Microsoft announces a “new approach to retail”, and decides to close their retail stores as they focus on maximizing digital channels to sell hardware.
“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.”
In their press release, Microsoft will also re-imagine their stores in London, New York, Sydney, and Redmond. Their staff, meanwhile, will focus on enterprise remote sales, training and support.
“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.”
This is probably just one of the many expected pandemic after-effects, with many companies either downsizing or entirely closing retail store operations.
What do you think?
