I knew this time was coming, but I'm still saddened more than I thought I'd be. For me, Fry's used to be a magical place. They had every part i ever needed for my myriad of DIY tech repair projects. They also had very reasonably priced PA gear that I used in my band. Every now and then I'd find something to eat in their cafe, too. Fry's had its shortcomings, as well: Sales staff knew next to nothing about products sold there, return and checkout lines were long, at times, the dweeb checking receipts, at the exit, was annoying, returns were slapped with a sticker and returned to the sales shelf. One learned, quickly, to never buy a return labeled product. Even so, I enjoyed my trips to Fry's. That all changed about three years ago: I went in and found bare shelves in several departments. When I asked sales staff what was going on, in Twilight Zone fashion they'd look through me and say: "Our trucks will be coming in later this week. You can check back, then." I did that about four times, and it just got worse, until almost nothing was on the shelves in their enormous store. Very odd. So, now my tech repair projects will rely on parts from Amazon. While that works, for me, I will miss Fry's. In time, I'm sure that most brick and mortar stores will disappear. For young kids, no big deal. For me, sadness, since I thoroughly enjoyed the shopping experiences I used to have Will you miss Fry's? Are you finding that other stores you used to like shopping at are gone? Do you bemoan the loss of brick and mortar shops?
Yes, I also miss Radio Shack. I only discovered Fry's when Radio Shack became the schlock organization it was before it reorganized. I have read that it is back in some locations, and independent operators keep things going. It is coming on strong, online, and I may get into checking out what's being offered, soon.
Until very recently, I still had my Archer Kit DVM I built back in the early 70s. I'm still using my 1972 Lafayette LR1200 receiver in my garage (12 screaming Watts RMS, baby!!) I miss my local Radio Shack. The franchisee tried to keep it going as an independent shop but that did not last very long. Big box stores (and the internet) robbed these places of high dollar/high margin sales, and not too many people are DIYers these days. They can no more survive on the occasional parts & supplies that people like us purchase than a business could survive selling nothing but penny candies to 5% of the population. It stinks. As an aside, when Radio Shack went away, my Lowes created a small section of crimp connectors, solder, heat shrink tubing, etc. It's obviously not the same, but it's better than nothing. Besides, I've lost the ability to read a resistor's color coding.
@John Brunner A clever instructor at DeVry Technical Institute told us: B ad B oys R ape O ur Y oung G irls B ut V iolet G ives W illingly : BLACK = 0 BROWN = 1 RED = 2 ORANGE = 3 YELLOW = 4 GREEN = 5 BLUE = 6 VIOLET = 7 GRAY = 8 WHITE = 9