End of an era for established local radio shops

[high_vacuum_house]

Hello there,
It is with sadness I read in my local newspaper (Evesham journal) that a long established group of radio shops will be closing soon. Here is the report which is interesting.

A company spanning three generations operating shops in the Vale of Evesham is switching off.
April will mark the end of Wireless supply Limited in Pershore with the Chipping campden shop likely to close at the end of Febury and the Evesham shop at the end of March. At one time there were seven shops.
Mr Clemens grandfather Charles started the business in 1922 when radio transmission was introduced by making radio sets to sell locally. His son Jim started work at the Murphy factory when war broke out in 1939 and after the war returned to join Wireless supply. Michael aged 52 started work with the company as a lad in the shop in the 1960's and took over after his fathers death in 1987. " the nature of the buisness has changed so much and it is a differnt market out there now " Mr clemens said " Neither my grandfather nor my father would recognise it now " .
Mr clemens said 13 staff in all including himself and his wife and part-timers had been fully informed of the closure.
" Sadly it is the end of a family company " Mr Clemens said. " Two of our three daughters have worked in the company in the past but I have encouraged them to go elsewhere " .
Last week the journal reported on the demise of Dillworths in Evesham another long time running electrical goods and repair shop. This time caused by large out-of-town retailers and fewer people using small local shops.
As a local company I am saddend that there is now only one independant electrical goods and repair shop in Evesham and this is in the market selling cookers vacuum cleaners and washing machines. With 2 electrical goods shops now gone and Radiomania moved there is almost no option other than to use an out-of-town electrical goods shop especially with their big sales on that smaller shops cannot afford. I would rather use a small local electrical shop myself.
Thanks for your buisness Wireless supply,
Hope you have a good retirement. You will be sadly missed
Christopher Capener

[Hybrid tellies]

I agree,most of the smaller firms around here have gone. Mostly through owners retiring. It is amazing that there are a still a few left struggling on considering the low, or no, profit margins that exist for both repair and sales.

[Rejectostat]

And of those few struggling on in spite of the low profit margins, the reason can also be rather unfortunate. Sometimes owners cannot get out of the shop lease or rental agreement before a preset time. I knew one old(ish) couple who ran a lovely old shop (not radio related) that was profitable in its heyday, but towards the end it was kept open just to pay the shop rent until the next " get-out " point, as they did not want to evade their responsibilities. They were cheerful and welcoming to the end though. The nearby superstore is no substitute.

[quantum]

A local radio shop a few miles from me closed down last year. He specialised mainly in old communication sets, but had a sprinkling of old valve table sets and boxes of valves, transformers, knobs and stuff - the usual bits and pieces.

The owner told me that it wasn't rates, rents or local competition that was the problem, but eBay - it basically cut all his trade out. He used to get sets and send them to customers all over the world, but in the last 18 months all that trade had disappeared, and when asked his former customers said that they used eBay instead.

Perhaps, in our drive for convenience, we are all a little guilty in helping to drive local specialist shops out of business..?

[BlowFish]

All of our local radio shops have now closed down, now its all Comet and Dixons. I managed to get a pic of one the shops (Which has been empty for years) because it still has the ads for Murphy and Ekco on the walls !