Retail Is Detail
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
By Stephen Baker, Vice President, Industry Analysis
In last week’s frenzy of iPad news it is entirely likely many folks missed the revelation that Microsoft is looking for employees for two new stores to open later this year. New stores do not mean that the concept has proven totally successful, just that Microsoft has seen enough to warrant further experimentation. If you’ve ever been involved in the rollout of retail stores you know that it is hard to keep changing the in-store experience on the fly so, to Microsoft’s credit, they have gone slow in expansion, and of course they can go slow since this is not their primary business, likely gathering up all they learned from their first stores and hoping to improve on the experience in the next two.
However, they don’t have a lot to improve on, in my opinion, after I finally got a chance to visit one of the stores while on a business trip a few weeks ago. Finding myself in Orange County with a bit of free time I trekked on down to Mission Viejo to see what Microsoft had put together, and I have to say I was very impressed. A well maintained, well merchandised store, with lots of knowledgeable sales help, it really exceeded my expectations. I was led through the store by a very personable and enthusiastic sales clerk who had nothing but great things to say about the store and the products.
The store is set up with lots of table-type merchandising similar to the Apple store and to some other retailers’ concept stores that I have also visited. Clearly the future of in-store PC merchandising is to move it off the traditional retail fixtures and onto less cluttered shelving options. Among some of the cooler features was the ability to buy any piece of software and have it burned right in the store for you, while you waited, additionally you could also order a custom skin for your notebook and have it created directly in the store. Both felt like great personalization opportunities for the store personnel to sell. The clerk made sure to tell me about the Microsoft optimization on the PCs, which had the Microsoft suite of Live products pre-installed. Most of the store’s PC selection was notebooks, and most of the notebooks were standard product, priced competitively with the marketplace. There were sections dedicated for Zunes, for the Xbox, for software and other PC accessories, and for phones as well. But as good as the product merchandising was the store presentation was even better. It felt like a great place to shop with a good vibe.
After this visit I am more convinced than ever that Microsoft is on the right path with this retail strategy and as they roll out new products like Windows Phone 7 and more Microsoft-branded hardware having a high quality platform like these stores to showcase and sell it is a strategy that will benefit Microsoft and all its partners.
Tags: Microsoft
Consumer Technology | Stephen Baker, Vice President, Industry Analysis | 
April 6, 2010 10:47 am
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