I worked at dickies during the last of the components era. I know that makers like to fantasize about it, but the reality is it was gotten rid of because it was a dog.
As a section it made basically no money, very few people were actually buying components, maybe one in 50 customers. Most people came to the store for batteries, chargers, step down converters, antennas etc, and I believe they were the real loss when dickies moved into the TV era.
However, despite the lack of traffic, it was the highest maintainence section of the store. It took three times the effort to maintain, because people would pull out 5 different strips of resistors and three different strips of caps, go back to their color chart and circuit diagram and figure out which two they actually needed, and then shove the six other strips into a random drawer and walk off, and it was the staff that had to go through 300 tiny drawers with a resistor chart figuring out what went where. You'll notice jaycar keeps most of that shit behind the counter.
It's a small point, but actually Jaycar only keep semis, LEDs and similar parts behind the counter. Resistors are on tape in groups of 8 with cardboard or plastic envelopes, and capacitors are free floating. I believe Jaycar selling all sorts of other rubbish helps them keep their component side going, plus besides Aztronics they're generally the only bet for people off the street to get parts these days.
I remember buying parts from DSE back up to when they moved out of this market, and managed to score a bunch of stuff cheap. It's a sad day for the company, although ironically the maker and DIY electronics scene seems stronger today than ever. Too bad they never worked out a way of capitalising on it.
As a section it made basically no money, very few people were actually buying components, maybe one in 50 customers. Most people came to the store for batteries, chargers, step down converters, antennas etc, and I believe they were the real loss when dickies moved into the TV era.
However, despite the lack of traffic, it was the highest maintainence section of the store. It took three times the effort to maintain, because people would pull out 5 different strips of resistors and three different strips of caps, go back to their color chart and circuit diagram and figure out which two they actually needed, and then shove the six other strips into a random drawer and walk off, and it was the staff that had to go through 300 tiny drawers with a resistor chart figuring out what went where. You'll notice jaycar keeps most of that shit behind the counter.