Amazon May Get Retail Stores Via Radio Shack Bankruptcy

At this point, we understand RadioShack is throttling down for a massive shift. There's too much evidence that Radio Shack as we know it has to go away, making room for something else. It could be a partnership with a carrier like Sprint, wherein RadioShack would essentially become the gadgets section of the store while Sprint employees hocked handsets. Another more compelling answer comes in the form of Amazon, who are reportedly interested in acquiring RadioShack locations for use as lockers or easy ship/receive way-stations.

Amazon has massive scope, and their distribution centers are enormous. Packing that into a small retail center is obviously impossible, and packing stores with the hottest gadgets is a cyclical move that would probably cause more headaches than Amazon could argue was necessary by having in-demand products on-hand.

RadioShack also has roughly 4,000 stores, to which Sprint is reportedly interested in acquiring about 1,300. It's not known how many Amazon may be interested in, but the full 4,000 is unlikely. It also wouldn't be the first time we've heard Amazon was interested in self-owned stores; there was evidence they were looking into retail locations in Manhattan last year.

Retail square footage would put Amazon in the discussion with Best Buy, at least on a smaller scale. It would also provide a means to do business with Amazon straight away where you could pick packages up, drop them off should you have a return, and possibly pick up Amazon essentials (their self-branded gadgets).

RadioShack may not be your go-to electronics store any more, but they do have a desirable retail footprint. In bankruptcy, their number of stores is likely to be cut down anyway, so a suitor like Amazon, which can repurpose them into something we'd actually use, makes sense.

Source: Bloomberg