An article titled “Borders files bankruptcy and plans to close 30% of stores as book market changes” by Michael S. Rosenwald and published in the Washington Post goes into the conditions that led to the country’s second largest bookstore chain filing for bankruptcy. An article titled “ Barnes & Noble on Block ” by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg and Dennis K. Berman and published in The Wall Street Journal discusses how Barnes & Noble, the nation’s largest bookstore chain, put itself up for sale. What happened to cause the 2 largest bricks and mortar bookstore chains to take such drastic measures?
Bookstores are for selling books; at least they were at some point in time. After the expansion of the chain bookstores devastated independents by undercutting the pricing that an independent could sell at and survive, they seemed to forget they were in business to sell books. The chain bookstores decided to become destinations and added coffee shops, sandwiches and free internet access. This extension to become a place to hang out, combined with the industry practice of books in the inventory of a bookstore being returnable if not sold within a certain period of time created the feel of a library with a café inside.
Walmart & Amazon Are For Buying Not Browsing
Amazon.com is a website with a massive logistics infrastructure behind it. You can’t sip coffee and read books on Amazon.com. Amazon is designed for customers to search for and purchase what they want and move on with their day. A Walmart Supercenter is not designed for spending hours sitting, reading and browsing, it is designed for a shopper to place the book they want into a huge shopping cart alongside the groceries, clothing and other items they came to get and check out. Those companies do not depend solely on books for profits and place tremendous price pressure on bookstores.
Ebooks Go Mainstream With Kindle
Amazon took a chance in 2007 and introduced the Amazon Kindle ereader and eBook format and it became a huge success. Barnes and Noble countered with their successful ereader and eBook format called Nook. Borders missed the boat on those changes and fell behind. Barnes and Nobles may have a chance to survive the changes in the book and publishing industry, but the tide is against them. In what could be the ultimate of ironies, BN.com could become more valuable than the bricks and mortar stores that it sprung from if the company shifts its focus. In order for bookstores to avoid the fate of Hollywood Video and Blockbuster, things have to change fast.
