"We are always here for you", except the stores will all be gone soon so we won't

Sign outside the Sony Store, Pacific Centre, Vancouver, BC

Sign outside the Sony Store, Pacific Centre, Vancouver, BC (Detail)

Retail stores live and die on their combination of product, service, price, and location. And the Sony Store makes a big deal about the level of support available. But that level of service, in fact any service at all, will disappear as Sony closes all of its Canadian retail stores over the new few months.

So while customers may have purchased from the Sony Store based on the support promised, that support will disappear quite soon. But this does reinforce the common observations that if you buy based solely on price, that is all you get? Perhaps customers no longer place much value on the support from a specialist retail store. Perhaps home entertainment technology has become so easy to use that the lack of support is not an issue.

But perhaps more importantly, if consumers don't see value in buying from a physical retail store they will buy on-line and places like the Sony Store will disappear.

I still like going into stores. I'd much rather spend an hour browsing in a bookstore that scrolling through the Amazon website. Will I miss the Sony Store, probably not very much and that is perhaps why the stores are all closing.