ghaff gave an accurate and correct and very theoretical argument.
As a practical argument, when adafruit gets written up as a business case study, it going to be all about the online. I've ordered lots of stuff from there and fulfillment and stocking levels is about average, lets be nice and call it above average. I've never had the slightest problem although items are sometimes out of stock awhile and shipment is faster than a mom and pop but its nowhere near amazon levels of fulfillment and it has nothing on walmart style brick and mortar.
Sticking to core competencies would not imply opening brick and mortar or even worse taking over a dying chain of brick and mortar.
What could have worked would have been very superficial, like buying the IP rights to the name. Such as www.radioshack.com web redirects to adafruit. Or maybe a cross exchange such that radio shack part number 276-1617 is this adafruit part number 1234 which is a 2n2222 NPN transistor, etc.
As a practical argument, when adafruit gets written up as a business case study, it going to be all about the online. I've ordered lots of stuff from there and fulfillment and stocking levels is about average, lets be nice and call it above average. I've never had the slightest problem although items are sometimes out of stock awhile and shipment is faster than a mom and pop but its nowhere near amazon levels of fulfillment and it has nothing on walmart style brick and mortar.
Sticking to core competencies would not imply opening brick and mortar or even worse taking over a dying chain of brick and mortar.
What could have worked would have been very superficial, like buying the IP rights to the name. Such as www.radioshack.com web redirects to adafruit. Or maybe a cross exchange such that radio shack part number 276-1617 is this adafruit part number 1234 which is a 2n2222 NPN transistor, etc.