In a report from The Verge this week, we have learned that Bose, premium audio brand is planning on closing all of its retails store locations in Europe, UK all of the US, Japan and Australia. These four areas amount to a total of 119 stores which are to be closed down.

Bose stores in China, UAE, India, South Korea and Southeast Asia will remain open – totalling to 130 stores.

Why are Bose closing so many stores?

The main decision is down to just how popular online shopping is, with Amazon so prevalent and easy and if you don’t like something you bought from Amazon, the return process is easy. Quite a few of the Bose stores were within shopping centres, which to get to them means parking up in a multi-storey, sometimes paying to park, finding the store, looking at what you want and then getting out of the car park. Shopping online makes everything so easy, and more people are doing it.

Bose said that a lot of its product “are increasingly purchased through e-commerce.”

Apple on the other hand is doing very well with its physical store presence and on display are Beats headphones, a Bose competitor which Apple owns.

“Originally, our retail stores gave people a way to experience, test, and talk to us about multi-component, CD and DVD-based home entertainment systems. At the time, it was a radical idea, but we focused on what our customers needed, and where they needed it — and we’re doing the same thing now.”

Colette Burke – VP Global Sales – Bose

The stores are remaining open, but are being closed over the next few months.

Source: The Verge

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