[vcf-midatlantic] Baynesville Electronics

[Dan Roganti]

On Sun, Oct 16, 2016 at 1:33 AM, Mike Loewen via vcf-midatlantic <
vcf-midatlantic at lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:

>
>    You folks in the MD area will be disappointed to hear the Baynesville
> Electronics is closing its doors:
>
> http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-county/
> towson/ph-tt-baynesville-electronics-closing-1012-20161011-story.html
>
>    I only visited there once, but it's the kind of that we fixer-uppers
> needed to have around.
>
>
> Mike Loewen                             mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us
> Old Technology                          http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/
>


​I heard about this too, but I haven't seen this interview. I never got a
chance to visit there​, sad it see it go. But it reminds me of several ones
from back home on Long Island. They were also mom 'n pop stores, been
around for decades but they also closed many years ago. One of them was
Edlie's Electronics in Levittown if anyone here recalls the 70s and 80s on
Long Island. But some of them mysteriously survived there such as Leeds
Radio in Brooklyn, since 1923.

But I don't think the DIY'er is fading, maybe new TV repairs have. There
used to be a TV shop in almost every town.  The past 10+yrs, basically
since 2000, the makerspace movement has rejuvenated this DIY'er interest.
But just as with Radio Shack not changing/morphing with the times and
crippling their store chains, mostly due to corporate blindness, and
they're only clinging on to their past still. The mom 'n pop stores felt
the biggest brunt if they didn't change as well.

I'm not saying it's easy for the mom 'n pop stores to change with the
times, it's usually their inherent nature to resist change, it creates a
comfort zone. You notice some of them try to split their sales by selling
online. Maybe change their inventory to match the trends, as with
makerspace. And a common task of advertising can become a burden, where to
place Ads has become a circus with this web 2.0+ world. But the "TV repair"
and "NTE parts" might be a diehard practice but it's only a small share of
the market. [the quotes are only to show typical examples]

Changing into a Mail order supplier takes a big change too that demands
effort too. Not a small task for a mom 'n pop store, when trying to
compete[$$] with a decades long market. New places prop up online all the
time and only some survive. I've seen the same issues with the ones back
home and here in Pittsburgh.
Dan