Samsung temporarily shutting down U.S stores due to COVID-19
In light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, we’re seeing businesses and companies all over the world take steps to keep people home in order to minimize the spread of the virus. There are work from home programs, work and school suspensions, and other strategies so people can practice social distancing, one of the things that can help “flatten the curve”. Samsung has now made the difficult decision to temporarily close all of their stores in the U.S. as of March 17.
This effort is not just to keep people at home but also to protect the health and safety of their employees, customers, and partners. Those who still want to buy their Samsung devices, you can still do so through their online store on Samsung.com. Orders will be “fulfilled as quickly as possible” which means there will probably be understandable delays even with the delivery. So if you can wait, you can still get a new Galaxy S20 Ultra.
All the Samsung Care channels are still functional so if you’re having trouble with any of your devices or you need someone to troubleshoot for you, you can go to the Samsung Care website, call them on 1-800-Samsung, or chat with customer service representatives on Facebook Messenger and Twitter. Now that a lot of people are working home, it’s important of course for users to have someone to help them with malfunctioning phones, tablets, laptops.
It’s an unfortunate turn of events for Samsung of course, as they’re only slowly trying to climb back from deficits of the past few years. The Galaxy S20 series, while receiving mostly good reviews, still has low sales records even in their native South Korea because of this unprecedented outbreak. And because of the price tag of the new flagships, expect people to forego buying expensive devices since they’ll have more pressing needs.
The economic impact of this virus outbreak will probably be massive, not to mention all the social and relational changes that we’ll probably see over the next few months. We’ll keep an eye on how the tech and gadget industry will fare in the expected “new normal” for the world.
