Sony’s shriveled its direct sales business substantially with the closure of its US and Canadian Online Stores. The company’s american smartphone business has chilled substantially. Outlet stores across the continent have also closed as the Japanese OEM goes to favor its distributor and retailer network to sell its products. For a while longer, however, Europeans could still access their region’s Sony Online Store to purchase cameras and TVs. At least, they could until today.
The Online Store for Sony Europe no longer provides you with the option to buy direct from Sony, which also removes any chance at picking up direct-from-manufacturer discounts. The Sony Outlet Store site for the UK is also apparently gone. Instead, you’re redirected to either Sony’s homepage for your region or to its partner stores. Weird, though, that the Sony Mobile Store is the lone holdout in the surrender, at least for now. You can still buy Xperia smartphones direct from Sony Europe and pre-order the Sony Xperia Z5 lineup from the division as well.
Sony had tweeted a response to a concerned fan, but a later search found the tweet to be scrubbed from the shared account for Sony Schweiz and Sony Österreich.
@nkellerns Hi, customers in Europe are no longer able to purchase products directly from Sony, but only from our retail partners.
— Sony CH & AT (@SonyCHAT) September 15, 2015
Sony’s retail world got just a bit smaller today.
Source: Xperia Blog
