Well, two anonymous sources told me about this a couple of days ago and now it’s official (sorry sources If I didn’t post it in time on SAR). Sony US will close 20 of their own stores!
This is the official press text from Sony:
SAN DIEGO, Feb. 26, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — Sony Electronics today announced plans to restructure its organization to maintain its competitiveness in an evolving consumer electronics market.
In line with Sony Corporation’s Feb. 6 earnings announcement outlining an estimated headcount reduction of roughly 5,000 employees globally, Sony Electronics confirmed a total staff reduction of one-third by the end of the calendar year, affecting approximately 1,000 employees across all sites. In addition, in an effort to further streamline costs and continue focus on existing partner relations, Sony announced the closure of 20 U.S. Sony Stores
“While these moves were extremely tough, they were absolutely necessary to position us in the best possible place for future growth,” said Mike Fasulo, President and COO of Sony Electronics. “I am entirely confident in our ability to turn the business around, in achieving our preferred future, and continue building on our flawless commitment to customer loyalty through the complete entertainment experience only Sony can offer.”
Sony maintains its position as a leader in the electronics industry, pushing the limits of innovation with products and experiences exclusive to Sony. It continues to drive its industry leadership in premium products across all of CE, including all-things-4K, and further plans to reinforce its market leadership through strengthening its 4K product lineup and bolstering 2K models in 2014, with a continued commitment to the future success of its U.S. television business. The company will place an increased focus on its premium products – including its digital imaging line, high-resolution audio, and full suite of professional solutions – while leveraging its strengths in hardware, content and gaming.
There are no further details at this time.
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“Well, two anonymous sources told me about this a couple of days ago and now it’s official (sorry sources If I didn’t post it in time on SAR)”
Lol sure
The delay is understandable if the rumors were heard before the employees had been properly told. I would also keep it quiet in that situation considering the livelihoods of 1,000 people are affected.
Sony w/o Mr Morita is the same as GE w/o Welch, or Microsoft w/o Gates, or Apple w/o Jobs. Downhill all the way due to internal politics power struggle. I feel sad actually…
I go to the Palo Alto and Valley Fair one a lot. I’m sad that Valley fair is closing since I live near by it. Palo Alto one isnt too far, but its a REALLY nice Sony store, so I’m glad at least that one is opened still.
Reality checks are healthy.
It does concern me to see such a drastic downsizing however I have never actually seen a Sony store.
If sony can succesfully place thier products in more retail outlets it may not be too bad for them.
Genersl Motors recently closed a great many dealerships as did Ford.
It still appears that thes companies are fairly healthy.
Hopefully the same will prove true with Sony.
I’ve been to several, including the Palo Alto one that is not closing. All are pretty useless in my opinion. They look pretty, but fail in two important ways that Apple (who leads in the field of tech showcase stores) do not. Firstly, you can go in months after a new product release and they still don’t have the latest products. Secondly, the staff don’t know enough. If you go into any Apple store, they have all their products from the day they release them. I’m sure it’s expensive to do so, but it does drive sales. Sony could learn a lot from that. I suspect that the reason they are keeping the Palo Alto store is that it’s the prime silicon valley location – along with Apple, Microsoft and various other stores in the same shopping center.
Sony has consistently fallen short on marketing.
How much of that is deleberate..so as not to alienate the competition who buys thier sensors..and how much is just poor marketing skill/ability ..is a question.
Certainly the new naming system for example is an example of the later..
Your experience with staff is precisely mine. In addition to being uninformed there might be 5 clerks standing talking on head phones and not waiting on customers. You had to try to get their attention. I don’t blame it on them. I blame in on their training. I just don’t think Sony had sharp leadership over their retail operations.
I hope they can make it. I love my NEX 6.
That is a terrible comparison. Apple has few major products, and they vary minimally.
“Can you tell me the difference between the $600 IPad and this $500 one. Oh one is 32GB, and the other is 16G”. “Whats the difference between this white and black Iphone. Oh, one is white and the other is black”.
I know it’s more challenging, but there’s no reason that with the 5 or 6 staff they have, they cannot have someone up to speed on cameras, someone on TVs etc. Also, as all the main products do eventually make it to the stores, why not just do it earlier, and at least have the top of the range stuff for people to get excited about. I used to think it was because they had a lot of shops so needed a lot of stock to do that. Seems like that’s not the case. They could even let you play with products and then ship you anything you wanted to buy. Apple don’t have shops, they have marketing and customer support centers where you can also buy product. It’s a very clever model, and one Sony would do well to partially emulate. The Apple store employees know a lot more than you give them credit for. Go in with any question and you will get and answer. In Sony stores you get less that you could find out yourself online in a few mins.
PS – don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge Sony fan, they have fantastic products. I just don’t think they know how to sell them in today’s competitive world.
Your right of course, the staff do not have a clue what products are coming out and the Sony Stores are the last one’s to get product. Every-time I would go in the staff would say, “Your better off buying [a new product] at our on-line store, we will not be getting that for months.” You would think Sony would send at least one in-store demo unit initially to each store to drive sales. Sony stores have area specialist, who know (at best) a fraction more about their “Department,” than the other Sales Associates. There appears to be no cross-training, an associate will know 0 about a product 5 feet from their specialized knowledge zone…it’s simply astounding the lack of product knowledge at Sony Stores. I have only been to 4 Sony Stores, if someone else here has a different experience, let us know.
I used to live in a city with one. It was the only place where you could go if you wanted to pay the MSRP for a Sony product. Every thing they sold was considerably cheaper just outside their doors at a Best Buy. I never understood how they thought they could compete when they were always trying to sell stuff for 15-20% more than you could find it somewhere else.
Manufacturers must sell thier product at msrp to the public and cannot discount prices to undercut thier venders. That is just an economic fact of life.
Of course the manufacturers also do not have to put out an MSRP… Nor did Sony have to operate their stores under the Sony corporation, they could have easily created a separate business unit, or better yet just franchised out the stores.
Sony is better to wake up sooner. I don’t know anyone who considers Sony as a premium brand.
Maybe we should consider Asus, Acer and Huawei premium brands? Riiiiiight.
That’s interesting in that, for some reason, I always thought that those stores were franchises.
They definitely are in the UK… Over here, it would probably help if they binned them – the staff aren’t exactly apple material…
Damn. How can they increase their market penetration if they are closing stores? I guess it’s all up to Amazon now. Sony has computers at the front of their stores, yet they are losing their shirt on computers and are supposedly getting out of computers (according to their own announcements). On-quarter of their store is devoted to TV’s, yet they are losing money (according to Sony) in the TV sector as well and will be exiting that business too. Why not put what is profitable in your stores Sony ? A company can not fill their stores with “Loss-leaders” and hope to get into the black. They decreased/ghettoized the still camera sections of their stores last year- yet cameras actually MAKES them $ !
A lot of the stores make their money from Vaio sales. Without Vaio there is no justification for keeping the stores open.
TV business will continue so the comments about exiting that business are incorrect
Sony is planing ” something big” in 4k tv.
I was given no hint what it is though.
By the way..Some of the technolgy behind 4k tv is Sony proprietary and all the 4k manufacturers licence it from Sony. I believe it is some of the circuitry. I do not know any more details than that.
There is a chip in all LCD TV’s that is Sony proprietary (100% market share)
What do you suggest they put in their stores certainly not mirrorless cameras , last year the mirrorless market in North America shrunk by a staggering 46%. Sony imaging division has been a major money loser not maker
You haven’t been watching Sony very closely if you think Sony only makes mirrorless cameras, Shhh, don’t tell anyone that some Sony cameras have a tech called “SLT” (that’s not mirrorless).
That Sony has been loosing money from Display and Computer sales is no State Secret. In TV’s the are getting their lunch handed to them by Vizio who constantly underprice Sony. Now Vizio has gone upmarket with this year and are gunning for what was Sony’s slice of the pie with high-tech TV’s.
Vaio computers are also overpriced compared to their competitors. Industry analyst and Sony themselves have admitted Sony is losing money in these categories for years. It’s not something dreamed-up.
To bookend my comments for anyone looking at these old post, herein are a series of news stores about Sony loosing big money on TV’s and computers. People really should know what they are talking about before writing falsehoods that show their lack of knowlege on the ‘Net.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/31/us-sony-earnings-idUSBRE99U06320131031
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-sony-losses-layoffs-selling-computer-business-20140205,0,5421713.story#axzz2v1IHpmfg
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57618342-92/sony-said-to-be-in-talks-to-sell-pc-business-to-japan-fund/
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-10/sony-tv-unit-loses-money-while-sony-financial-exceeds-profit-forecasts
http://gizmodo.com/5858511/sonys-ceo-says-every-tv-it-makes-loses-money
Most likely, none of the1000+ Sony employees to be harmed by these closings ever made any of the bad decisions responsible for Sony’s current misfortunes. The workers who will pay the penalty for Sony management’s miscalculations have done nothing to cause the disappointment and frustration that drives this forum. ( I haven’t read a single post on SAR complaining about the Sony stores or the service they received at said Sony stores ).
The Sony executives (who have made MANY stupid decisions in the past ), and the current leadership who have obviously made poor decisions, will likely receive promotions, and salary & benefit increases, and will, doubtless, continue in their positions making more huge mistakes and requiring their workforce to suffer the consequences.
I guess that makes Sony a winner, like GM.
That I am afraid is how capitalism works. The boards responsibility and thus benefits and livelihood are to the stock holders not the employees
. . . . AND evidently, not to their consumers either. Better hope stock holders buy plenty of cameras and lenses.
I do not worship at the altar of capitalism . . . it’s just another ism.
But the stock holders are the ones that put their money at risk to finance the operation, right?
Sony human resources must be doing a great job to have hired thousands of enployees that have never made a bad decision.
I never realized perfect employees like that even existed.
I never said what you have implied here. I did not say that Sony employees have never made any bad decisions, everyone makes mistakes.
What I DID say is that these workers who are being harmed are NOT the cause of all the hand-wringing and disappointment displayed on this forum. The most vitriolic comments I see on this forum are castigating Sony Leadership and Sony decision makers.
I haven’t seen any negative commentary against Sony inventors, engineers, designers, sales force etc.
Why your sneering dismissal of Sony’s sales force, intoning that they perhaps share culpability for their own demise?
I am not sneering or dismissing the Sony sales force nor was I disagreeing with your statement..merely pointing out the portion of your statement that was exagerated..
Asked a manager whats the difference between and nex and a rx100. Only thing he can tell me was one is a fixed lens and the other is interchangeable.
In my recent discusion with Sony we talked about the fact that Canon has a 120mp sensor that it plans to wait to introduce..at the same time or shortly after sony introduces thier new stacked sensor..early to mid 2015.
So I checked it out
Canon officially anounced the development of a 120 mp H size cmos sensor in 2010.
H size is about halfway between C size and FF..about 29mm x 20mm
This sensor will produce extrmely sharp high resolution pictures even after cropping, at about 9.5 frames per second.
It seems to be by mutual agrrement that everyone will introduce a next generation sensor at about the same time..sort of a “Mexican standoff”
We will then have the choice between the new technology and the ultimate refinement of the old technology. Eventually the new technology will win out…but Canon intends to see to it that the old technology goes down fighting.
2015 will be a very interesting year for cameras..
Well the salesman in Sony’s leading Central London store (Baker St.) had not even heard of the A7 or A7R when I asked to hold one, only three weeks ago. Perhaps their sales force needs to take heed of something other than toys with small screens.
When the nex 3 came out the same muppets thought it was a compact (cos it’s the same size innit). Didn’t have a clue about trivial details like the apsc sensor or that you could change the lens…
Same in the US. When I call to ask about it they always need to seach it using the part number.
Same with lenses. They have no idea which os FF and which is Apsc.
Glad some of the stores are shutting down because the sales guys are just too dumb and give the brand a bad name.
Sigh with Kai’s test on EVF. It is totally wrong to TEST it.
It needs to be test for much darker place and he will find that he can’t even see anything through OVF but through EVF he can even see a lot of lighter and clear details by scenes magnification( lower the fps of EVF, lower the noise).
Went to my local Best Buy store yesterday. Sony has all but disappeared from Best Buy’s digital camera offerings. I saw a NEX 3n, RX100 mII, and not much more.
In the Best Buy camera department they featured 3 different nondescript Canon EOS Rebels, 4 Nikons including; D3200, D5200, D5300 all with kit lenses.
I question how Sony can close many of their own stores, and allow their selection at Best Buy to dwindle to a joke and still compete for consumers.
Does Sony intend to shift to predominately internet sales like Panasonic and Olympus?
Internet is one of the reason , second big company like Amazon , BH ,eats everything around .The true is very cruel , they just do not need people .New technology brings us less work place .Brings more benefit for big company . But for how long ? In this way they start to eat own tail . Did you know ,100 the most richest people have as much as all the people all over the word .
No mentioned of the large store they have in center city Philadelphia with Comcast.
That store is closing too. It sucks
This is what happens if a company doesn’t stay focused. Anyway, it’s sad to hear. Watching Sony implode because they refuse to make changes until they are forced to do so is very sad as someone who grew up admiring Trinitron and Walkman.
It’s not too late to change, but Sony, you must take drastic measures. 5 camera systems is quite a lot. If you don’t have the resources for PCs, TVs, and US stores, how do you figure you have the resources for 5 different camera systems? Do you think your gaming franchise is safe forever? Your refusal to update smartphone software has left you looking like a leper that no one wants to touch. Apparently, constant hardware updates with no software updates does not look like innovation to customers.
This is a good thing. Time to refocus and get your act together. Retail stores and outlets are getting killed by online sales anway- it’s not totally Sony’s fault. I look forward to the new, leaner Sony.
how is it different than apple store?
I went to the Sony store at Fashion Valley in San Diego today. Both that store and the smaller one nearby at University Towne Center (a “gallery,” according to Sony), are staying open.
The Sony guy at Fashion Valley said all the outlet stores are closing, including the one in San Ysidro by the Mexican border. He said Sony has been in the process of upgrading or modernizing its stores, and the stores that have been modernized are staying open. 5 are in California, 3 in New York, 1 in Texas and 2 in Florida. He said the stores that have not been modernized are the ones that are closing.