RadioshacksBitch

Protection plans are a huge profit for us. We offer them because the company gets 98% of the profit, but in the long run, it's also better for the consumer, in a sense.

Cell phones are our main drive. In fact, some stores, often called a "Flywheel" store, have a person dedicated to just talking about phones. This person will literally stand there and do nothing but sit on their phone, until a customer walks in. You could be there for a battery, and this person would try to talk you into a phone.

And they get paid more than your basic associate for this.

Otherwise, there's nothing really else hidden from view. At least not that I can think of at the moment.

Oh! We have the right to deny you a cellphone if we think you're a fraud customer. The most common excuse could be "Oh, our system is down" (which is true maybe 2% of the time), or "Oh my store doesn't have this phone, but this other one does!" and then they'll send you off to a nearby store where they say the same exact thing.

Batteries. I'm not even joking, but batteries are one of our main products that fly off the shelves. Button cells are popular, but you know what really sells? House phone batteries. At least $18 per battery too, when that person could go to Amazon and get it for $2 (which I would normally suggest if they could actually do it).

Also, the cell phones. The way we have our deals set up meant that more people would come to us instead of going to competitors like Best Buy, Walmart, etc.

Don't worry, Radioshack right now probably has more to worry about. Like the turnover rate of their employees.

Sits at about 140% right now.

Very much so. They're bleeding money because their focus is flawed. They told us "Every customer that walks through that door could be a wireless sale!", but I didn't care. I wasn't in it for the money, I was there because I enjoyed tech, I enjoyed learning, and I just like helping people in general. I'm sure corporate is trying to fix things, but I feel like it's too little too late.

Someone who plans taking the phone off the contract they just signed up for, and selling it to some poor soul over the internet, or overseas. A lot of companies are really cracking down on it, because they're losing gobs of money. That is, until the take the upgrade discounts away, and you have to finance your phone along side your bill...

Like I told someone else earlier, it's almost 90% profit for the company. You have to remember that they company buys that USB drive at warehouse cost, which for them, is dirt cheap.

The way the warranties work are like this: The USB breaks and you bring it into any Radioshack store. We make a claim on it, ship it out for you, and you get a gift card back for what you payed plus the tax for it. You aren't restricted to the same item either.

Another reason we ask: Our jobs depend on it. We literally put our jobs into the customer's hands on a daily basis. Every time someone says no to RSSP (Radioshack Protection Plan), it negatively impacts that person. And if they don't have a good enough percentage, then get fired. That's it. No questions asked, no feelings cared about. I stopped caring about the company when they stopped caring about us.