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"Online retail giant Amazon has been inching toward having a physical retail presence in the U.S. and UK through the installation of lockers at grocery stores, drug stores and other retail locations, like 7-Eleven, Staples, Walgreens and RadioShack. Amazon users can place orders online that are delivered to the lockers, avoiding hassles such as missed deliveries. \nBut instead of setting up lockers at various random locations, Amazon could establish a broad physical presence for dirt cheap with one bold move: It could buy RadioShack.\nThe U.S. electronics retailer has lost more than 80% of its value in three years and is now worth just $325 million on the market. RadioShack has more than 4,400 stores in the U.S. alone and 90% of them are within a two mile-radius of city and town centers.\nThe scenario of Amazon acquiring an ailing brick-and-mortar retailer like RadioShack, Sears or Best Buy (the latter two of which have market caps in the $5 billion range), has been talked about in the tech and dealmaker community. Such a move could give Amazon regional warehouses, a place for customers to pick up deliveries, and a storefront for popular items.\nThese locations could help Amazon as it expands into areas such as groceries that could benefit from same-day delivery or pickup. They might even become virtual showrooms where shoppers can place orders.\nAssuming it went down this path, Amazon might want bigger locations than RadioShack stores could provide. Failed department stores, for example, could serve as warehouses and distribution centers, too.\nOne reason for Amazon to not do this is that by retailing online, it has avoided having to collect state sales tax for many consumers, giving it an edge over retailers with physical stores. But that is changing. Amazon recently said it would support a bill before the Senate that would allow states to charge sales tax for online purchases. And it already collects sales tax in about half of all states now anyway.\nA RadioShack acquisition could also make sense for Google. The search giant in November announced that it was buying Canada\u2019s BufferBox, which offers a similar locker system to Amazon\u2019s. Google could use RadioShack stores not just as e-commerce delivery locations but also as sales centers for the growing number of devices it either produces or provides software for\u2014think Apple stores, but for Android smartphones and tablets or ChromeBook laptops.\nRadioShack was the focus of deal talks in 2010, but private equity firms decided against a buyout because they saw little hope in the retailer\u2019s future. Back then, RadioShack had a market value of about $2.7 billion, more than eight times its current level. In October, the company reported a net loss of $47 million and is scheduled to release its next earnings results on Feb. 26.\nThe company just got a new CEO, Joseph Magnacca of drugstore chain Walgreens. It may resist a sale to give him time to try to turn RadioShack around. Magnacca is known for revamping the drugstores of Duane Reade, a Walgreens subsidiary.\nBut customers go to drugstores all the time for miscellaneous household items. The same can\u2019t be said of RadioShack, which has struggled to get consumers to think of it as a go-to place for consumer electronics. If Magnacca cannot turn RadioShack around, Amazon could be its savior instead.\n(We contacted both companies, but RadioShack declined to comment, and Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.)\nImage courtesy of Flickr, jurvetson"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/02/19/amazon-should-buy-radioshack/>