Early this month I went to Oakbrook Center, in Chicago to check out the new Microsoft Retail Store, it was a Sunday on a very chili day, and Oakbrook Center is an outdoor mall, so I didn’t see a lot of consumers inside or outside the stores, but a saw a few of them inside the new Microsoft store.
The store looks very similar to an apple store just with more color, just reflecting Microsoft’s logo look and feel, even if the company is following Apple’s store strategy I really like it, and from a consumer perspective I like when companies appreciate the good taste of other companies and improve their status quo, in my opinion Microsoft wins because now they can compete in the retail store arena, Apple also wins because consumers will remember the Apple’s store, and consumers win because we have more options.
The store I visited has a similar size of a regular Apple store but with more products, this because Microsoft rely on its business partners to assort the store, so end users actually can see the best computer from HP, Vaio, Toshiba, Dell, etc, which for my perspective is an excellent value added for consumers, because probably will be a good destination to get an objective information of which computer is the best for each consumer needs, actually the computers are divided by user needs, instead of price.
The store also include a small area where consumers can look windows mobile phones, this area is the less visited from consumers. It also has a software printing station where consumers can go and chose whatever software application they want and print it right away.
The Microsoft store will boost peripheral market share for Microsoft, since they can display mouse, web cams, and different well design accessories that other retails don’t assort because of size constrains.
In terms of gaming it is clear that Microsoft continues to build on the Xbox brand, the store displays 2 Xbox 360 for consumers who wants to play, and one more with Kinect. I guess Microsoft wants to start the bond with its consumers at soon as possible, so this is a good way to stay close to kids, with the hope that they will embrace the brand in the future.
I am convinced that the Microsoft store is a marketing expense, and Microsoft is not looking it as revenue or profit generation, this is one more marketing tactic. The stores will give Microsoft some control of the messaging and positioning of their products that in this era is very difficult to manage, it is a good space to evangelists current and potential costumers and get face-to-face contact with consumers and learn from them, get fresh and direct feedback.
The potential challenges I see with the Microsoft stores are, first the investment to maintain the newest and hottest computers will be difficult, Apple can do so because Apple has only 4 or 5 SKUs compare with the 4 or 5 models from each manufacturer (around 25) and with different launching times, then building on this who will decide which computers will be display, probably the decision will drive some conflicts with its business partners, and what about the big retails such as Best Buy, how Microsoft will manage the relationship with them.
Only time will tell if the Microsoft Retail Stores is the right move.
P.S. Look at the video where Microsoft employees breaks out into song to attract more employees, I guess.
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