LA Times Feature on Microsoft’s Retail Stores

Nathan Olivarez-Giles reporting for the Los Angeles Times:

John Smits of San Clemente bought a laptop at the Mission Viejo store, lured by a discount he found out about on Facebook. But he said the Microsoft Store lacked the exclusivity that draws consumers to the Apple Store.

“Everything sold here can be bought somewhere else, likely for a lower price,” Smits said. “There is no exclusive product here to pull me in. But at the Apple Store, there’s all kinds of stuff I can’t get anywhere else.”

Interesting consumer perspective. It gets to the heart of the problem with Microsoft’s copycat retail strategy: they’ve created Apple-like stores but have almost no Apple-like products of their own. Just Xbox.

★ Friday, 26 November 2010