Perhaps not the largest hit to the mall scene, but it’s a bit woeful when one of the world’s largest corporations is pulling out of your mall:
Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) (“Microsoft”) today announced a strategic change in its retail operations, including closing Microsoft Store physical locations. The company’s retail team members will continue to serve customers from Microsoft corporate facilities and remotely providing sales, training, and support. Microsoft will continue to invest in its digital storefronts on Microsoft.com, and stores in Xbox and Windows, reaching more than 1.2 billion people every month in 190 markets. The company will also reimagine spaces that serve all customers, including operating Microsoft Experience Centers in London, NYC, Sydney, and Redmond campus locations.
The concept and team are not gone, just the storefronts.
So that means a hole at the local Mall of America (MoA); I don’t recall if there’s a Microsoft Store at Rosedale, which is a lot smaller than MoA., but I do believe there’s an Apple Store at both locations.
This will put yet more stress on the bricks & mortar sector. Not that it means much in the overall scheme of things, but it does contribute to making real life retail, where people meet, buy, sell, even court and marry, slowly fade from the American scene.
Or will it? While hard core introverts celebrate using Amazon and other online retail services, and others are attracted by the discounts online services can provide, if the squeeze a penny tradition begins to fade, we could see the bricks and mortar comeback.
I have to wonder how much online retail once again serves to drive us apart.
