Microsoft heralds "new approach to retail," shutters physical stores

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Meanwhile, it has launched the WinFR Windows File Recovery command line tool.

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If a 'new approach' is to withdraw entirely from retail, an all-out failure is more like it. A cost of $450 million in asset write offs and 'impairments', the retail adventure started in 2009, grew to 116 stores worldwide by 2018 but now only 82. Whatever you call it, you can't polish the proverbial!

MS had stores?

Who knew? Learn something every day.

I was more impressed that Corporate Vice President David Porter is Speaking over 120 languages.

It was sadly doomed from the start - they don't have the image that Apple has, and no matter how nice the MS Surface line is, it's not enough on it's own to prop up a store network, at least in the UK.

Shame it didn't really work out - but getting rid seems the right decision imo.

To be fair to MS here and in fact most companies who are reducing stores, especially in the current post covid climate, I can't blame them.

I'm pretty sure Apple (and a few other larger companies) would love the ability to just shift fully online, just think about the savings they could make from not having a retail store to maintain and/or pay rent on etc but at least in the case of Apple, their stores are a major 'advertising' point for them...not that I have one near me, the closest is well over an hour away by car.

If I'm completely honest I don't 'want' to go shopping in stores yet (far too many people in the UK are being stupid going to the beaches etc).... I was already ordering 90% of my items online, partly due to no local stores having what I actually wanted to buy and needing to go online anyway (clothing especially) or there just being nowhere to actually buy what I want to buy. Most of my tech is bought online as the only option I have here is some smaller independents that hugely overprice or pcworld that half the time doesn't have the item in stock (it's not a small store either). Admittedly I have noticed that the quality of items being sent and/or delivery has dropped though, I'm having to send more damaged items back than before too.

So essentially my 'retail store' experience basically ends up being window shopping at best, if I'm lucky I might get to look at the item and get a feel for the quality but then not be able to buy it for whatever reason. I've literally lost count of the times I've basically been told, sorry we don't have it in store but you can get it via our website.....

Realistically the only thing I miss is fresh food shopping, online shopping has been pretty good for me here in most cases but I like to pick my own meat and veg etc so I get 'good quality' stuff rather than whatever I'm given which can be a bit hit or miss.

Just fro a personal perspective, there are some things I will always prefer to buy in local stores, most obviously food (*) and perishables.

Similar applies to clothing except where returns policy is extremely good. I'd rather, as the saying says, feel the quality.

But MS products? Much of it can be downloaded and the rest is bulk-produced, identical inside the box, and cheaper elsewhere. I want to visit MS shops because ... ????

(*) By food I mean meat, veg, etc where quality is critical, not tins of beans or boxes of cornflakes .... though currently, I get them locally too. In part, that's to support local traders on a "use 'em or lose 'em" basis

Not shocked by this tbh, as someone said above, the Surface line isn't enough to warrant a store, perhaps if they had other products like Apple do, then they could pull it off, but given all of the other things that MS have done, and then binned off, there just isn't enough to the store..