The day after Christmas I was driving south from central Oregon on my way to Mount Shasta...

I stopped by the Klamath Falls RadioShack store. K Falls is a small community of about 20 thousand people just north of the California-Oregon border. They only have one RadioShack store but eight people in different parts of town were able to point me in the right direction.

I asked the friendly staff if they had any Skype stuff. I had to spell it ("s-k-y-p-e") and they looked it up on the computer, pointing to a U.S. Cellular display on the right.

Looking a little closer, wading through mobiles and accessories, ...

I found five shiny foil bags.

No other Skype merchandise with the Skype gift packs, now back up to their MSRP of US$9.99. Was told there was a phone that worked with Skype over in the networking section...

with the LAN and wifi gear.

It was the VoIP Voice CyberphoneK, decorated with the Skype Certified logo. Just one of the four Skype cobranded products stocked by RadioShack.

I've had similar experiences in smaller and larger RadioShack stores in California. It's hard to launch a new category and brand, especially with seasonal staff and the holiday sales frenzy. Two months in, most RadioShack employees don't have much (any?) Skype brand awareness, talking points, or merchandising direction. Assuming sales were adequate this month, Skype wil stick around and this will change.

RadioShack is a great place for Skype to start retailing in the United States. Only Wal-Mart sells more (38% of "mobile phones sold in major U.S. retail outlets and consumer electronic stories in the last six months") than RadioShack (28%). While the carrier-owned stores sell nearly half of all mobile phones, their customer satisfaction is horrible (24% positive). Good experiences at RadioShack should make it easier for Skype to open doors at other retailers, all of whom will be at CES next week. See you there.