Radio Shack Shutters 1,000 Stores

RadioShack — once the go-to chain for consumer electronics — shuttered 1,000 stores during the Memorial Day weekend as it undergoes its second round of Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

RadioShack will continue to operate 70 brick-and-mortar stores across the U.S. as the retailer migrates most of its sales operations to its website, RadioShack said in a news release Friday. This round of closures does not affect the company’s 500 “dealers” — or franchisee-run stores.

The specialty chain has struggled as shoppers have increasingly purchased electronics from online retailers like Amazon and big-box stores like Best Buy.

According to the San Antonio News-Express, General Wireless paid more than $26 million for 1,700 RadioShack stores in July 2015 after the Fort Worth-based chain filed for its first Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April 2015. General Wireless partnered with Sprint Corp. to push a store-within-a-store concept in an effort to revitalize the chain.

The efforts didn’t pan out. RadioShack filed for its second Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March, a move that CEO Dene Rogers attributed primarily to the “surprisingly poor performance of mobility sales.” At that time, RadioShack said it planned to close about 200 of its 1,300 stores.

RadioShack may have to lay off 150 employees and close its Fort Worth headquarters if the company is “unable to develop a viable restructuring plan,” the company told the Texas Workforce Commission in a March 24 letter.