My local radio shack was closed with the last bankruptcy and replace with a privately owned electronics store that mostly had only cell phones, tablets, and associated accessories. They are out of business as well.
There is a privately owned computer electronics store that has computers, laptops, game consoles, games, other software, some TVs, DVD Bluray players, streaming devices, etc... and some of the nifty builder stuff that radio shack used to have though I think they make most of their money on the gam
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I get free shipping from Jameco for in stock items. Minimum online order is $10 USD. Resistors are typically 100 for $4.
http://www.jameco.com/Jameco/content/free-shipping-club-electronic-components.html?CID=HPFreeShippingClub [jameco.com]
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Sooner or later you buy a kit, develop contacts locally, and share.
Or you sit alone in the dark, angry at the shipping.
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That's why you buy a $5 box for several thousand, for a dozen of every conceivable value. Or $12 if you want them sorted/labeled. :)
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