Microsoft’s “new approach” to retail stores: Closing them forever

[Karlston]

Microsoft’s “new approach” to retail stores: Closing them forever

Microsoft designed its retail stores to be cool like Apple's. It didn't work.

Enlarge / Ironically, this boarded-up Microsoft Store location in New York City, seen on June 8, is one of the four in the world that will reopen—but as an "experience center" where you can't buy anything.

Kena Betancur | VIEWpress | Getty Images

86 with 69 posters participating

Microsoft's retail stores, like many retailers throughout the nation, have been closed for months due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. If you were hoping to visit one again as restrictions in your state ease up, however, you're out of luck: the Microsoft Store is done for good.

 

The company announced the closure today, amusingly, as the Microsoft Store taking "a new approach to retail," by which it means "not actually operating retail stores." Although four locations—in London, New York City, Sydney, and Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, campus—will remain open, they will become "experience centers," where one can see, touch, and play with Microsoft products but not actually purchase any.

 

Microsoft naturally hailed the "strategic change" as a win, saying that online sales have grown and the product portfolio "has evolved to largely digital offerings," which, 2020 being what it is, is no doubt true. But Microsoft's stores, which began opening in 2009, were never able to escape the comparison to rival Apple's retail stores.

 

That held particularly true in Tyson's Corner, Virginia, where the first Apple Store opened in 2001. Microsoft opened a store in the same mall eight years later, in 2009, and the comparisons were unavoidable. Brad Smith, who was then a Microsoft vice president and is now the company president, said at the time that the comparisons were simply "the nature of retail," adding, "you go to Saks and you're going to see some similarities to Nordstrom."

 

I, too, have passed by the Tyson's Corner location regularly in the past decade. It's down the hall from the Apple Store, situated snugly between a Banana Republic and a Tesla showroom. But while the Apple Store always seems to be teeming with crowds, both the cars and the crisp button-downs on either side always seemed to elicit more joy than the showroom full of Surface tablets. Aside from some kids playing on the demo Xbox units, the Microsoft Store rarely seemed to attract a crowd.

 

 

Microsoft’s “new approach” to retail stores: Closing them forever

 

[Karlston]

Microsoft Closes Retail Stores

Microsoft has announced it is closing almost all of its retail Stores (and the few that won’t close won’t be selling products and will be turned into Microsoft Experience Centers). https://news.microsoft.com/2020/06/26/microsoft-store-announces-new-approach-to-retail/

 

This is a devastating blow to existing Microsoft Surface users looking for decent support and it certainly won’t do much to help with sales of new Surface devices.

 

One counterbalance to the poor online and phone support for Surface products was that if you were fortunate to live within traveling distance to a Microsoft Store, most consumers could get better results for hardware issues than using online support. And then there was the instant exchange, as opposed to sending in your broken device and waiting, sometimes up to two or more weeks for a replacement. And then getting a bad replacement. At the Stores, the replacement process was usually instant and customers could examine the replacement product (reject if needed), etc. For many with bulging batteries in Surface Book and SP4 devices, going to a MS Store was the only solution to avoid a $600 out of warranty charge (Microsoft cut off free replacements after 3 years from date of Purchase). The Store staff “got it”. The Apple Stores right next store to most of the MS Stores replaced batteries and devices all day long. And took care of swollen batteries in Macbook Pros.

 

The closest store to me was one mile from the Massachusetts border. That Store had a robust small business sales and support business. When in the Store, I often saw pickups of multiple new Surface devices. And they handled software and hardware issues for these customers easily. There were actually smiles on the faces of those folks waiting for the techs to work on their devices. This speaks to the top level skills of these MS Store technicians.

 

As Amy Babinchak stated in the Third Tier Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/thirdtier/ “This is a sucky development. The Microsoft store was a valuable partner to my MSP. They hand delivered orders directly to clients, managed warranty and repair issues like pros I’ve never seen before. The existence of the store legitimatized the Surface line of products. This is a sad event “

 

 

Microsoft Closes Retail Stores