This isn't necessarily related to COVID-19
Microsoft is closing all its physical stores permanently.
The press release barely mentions COVID-19 but its related. The company hinted that since stores were closed that
"Our sales have grown online as our product portfolio has evolved to largely digital offerings, and our talented team has proven success serving customers beyond any physical location," said Microsoft Corporate Vice President David Porter. "We are grateful to our Microsoft Store customers and we look forward to continuing to serve them online and with our retail sales team at Microsoft corporate locations."
Since the Microsoft Store locations closed in late March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the retail team has helped small businesses and education customers digitally transform; virtually trained hundreds of thousands of enterprise and education customers on remote work and learning software; and helped customers with support calls.
The conclusion is that the company realized it doesn't need store anymore.
The good news is that the company isn't laying off store employees and will have them work remotely.
In the bigger picture, you have to worry about commercial real estate, which is wildly overbuilt in the US already.
