Fort Worth, Texas — RadioShack opened three new concept stores this week, including one near corporate headquarters here yesterday that drew local dignitaries and past generations of company management to the ribbon cutting.
The other openings, in Detroit and Philadelphia, join eight other “high-touch” stores in New York, New Jersey, Boston and Fort Worth that were redesigned from the ground up with interactive demos, touchscreen displays, and more intuitive floor plans to enhance the shopping experience.
To date, the concept stores have generated double-digit comp sales, CEO Joe Magnacca said, and the chain is on track to open 100 high-touch variations — and to bring elements of the remodels to all 4,300 stores nationwide — by the end of the year.
The new Fort Worth store, located in a renovated shopping area in the old downtown district, was dedicated to former RadioShack president Lewis Kornfeld, who died in August at the age of 97. Kornfeld was perhaps best known for introducing one of the first mass-market PCs, the TRS-80, which made RadioShack an early IT leader in the late 1970s.
On hand for the event was former RadioShack chairman Bernie Appel, former chairman/CEO Len Roberts, Fort Worth Mayor Betsey Price, among other dignitaries.
To highlight the company’s legacy, the store features such unique elements as historical videos, displays of retro products and logos, and a recreation of a ship’s communication center, or “radio shack,” after which the chain was named.
