Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room

Borders Goes Bankrupt - The Death of Print at Retail?

(1/5) > >>

Renegade:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704329104576138353865644420.html?mod=WSJASIA_hpp_LEFTTopWhatNews

Borders Group Inc. is in the final stages of preparing a bankruptcy filing, clinching a long fall for a company with humble beginnings that helped change the way Americans buy books but failed to keep pace with the digital transformation rocking every corner of the media landscape.
--- End quote ---

I'm kind of ambivalent. On one hand, I feel sorry for them, and on the other, I feel that it's their own fault for not embracing ebooks earlier.

MilesAhead:
I wonder how long it will be until 2 people lamenting the demise of bookstores are interrupted by a grad student asking "what's a book?"

app103:
Borders was always that bookstore in the mall that you went in by mistake because you didn't read the sign overhead to see it wasn't B&N. This was the problem long before ebooks came along.

cyberdiva:
Borders was always that bookstore in the mall that you went in by mistake because you didn't read the sign overhead to see it wasn't B&N. This was the problem long before ebooks came along.
-app103 (February 12, 2011, 02:30 AM)
--- End quote ---
Hi, app.  I guess our experiences were very different.  For me, B&N was never in the picture.  Borders blew me away when it first opened, and while I felt very sorry for the small independent bookstores that the victims of Borders' success, I was in awe of a bookstore that had on hand such a rich, deep assortment of books in so many fields, even rather esoteric ones.  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.com, both in terms of availability and in terms of price.  I agree with you that Borders' troubles started before the rise of the e-book, but at least in my experience, the early threat was not B&N but rather Amazon.

mouser:
I gave up on bookstores long long ago.

Over the years every bookstore I've known (except the second hand used bookstores) has transformed itself slowly but surely into a coffee shop and clothing store first, and bookstore second.  I don't even know why they call them bookstores anymore..

On one hand I sympathize with them, because a retail store just can't compete with the selection and fast release updates and user reviews that an online site like amazon can deliver.   If you want to go hang out and get a coffee and connect to the internet, a "bookstore" is still a nice place to lounge.  But the truth is that bookstores are just not very useful for people who want to go and find a book these days.

Fortunately online book shopping is a pretty wonderful experience (at least in the US); shipping is super fast, cheap, easy to find good reviews, easy to buy supercheap used editions, easy to return, etc.

I doubt we will have physical bookstores at all for very much longer -- though i guess that's probably going to be the case for all retail stores eventually.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page