Wireless Advocates, the sister company of 49-store car audio chain Car Toys, Seattle, suddenly shut its doors Monday and let go of approximately 1800 employees, according to reports.
The company recently lost its long-time contract to operate the cellphone kiosks at 535 Costco stores and ended its operation of 65 kiosks for the Army & Air Force exchange.
The Wireless Advocates web site was down as of Tuesday night.
Three well-placed sources said the closing is not expected to impact Car Toys. Two said it might improve the corporate focus on Car Toys and therefore help the chain.
Dan Brettler is Founder and CEO of both Car Toys, and Wireless Associates.
The T-Mo report and posts on Reddit said Wireless Advocates shut down with little notice.
T-Mo obtained a recording of a conference call informing employees of the closing. Brettler said the company continued to be challenged by supply chain issues. He added, “While we all know that 5G technology is a great technology and will continue to get better, it hasn’t spurred the demand that we had hoped.”
Brettler said the military channel never recovered from a sales decline spurred by the pandemic and business was down 50 percent at the Army & Air Force Exchanges so Car Toys terminated that business. Then Costco decided to end its contract with Wireless Advocates, a blow which the business could not absorb, he said.
Wireless Advocates was founded in 2004.
Car Toys did not immediately respond to our inquiry.
Sources VVNG, T-Mo Report
