Can Microsoft’s new retail stores outshine Apple?
Apple has had its own retail stores for some time now, and they have proved very successful, both in terms of ringing up sales and building a bond between the company and its customers. Now Microsoft is moving in on Apple’s turf, with its first two retail stores due to open by the end of the month to coincide with the release of Windows 7. Can Microsoft outdo Apple in the retail sector or is this going to be an epic fail?
Apple retail stores are sparse, lifeless places where inconsequential and inane people walk around lost in a fanboy world of overpriced gadgets and gizmos. They are places where there is no smartphone other than the iPhone, and where the iPod is the only personal media player that exists. Style is valued over substance and the counter where experts tell you why your product is broken is regarded as the greatest thing on Earth.
Hopefully, Microsoft’s new retail stores are going to be a little different. Originally announced in February, we’re now eight months further on and the opening of the first two Microsoft retail stores is imminent. An official opening date for the stores in Scottsdale, Arizona and Mission Viejo, California hasn’t been announced, but the company would quite frankly be mad to miss timing it to coincide with Windows 7 going on general release tomorrow.
According to Reuters, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said during a public appearance in Boston:
We’ll open a couple of stores, try to improve, open a couple more stores. It’s very important for us to have a direct connection with the user [for] showing the customer what you really can do.
That kind of sounds like Microsoft policy with operating systems, releasing one and then trying to improve it a little before the next, but it may work in the retail sector as well. Hopefully, Microsoft will listen to customer feedback and alter its stores accordingly. If the majority want more space dedicated to the Xbox 360 then so be it. If they want the Zune HD to be prominently featured and supported in-store then that’s what should happen.
There’s a general air about Microsoft at the moment that it’s turning the corner. The time of Vista is almost over, Bill Gates has moved on, and the time seems very ripe for retail stores to really sell the company and its products to the average consumer. And if Microsoft can beat Apple at its own game then it’s all the better.
Related Posts:
October 21st, 2009
Apple retail stores aren’t exactly lifeless. I know you’re an Apple hater and can’t see the good in them, but at least give them credit for what they’re good for which is their retail stores. Certainly in the UK their retail stores are the best I’ve been in: much better than PC World, Currys, Comet etc who’ve all been playing the game for years.
Microsoft will have a job on their hands to emulate this success. Microsoft doesn’t have the same popular brand image: it is more corporate than consumer. The iPod is cool, which is why people buy Apple, but far fewer people desire a Zune, rightly or wrongly so.
On the grounds that Microsoft doesn’t do hardware for PCs, it will be interesting to see how they choose brands of PCs to sell, if any. If they choose some popular brands over others, then there will be a furore. If they stock all popular brands, there will be either a lack of choice from each manufacturer or huge stores which quickly lose that intimacy with the customer, becoming much more like PC World. And they can’t really just sell Windows 7 without hardware surely?
Or are Microsoft going to make a venture into hardware as well?
October 21st, 2009
Hmmm. Apple retail stores sell more per square foot than any other retailer on this planet.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=360&tag=col1;post-4752
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=4752&tag=col1;post-4752
October 21st, 2009
It’ll be interesting to see the philosophy behind the concept. While everyone just assumes it’s a Apple Store Clone, it could just as easily be more of a resource center with some demo machines, a classroom for MCSE courses and certs….etc.
Some Windows Mobile phones, Zunes, Xbox and games, keyboards and mice, I don’t see them selling computers.
It made a lot of sense for Apple to have it’s own stores but Microsoft doesn’t suffer from a lack of presence in retail.