Incredible Universe

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

Incredible Universe was Tandy Corporation’s ambitious consumer-electronics superstore concept, launched in 1992 to take on the era’s escalating big-box battle. Its identity was closely associated with Arlington, Texas, where one of its first stores opened; another early location opened in Wilsonville, Oregon.

These were not modest shops for batteries and extension cords. A typical Incredible Universe combined roughly 185,000 square feet of retail and warehouse space with some 85,000 items: computers, televisions, appliances, software, cameras, music and more. The stores borrowed a little theme-park theater too, treating departments as “scenes,” employees as cast members and customers as guests. Shopping for a VCR apparently needed lore.

Expansion brought the chain to 17 stores, but the giant format’s operating costs and mounting competition proved brutal. Tandy announced in December 1996 that it would exit the business. Six locations were sold to Fry’s Electronics; Tandy’s 1997 annual report records that sale as completed in July 1997, while the remaining Incredible Universe operation was closed or wound down.

Our Incredible Universe collection celebrates the glorious moment when consumer electronics retail tried to become a full-scale attraction: bigger aisles, bigger ambitions, and enough blinking displays to make every family errand feel like a mission to the future.