Report: Amazon has an interest in purchasing some of Radio Shack's soon to be shuttered locations

With reports circulating about Sprint's interest in leasing as many as 2000 Radio Shack stores that would be shut down as part of a bankruptcy filing, another big name has entered the picture. On Tuesday, published reports indicated that Amazon was interested in leasing some of the remaining locations that Sprint has no interest in. While the exact number of stores that Amazon is looking at isn't known, those familiar with the company's thinking say that it will be a lower number than the 1300 to 2000 stores that Sprint is reportedly going to lease. The report adds that Amazon could use the stores as a physical location for its customers to drop-off or pick-up merchandise.

Radio Shack has a total of 4000 company owned stores in the U.S. Besides using the retail locations as a drop-off/pick-up point, Amazon also could use them to help sell its expanding line of mobile devices. While the Amazon Kindle Fire line of Android tablets has been successful, the company's first attempt at producing a smartphone produced a flop. Amazon had to write off $170 million of inventory. Despite the failure of its first handset, the Amazon Fire Phone, Amazon is not giving up. It will use the lessons learned from the Fire Phone to try to make a success out of the Fire Phone sequel.

Radio Shack has been well known as the place to go to stock up on batteries, wires, connectors and other components. Over the last few years, it has tried to carve out a name for itself in the highly competitive world of smartphone retailing. But trying to compete with Best Buy, which can afford lower margins due to the variety of products it sells in its big box stores, has apparently hastened Radio Shack's decline.

source: Bloomberg via TechnoBuffalo