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Borders Goes Bankrupt - The Death of Print at Retail?

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40hz:
The sad truth is that real bookstores appear to be going the way of the real hardware store and hamburger stand.

In a society that "knows the price of everything - and the value of nothing," something as valuable as a good bookstore doesn't stand a chance against 'free shipping' and '30% off.'

Amazon understands this well enough that they've incorporated a bar code scanner into their iPhone app. Scan a bar code and you can now add it to your Amazon shopping cart or wish list with one tap of your finger.

It's a brilliant strategy really. They don't come right out and say it. But the message is still clear: Shop anywhere - but buy from us.

And it will no doubt continue to work brilliantly for them. Right up until the day the last physical bookstore closes its doors one last time.

"So it goes."  :(

app103:
It was a heady experience shopping at Borders in the early days.  I didn't accidentally walk into Borders by mistake, I deliberately went to the mall so I could shop at Borders.  I never found the same depth of holdings at B&N.

It was clear early on, though, even before e-books, that any physical bookstore, even one as mammoth as Borders, would have a hard time competing with Amazon.
-cyberdiva (February 12, 2011, 04:25 AM)
--- End quote ---

Go back before Amazon...go back to the 80's. Nearly every shopping mall around here had both a Borders and  B&N, with Borders being the smaller store with less stuff. At quick glance both stores looked the same from the outside, easy to mistaken one for the other if you didn't read the name on the sign overhead. The difference was when you went inside.

Borders was good for magazines...they seemed to have a lot of those. But they didn't take the same approach to stocking their books as B&N did.

They would stock a ton of a few popular titles in each category, where B&N only stocked a ton of the most popular titles and a few of plenty of less popular stuff. Because of this, B&N had a better chance of carrying what you were looking for if what you wanted wasn't on the best sellers list.

Now I am not sure if their stand alone stores were different, because I have only seen them in the malls around here. Maybe the stand alone stores were very different, due to the larger space.

40hz:
Guess it depends on where you live.

The B&N and Borders where I live opened (with major media splashes) as stand alone stores.

We were all amazed by the size, range, and depth of their offerings. Prior to their arrival, bookstores in our area were mostly small, funky, very eclectic operations that were usually jammed into lofts or converted Victorian houses. Most were as much a labor of love as they were businesses.

Both the big stores offered aggressive discounts to their customers when they first opened. In-store discounts ranged from 10% to 30% off cover depending on what you bought. And most times, your purchase would "earn" you a register coupon worth $5 or an additional discount off on your next purchase. Didn't take long before the public voted with its wallet.

There was also the issue of store hours. Both big stores operated on an extended schedule. But Barnes & Noble took the cake on that one. For the first three years in operation, our B&N opened at 9:00am and closed at 11:00pm, Monday thru Saturday. On Sundays it was 10:00am to 10:00pm.

And in case you were wondering, B&N got busy between 9:00 and 11:00pm on many nights. People would be getting off the NYC train, or leaving a restaurant or a movie, and decide to stop in and get something to read on the way home. It was only a short while before a community of late night book buying "regulars" formed. And these regulars were most of its "heavy buyers" according to the store manager. (I know this because I asked her.)

Low prices, big selection, long store hours - combined with a polite and helpful staff (that understood standard English) - it was an absolutely killer marketing strategy.

The end result is that there are no longer any indy bookstores around where I live. And there are virtually no independent booksellers (i.e people that sell used on an informal basis out of their garage or barn) either.

Now, 20 years later, it looks like the online booksellers are about to run this same play on the "Big B Bookstores."

Guess it's true: what comes 'round goes 'round.  ;D

MilesAhead:
Aside from the books, the appeal of Borders for me was the jazz selection. Often I would find lesser-known titles for particular artists.  The prices were high so naturally I'd note the CD and try to get it online at a discount.

There must be big markup in coffee.  But the hidden cost of letting people loiter for hours after spending $2 probably caught up to 'em.

For awhile it was kind of fun to look through the computer magazines to see what weird flavor of Linux was included in the plastic magazine wrapper. :)

zridling:
I have a confession. I worked at Barnes & Noble for three years and it's the best company by far I have ever worked for. They paid almost nothing, but it was a pleasure working with intelligent, curious people. If you got sick, they'd say, "Call us when you feel ready to come back to work." Made me want to work even when I was sick as a dog just because they trusted you.

As several noted, like software and music, there's almost no need to walk into a bookstore. And B&N spent zillions building stores independent of malls. Maybe they can expand the cafe.

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