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Microsoft to permanently close its retail stores

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Re: Microsoft to permanently close its retail stores

#241

Post by toyg »

WorldMaker wrote: post #182
simonh wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is it actually serving a purpose if not enough people are actually going into the stores, at the demos and playing with the toys? I don't think this is abandoning consumer tech. Their ~90% domination is still a thing. They gained it without stores, and the stores weren't helping them maintain it. There seems to be this cognitive lag where it seems like the stores should be a big deal, should be significant, givin…

I think that an interesting part of that lag is directly Windows Phone related. Phones seem to be the one consumer hardware product that customers "demand" a store to exist. Look at the retail landscape, other than big box electronics stores and office stores and Wal-Mart/Target, who is selling consumer electronics physically? There's a lot of strip malls packed with phone stores. People that want PC laptops/desktops…

> Phones for various reasons (and a lot of them are phone carrier bureaucracy related, I would imagine)

IMHO the real issue is the size of the audience. Phones get sold to people who would never buy a computer, "non-technicals" to a level that desktops and laptops never really touched.

These folks 1) need a lot of help choosing what to buy, 2) have a relationship with these items that is not driven by tech specs but by "feels", 3) buy stuff primarily in shops, not from websites.

Re: Microsoft to permanently close its retail stores

#242

Post by eddhead »

dustinmoris wrote: post #159
ptero wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree on "this is a real shame" feeling. I am not, in general, a heavy Microsoft user: my workstations both at home and in the office run Linux. But a few years ago, when I saw a Microsoft Surface tablet when I walked by the Microsoft store as I was waiting for my wife at the mall I was wowed by its ergonomics. Within three months I bought one as a personal travel laptop and another one for work as my main laptop. An…

Interestingly for me it was almost the opposite experience. I got really excited about the Surface Book and was really close to buy one, then a couple days later I walked past the Microsoft Store on Oxford Street and saw one in real life and was extremely shocked/disappointed how huge, heavy and really really thick it is. It made me realise how unportable this portable device is and I never thought again of buying a…

I have the book and it's fantastic, it's really NOT an unltrabook and is meant to be a workstation. The Book 3 even comes with a Quadro GPU

Re: Microsoft to permanently close its retail stores

#243

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

scarface74 wrote: post #195
WWLink wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Microsoft stores seemed to be a "ME TOO!" thing. I doubt MS ever opened a store in a mall that didn't have an apple store (or wasn't expected to have one). Like I'm sure that's what the point was. Someone would go try some Macs out at the Apple store and walk past the Microsoft store on the way to their car. They'd go in, check out the goods (as a matter of comparison shopping), and possibly buy a PC instead. In…

I wouldn’t go to an Apple store to buy a computer because you can only buy stock configurations. I would go in to get a feel for them and order online. In the case of Apple Stores. They don’t care if people are “showrooming” and then buy online. Apple gets paid either way.

You can also "ship to store" for Apple. Great if you are a working professional and don't want to leave that stuff on your porch at home.

Re: Microsoft to permanently close its retail stores

#244

Post by WorldMaker »

tracker1 wrote: post #237
WorldMaker wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that an interesting part of that lag is directly Windows Phone related. Phones seem to be the one consumer hardware product that customers "demand" a store to exist. Look at the retail landscape, other than big box electronics stores and office stores and Wal-Mart/Target, who is selling consumer electronics physically? There's a lot of strip malls packed with phone stores. People that want PC laptops/desktops…

Haven't really been a console person for a long while... That said, I pretty much favor big-box stores for a few different items namely game consoles, televisions and monitors. It's likely just my own anecdotal bias here, but I've had more of these die in the first month of use than any other electronics, and having a place I can go to "now" to get it replaced is usually a huge deal. When the first X-box came out, th…

Anecdotally I'm in a similar place. I believe that Amazon's electronics "department" is little better than eBay these days and the amount of digging just keeps increasing that you need to do to figure out who is actually selling the device, what their business model is, and if you can trust their listing. (Are they a warehouse arbitrage just moving stuff from Wal-Mart/Target/Costco/etc around, based on who has the highest current price? Are they a nearly defunct old Mom & Pop shop whose only livelihood is now an Amazon and/or eBay shingle? Are they a refurbisher shop that has the gall to label "like new" items as "new" because Amazon's algorithms and mechanical turks haven't caught them yet? Etc.)

That said, I've been charged with being weirdly "old school" that I'd often rather pay extra at Best Buy than just order it for cheap on Amazon. (I've needed to replace a PC monitor since March, but keep procrastinating it because I don't want to buy it online.)

Re: Microsoft to permanently close its retail stores

#245

Post by jimmydddd »

bobthepanda wrote: post #236
simonh wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see the connection. If the only traffic to the stores was a handful of people, how can this have any significant effect on customer good will? They can't be both empty and influential. It seems like the stores were a missed opportunity, but they always had the odds stacked against them. Whatever you can get in an MS store, you could get a much cheaper alternative running the same software at another el…

Was it low traffic or low sales traffic? Helpdesk traffic is unlikely to drive much in terms of immediate sales, but establishing a good helpdesk that can be trusted is very key to trust in the brand. And helpdesk is usually a get in, drop your laptop off, get out and pick it up later type of thing.

Agreed. I had a great walk in help desk experience with resetting a Surface. I otherwise like the Surface, but, if you search online, you can see some models seem to have an intermittant mystery power up glitch. Knowing there was a store a few minutes away that could reset the device would give me confidence to purchase another one without hesitation.

Re: Microsoft to permanently close its retail stores

#246

Post by omaranto »

AlphaWeaver wrote: post #21

This is a real shame. We have (had?) a Microsoft Store in the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham), and my visits to that store were always really enjoyable. I made several warranty claims in-store, and they went above and beyond to help me out, even when my grounds for a claim were kinda shaky. Microsoft did a really good job of hiring diverse talent, and every store-clerk I ever interacted with was smart, nice, and seemed to…

I have funny story of being helped in a Microsoft store.

I once bought a BLU Windows Phone in a Microsoft store. I really liked having a Windows Phone mostly because no one I ever met had seen one before and both Apple and Android users were shocked when they saw it. :)

After a few years my phone's battery indicator started failing, or at least that's what I think the problem was. The phone would suddenly say it was almost out of battery and had to shut down. When I restarted it the battery indicator would say some more reasonable number, consistent with how long ago I had charged the phone; but after a little while, long before it should have been running out of battery, it would again say it had almost no battery left and turn itself off.

I thought the phone's problem wasn't too serious yet and with some vigilance (checking it frequently to turn it on as soon as it turned itself off) I could use it a little longer. But my wife thought it was time for me to get a new phone, so I went to a Microsoft store only to discover they didn't sell them anymore. I think by then everyone had decided to give up on Windows Phones; I still valued what was their main selling point for me, the shock value, and would have gladly bought another!

At the store I started chatting a bit about my phone with the clerk who told me they didn't sell Windows Phones anymore, a heavyset young man. At some point I wanted to show him something on the phone so I took it out of my pocket but fumbled and dropped the phone. When the clerk saw I was about to drop the phone near him, he lifted the leg nearest the phone, but lost his balance and brought his foot down hard, right on my phone!

After that the phone wouldn't turn on anymore. The clerk was very apologetic and seemed willing to pay at least partially to replace my phone but I insisted that I was about to replace it anyway. I went somewhere else and bought myself a cheap Android phone. My wife was very happy the clerk had stepped on my Windows Phone since I had the left the house unconvinced it needed immediate replacement.

Re: Microsoft to permanently close its retail stores

#247

Post by chrisseaton »

reaperducer wrote: post #115
simonh wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see the connection. If the only traffic to the stores was a handful of people, how can this have any significant effect on customer good will? They can't be both empty and influential. It seems like the stores were a missed opportunity, but they always had the odds stacked against them. Whatever you can get in an MS store, you could get a much cheaper alternative running the same software at another el…

While I agree with your premise, I think that the availability of a store is a form of goodwill. You are given more confidence in a product if you know there's a place where you can go when things go wrong, or if you want to see something for real, and not just rely on some rendered image on a screen. There's an Apple Store a few blocks from me. I've never been there. But I like knowing I have the option.

> There's an Apple Store a few blocks from me. I've never been there. But I like knowing I have the option.

Right - I feel like almost any city I'm going to for a conference will have an Apple store I can pop into if I have a problem.

What do you do if you have a ThinkPad or System76 and you get a problem while at a conference? I guess you're out of luck and on your own.

Re: Microsoft to permanently close its retail stores

#248

Post by kccqzy »

simonh wrote: post #111
muststopmyths wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with the SF Westfield Center store. Great staff. It was a good place to check out various Surfaces in person as well. I will say, the surfaces/laptops side of the store was usually empty. Some kids playing with the Xbox or people at the counter getting help seemed to be the extent of traffic the past couple of years. They seem to be aggressively destroying any paltry remaining goodwill with consumer enthusiasts.…

I don't really see the connection. If the only traffic to the stores was a handful of people, how can this have any significant effect on customer good will? They can't be both empty and influential. It seems like the stores were a missed opportunity, but they always had the odds stacked against them. Whatever you can get in an MS store, you could get a much cheaper alternative running the same software at another el…

It's about presence and exposure. For people (like me) who use mostly Apple products and block ads on the internet, the Microsoft products aren't really on my mind. Having a store close by that I can visit certainly increases exposure to these products.

It's surprising how my own attitude changes depending on if it's online: if I see an ad for Microsoft or other brands on the Internet, I'd feel irate and start to wonder why my ad blocker stopped working. But if I see a Microsoft store taking up thousands of square feet, I don't mind its presence and would totally check it out if I am not busy.

Re: Microsoft to permanently close its retail stores

#249

Post by MisterBiggs »

I've always had great experiences at the Microsoft store especially with purchases and replacements. Right after the pandemic caused Microsoft to close all their physical locations my Surface Pro 7 started getting green spots on the screen that I've been waiting for the stores to reopen to get replaced.

Hearing the news today that the store wasn't going to be open I decided to try the online support and it is a total mess. I tried to use text chat but after an hour my position in the queue actually went up. So I decided to have them call me which the wait took much longer than quoted. Then I spent over an hour on the phone with a representative for what they even admitted was obviously a manufacturer defect.

They didn't want to send me a new device before I shipped them my RMA unit so they expected me to be without my laptop for a week while they processed the claim. Then when they finally caved they couldn't tell me how large of a hold they would put on my card while before my RMA reached them.

This whole process would have taken 5 minutes at the store, and I would have walked out with a new laptop right then.

All in all I feel like all my Microsoft hardware products just massively depreciated in value.

Re: Microsoft to permanently close its retail stores

#250

Post by graeme »

WWLink wrote: post #148
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is purely anecdotal. Take it with a grain of salt. We have a "high-end" Simon mall, in a town near where I live. It's quite "upscale," with Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdales, etc. It has an Apple Store near the South entrance, and a Microsoft Store, near the center. The Apple Store is always packed. I haven't been there in a few months, so I have no idea what's going on with it at the moment, but it has always be…

The Microsoft stores seemed to be a "ME TOO!" thing. I doubt MS ever opened a store in a mall that didn't have an apple store (or wasn't expected to have one). Like I'm sure that's what the point was. Someone would go try some Macs out at the Apple store and walk past the Microsoft store on the way to their car. They'd go in, check out the goods (as a matter of comparison shopping), and possibly buy a PC instead. In…

Yeah I think it misses the rationale for the Apple stores. Jobs felt that Apple products were different, and weren’t getting a good sales experience by having big box store employees sell them.

This proved a correct thesis for the apple store, and then the stores grew as apple built mass market products.

Microsoft’s product lineup does fairly well. But it is not mass market. And while they are different from PCs, they still run Windows, which is widely familiar among laptop buyers. Further, retail is less important a channel than it used to be. Microsoft can market its products directly online. So even if Microsoft has some of the disAdvantages Apple had, it doesn’t really have the full use case.

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