Goodbye to the high street. Goodbye to the shopping mall. Times are changing and Microsoft is to close or “reimagine” their stores across the world.
Across the USA, nearly all stores are closing, whilst the NYC, London, Sydney and Redmond store will instead be converted to stores that don’t actually sell any items.
Microsoft is to concentrate instead on “digital retail”. No staff will be lost in the transition, but those stores closed in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic will now not reopen.
I remember visiting a store in Florida – right next door to the Apple store. This was at a time when Windows Phone was the “big thing” and it was being pushed hard. However, with the pandemic pushing even the most tech-wary customer into online shopping, the traditional brick-and-mortar store is no longer as important.