Microsoft Closing Its Retail Stores, Only Four Will Remain Open - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 July 2020 / 4,171 Views
Microsoft announced it has changed its strategy in the retail market by closing its Microsoft Store physical locations. Only four locations will remain open - London, New York City, Sydney, and Redmond - with a new name of Microsoft Experience Centers. Microsoft's retail employees will continue to help customers from Microsoft corporate facilities and remotely providing sales, training, and support.
Microsoft plans to continue to invest in its digital store fronts on Microsoft.com, the Xbox Store and Windows Store. All combined the digital stores reach more than 1.2 billion people every month in 190 markets.
"Our sales have grown online as our product portfolio has evolved to largely digital offerings, and our talented team has proven success serving customers beyond any physical location," said Microsoft Corporate Vice President David Porter. "We are grateful to our Microsoft Store customers and we look forward to continuing to serve them online and with our retail sales team at Microsoft corporate locations."
Microsoft closed all of their Microsoft Store physical locations in late March due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The retail team has worked remotely by helping customers with support calls and hosting over 14,000 online workshops and summer camps.
"We deliberately built teams with unique backgrounds and skills that could serve customers from anywhere. The evolution of our workforce ensured we could continue to serve customers of all sizes when they needed us most, working remotely these last months," said Porter. "Speaking over 120 languages, their diversity reflects the many communities we serve. Our commitment to growing and developing careers from this talent pool is stronger than ever."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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I was seriously wondering when this would happen :) I do not think Microsoft needs those stores.
Pretty much this. I never pusrchased in one or know somebody who has. Brand specific stores are a thing of the past, and except some exceptions (Apple comes to mind) nobody can really pull them off.
Considering that they're a tiny part of MS' business, and considering the current state of shopping malls in general, and considering the additional strain that COVID-19 is placing on retail, this does seem surprising at all. It wouldn't surprise me to see companies like Dyson, Bose, and the like get out of their mostly-mall-based (at least in North America) store business.
Understandable but that's too bad. The only place I know that carries their products in-stores are only at Bestbuy. But I understand. I love MS Surface products. Always wanted to get a Surface studio but not every Bestbuy location had them to try out so it was nice MS had their own store.
That's too bad. I really enjoy stopping into their stores. I never buy there though.
With the stores, Microsoft tried following in the footstep of Apple. And that's all they achieved. Not an Apple fan BTW.
I don't think Microsoft has the cult following like Apple to really pull the retail store thing off as well.
You honestly think the iphone marketshare alone is a cult following??? (Says the Android user.)
I think there's a huge group of people in North America who 100% follow anything Apple does regardless of what it is without even considering what said device does or what the competition does in spite of that, they just know they want Apple and are convinced of the superiority. When you can hook people in and have them spend an exorbitant amount to have a computer, watch, headphones and phone all in your small ecosystem of devices and they don't think twice about what else is out there... that's cult like in nature. Very very few companies have this kind of loyalty and I would argue that Microsoft is not one of those, or at least not on a scale like Apple has. If you enjoy the hell out of your Xbox and the world of gaming under Microsoft, you're not necessarily also in their launch line for the Zune, or Windows Phone or their Surface Tablet or whatever else they're releasing.
That is sad, I like these brand stores, they give the best showing of the company products, but I can understand it no making much business sense if they can keep same sales with lower costs with other options.
