RadioShack's 'Store Within A Store' Concept Detailed

With yesterday's news that RadioShack was filing for bankruptcy, we also learned there would be a 'store within a store' concept that would allow RadioShack to live on, at least in name. The media at large assumed RadioShack would exist within Sprint stores, as the carrier was in talks to snap up roughly 1,800 RadioShack stores. Now we're getting details from Sprint themselves, and we learn the 'store within a store' thing isn't what we thought. It's actually the complete opposite.

Sprint will reside in 1,750 of RadioShack's most desirable locations, though it's not immediately clear how much they're paying to do so. The carrier also isn't taking them over so much as they're partnering with RadioShack.

RadioShack will allow Sprint to occupy space within these 1,750 yet-to-be-identified stores, not the other way around as was initially believed. According to Sprint's press release, "Under the terms of the new agreement, Sprint would effectively operate a store within a RadioShack store, occupying approximately one third of the retail space of each location."

The space within RadioShack will be manned by Sprint employees, with co-branding of the retail storefront giving Sprint the primary branding. In the statement, Sprint says it will increase their retail presence more than two-fold (they currently have about 1,100 stores).

This is all subject to approval by the courts, but there doesn't seem to be much of an issue that would prevent the deal from happening.

Source: Sprint