Is Barnes & Noble not long for this world?

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slhuang

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Barnes & Noble just laid off a massive number of people, including head cashiers and receiving managers:

https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/16/barnes-noble-is-killing-itself/
http://audreyii-fic.tumblr.com/post/170886347853/the-entirely-unnecessary-demise-of-barnes-noble

This is scary stuff to me. I don't want Amazon to have even more of a stranglehold on the book industry. I don't want it to be Amazon's T&C or else for all publishers everywhere. That doesn't seem like a healthy book market...

If B&N does go under, I suppose the one silver lining will be indies getting a boost, but I don't know if they have enough power in the market to be a reckoning force against Amazon. I'd be very glad to be corrected if I'm wrong.
 

Dmbeucler

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I don't think they are in the same position as Borders. I worked for Borders near their end. You could tell the end was near when they stopped paying their vendors. Barnes & Noble isn't there yet. And there is evidence that they are making money, just less from their retail stores, and they are pulling out of their retail stores to focus on mail order and online business. That isn't good, and I agree that it's a bad business plan, but I don't think it's going to be the death of the entire company, just possibly the death of their physical stores.
 

lizmonster

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I don't think they are in the same position as Borders. I worked for Borders near their end. You could tell the end was near when they stopped paying their vendors. Barnes & Noble isn't there yet. And there is evidence that they are making money, just less from their retail stores, and they are pulling out of their retail stores to focus on mail order and online business. That isn't good, and I agree that it's a bad business plan, but I don't think it's going to be the death of the entire company, just possibly the death of their physical stores.

Which will leave us with nothing but an Annie's Book Stop 40 minutes away.

I remember when B&N first showed up in our area. It drowned the indies. Took a while, but it happened. There should be a sense of justice here, but there isn't. If I thought they'd be replaced by a dynamic indie bookstore culture, I'd feel differently, but all it means to me is no more real-world browsing.
 

Fuchsia Groan

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This is scary, for sure. I worked at my local B&N when it opened, in 1997. The place was full every single day, with long lines, and sold an impressive variety of books. It's still a good store, and does right by local authors, but it's less busy than it used to be, and toys and other merchandise are more dominant.

On the plus side, we have an indie culture here that seems to be thriving (*knocking on wood*). When Borders closed, my town had no more large downtown bookstore (B&N is in the suburbs), and that upset a lot of people. The owners of a suburban bookstore raised money to open a downtown branch using a "community support" model, meaning that they sold memberships to the public. A few years later, they've apparently done so well that they opened a third branch in a different town, and took over two small-town indies whose owners were getting older and ready to sell. Membership is simple these days: I pay them $30 per year and get a 20 percent discount.

We've got a second suburban store (different owners) that is awesome, and a bunch more small-town stores. Granted, this is an area with long winters where people tend to read a lot, and not so typical of rural America. But maybe there's hope in that community support model, in places where people with disposable income really care about keeping local retail and downtowns alive.
 

Alessandra Kelley

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Aruptly firing all their experienced full time employees smacks of some sort of corporate finagling to maybe make them look less unprofitable in the short term.

It certainly doesn’t sound good.
 

WeaselFire

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Barnes and Noble has been going under for more than a decade. That's why they're the largest retailer of books in the US and a Fortune 500 company. :)

Laying off employees has nothing to do with showing a loss and everything to do with meeting projected annual goals. Cutting expenses by $40 million works out well on Wall Street.

B&N had a dismal holiday season and shares have been falling dramatically. Layoffs are to cut expenses and there are some store closings planned, though I think they're still on track to open a few new ones. B&N is going for smaller stores now and less stand alone stores, along with decent restaurants in the stores. The concept stores opened last year and are doing great.

B&N has little real competition in the western states, Books A Million is in the east. Amazon is opening physical stores, and there have been takeover rumors for years. Cutting expenses ahead of a merger is smart for valuation, also smart to be able to hold off a takeover.

B&N is also expanding publishing, and that's a profitable area for the company. Lots of changes for a company going under. They'll be around for a while and, with an upswing in the economy, may improve.

Jeff
 
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Laer Carroll

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Here in the LA area I travel a fair amount to several fun spots. So I drop in on three or four B&Ns regularly. Over some 30 years I've seen them evolve, but none of them seem to be in any trouble. I don't think B&N is going away any time soon.

"X is not long for this world" makes a great clickbait headline, however.
 
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Kjbartolotta

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Here in the LA area I travel a fair amount to several fun spots. So I drop in on three or four B&Ns. Over some 30 years I've seen them evolve, but none of them seem to be in any trouble. I don't think B&N is going away any time soon.

"X is not long for this world" makes a great clickbait headline, however.

Word is the one in Santa Monica is closing soon.
 

Enlightened

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B&N owns GameStop (also hurt by Amazon), Software Etc. (I think some shops in Australia are still open, maybe not), B. Dalton Books, and Waldenbooks. It would be a shame to see all these companies fold if the parent goes away, completely. I don't think it will happen. B&N is well diversified.
 

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B&N owns GameStop (also hurt by Amazon), Software Etc. (I think some shops in Australia are still open, maybe not), B. Dalton Books, and Waldenbooks. It would be a shame to see all these companies fold if the parent goes away, completely. I don't think it will happen. B&N is well diversified.

B. Dalton and Waldenbooks are both out of business, having gone through bankruptcies and total liquidation.

If our local GameStop is any indication, they're not doing so great, either. Just because a company's been around a long time doesn't make it immune from changing times and changing landscapes, not to mention managerial blunders and blind spots. (Who would have predicted that Sears, the original "shop at home" catalog store, would fail to adapt to the modern "shop at home" internet age and be on the edge of oblivion?)

Locally, all we have are B&N, some Half Price Books, and a Third Place Books about 30-40 minutes away. And our local B&N has had a disturbingly downhill vibe the last few times I've been by; the last time I visited, in fact, they'd even stopped doing window displays, which can't be a good sign. My hope is that someone will take over the Nook format, because I love my Samsung Nook tablet (and my technophobic aunt loves hers, too - it's what got her into modern times and the internet, and she's always got books out of the library through Overdrive on the thing), and if they're focusing on publishing more that's definitely good, but as for the physical stores... I can't say I'm that hopeful.
 

BenPanced

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One of the local B&N stores closed within the last two years or so because the building's owner didn't want to re-up on the lease and another...well...I'm not too hopeful, either. They no longer have staff in the music and DVD section, except for the holiday crunch when they needed all available registers open, and they've even switched off the security scanners back there, as well. Some of the merchandise looks to be either in flux or simply being removed; a huge section of their discount books was empty and the once ubiquitous Moleskine displays were gone, save for a few of the monthly planners in the dwindling supply, in general (metric shit tonne of albums on vinyl, however). I even tried doing a search by store on my phone because I really didn't feel like taking another trip out to another mall on another day and couldn't find any labeled "in stock", so I just ordered a couple by mail (birthday present I was running out of time on getting). I also hope somebody takes over the nook operations because I'll be damned if I'm getting an Amazon reader when I have 350+ e-pub files (yeah, I could just get a reader to use on my MacBook but that's not the point).
 

Enlightened

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B. Dalton and Waldenbooks are both out of business, having gone through bankruptcies and total liquidation.

Not my point. B&N acquired them, as assets, and made itself stronger with their value. B&N also acquired the client lists of Borders in the liquidation sale. These are attempts to increase longevity of the company.

Regardless, it's about marketplaces. Markets come and go. If merchants cannot evolve, they die. At some point, the greatest whip (for horse and buggy's) maker went out of business for the automobile's presence. Retail stores were great in the 80s; today, it's a different marketplace with different consumer preferences.

I think B&N will be around for some time. Amazon is fighting too many battles at one time. They acquired Whole Foods (to try to make Super Walmart/Target stores obsolete with their supermarket offerings. Amazon is forcing a lot of businesses to be obsolete, such as: used book stores; chain bookstores; hypermarkets (big box stores); and more. The point is, stores will continue to exist as long as: 1) Amazon does not focus energies on one entity at a time; and 2) Survivors (retail competitors of Amazon) evolve and diversify. B&N is a survivor in this sense.
 
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Enlightened

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If our local GameStop is any indication, they're not doing so great, either. Just because a company's been around a long time doesn't make it immune from changing times and changing landscapes, not to mention managerial blunders and blind spots. (Who would have predicted that Sears, the original "shop at home" catalog store, would fail to adapt to the modern "shop at home" internet age and be on the edge of oblivion?)

GameStop is not doing well. Amazon is too much a force for it, and it does little to adapt its model that once worked well. Regardless, the point was B&N is doing what it can to evolve and stay alive in the turmoil created by Amazon ( a.k.a. http://relentless.com/ it takes you to Amazon Web site).
 

BenPanced

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Not my point. B&N acquired them, as assets, and made itself stronger with their value. B&N also acquired the client lists of Borders in the liquidation sale. These are attempts to increase longevity of the company.

But they acquired B. Dalton and Waldenbooks, couldn't make them flourish or even attempted to put them under the B&N name by rebranding, and now they're gone. While that is an attempt, it's not a very successful one. I certainly wouldn't hold it up as a shining example, even though this happens all the time in business. If anything, it was a bad call and a serious waste of investors' funds.
 

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But they acquired B. Dalton and Waldenbooks, couldn't make them flourish or even attempted to put them under the B&N name by rebranding, and now they're gone. While that is an attempt, it's not a very successful one. I certainly wouldn't hold it up as a shining example, even though this happens all the time in business. If anything, it was a bad call and a serious waste of investors' funds.

Subjective. They retained client lists, and they are still around after these bookstores closed. Books-A-Million did the same thing with Crown Books; same fate for it. No wonder these two are the last major, storefront sellers of books. They evolve and do what is necessary to exist.
 

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Speaking as someone with a 2nd and Charles (Books A Million's used bookstore spinoff) and a Barnes and Noble in town, the real problem is society, not necessarily the stores themselves. Well, not in the "blame society" sense, but rather that things have become more online, and stuff is getting more expensive. Music is far easier and cheaper to get on the internet, shrinking B&N's music section and making them focus more on movies. As for our BAM, it was losing customers post 2008 due to the economic downturn, and switched into a used store to survive in 2011. People are less willing to pay full retail price for a book.

Part of it, however, is paying for a place to hang out. The local Barnes and Noble is a "go-to" place, if for no other reason than social interaction. People are there all the time to meet friends, go on dates, and such. Music is being downplayed for movies, toys are occupying a larger part of the store than before, and nearly every time I go in there there's at least two tables full of clearance stuff. However, if it can maintain its social standing in the city, it can get people to purchase things, simply by being there.

I hope it stays around. When we lost Books a Million, we lost a lot of magazines, and I don't know if there's anywhere else to get scifi/fantasy magazines in town if it goes (which, fortunately, does not look likely).
 

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It's not really a surprise that physical stores are having problems when you can carry hundreds of books on the phone in your pocket, not to mention all the other streaming services available. It's been awhile since I've actually set foot in a bookstore. Not for lack of wanting, I've always enjoyed it, but there aren't any around here anymore. There's a Books-A-Million about 45min away, which is not very convenient, it was a Borders before that. There are a couple of independent ones on the nearby island, only open during the summer tourist season, but they're very small with limited stock. I think it's been somewhere between five to ten years since there's been an actual bookstore in town where you could roam the isles, which really leaves online. Playing devils advocate here - Amazon may be slowing taking over the world, but they do make it super easy between sampling a book before you buy it (and if you want to buy it which would you like - hardcover, softcover, kindle, new, used) and prime membership where you can read free e-books on the electronic device of your choice so long as you have the app.

Bookstores are great places, I'd hate to see them disappear, but I think it's an uphill battle for them.
 

lizmonster

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Bookstores are great places, I'd hate to see them disappear, but I think it's an uphill battle for them.

Not to get all "back in the day" about it, but back in the day bookstores seemed to carry more actual books.

Our local B&N is a small one - one floor, no music/movies section. I have some hope they're inexpensive enough to operate that they'll stick around for a while.

That said, more and more of the floor space is being allocated to toys and games. Their SFF section is shameful--6 different editions of GRRM and Sanderson, and a couple of bookshelves of video game tie-in novels. No shade on video game tie-ins; I'm sure some of them are wonderful. But THAT'S the kind of thing that I'd be more likely to buy at Amazon.

At a physical bookstore, I want to scan titles. I want to flip through books I've never heard of that look interesting. I want to stumble on a book I heard about a few months ago and forgot about until I saw it. Amazon is terrible for that kind of browsing. And as long as B&N shoves diversity of stock aside in favor of LEGOs, I think they're ignoring the only real advantage they have.
 

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Which will leave us with nothing but an Annie's Book Stop 40 minutes away.

I remember when B&N first showed up in our area. It drowned the indies. Took a while, but it happened. There should be a sense of justice here, but there isn't. If I thought they'd be replaced by a dynamic indie bookstore culture, I'd feel differently, but all it means to me is no more real-world browsing.

Absolutely a sense of justice here. Fuck them. A B&N opened right down the street from a longstanding neighbourhood bookstore, offered deep discounts and drove it out of business, then stopped offering the discounts. Since then they've basically transitioned to a toy/whatever store with some books, and a lovely new indie has opened two blocks away which has books, staff that actually read and know books, and is busy all the time.

I know I'm just talking about my local market, but I'm not; they were always, imo, the worst big box bookstore. Borders and Walden were more book focused than Barnes and Crap, which always had more toys, fewer books, staff less book-knowledgeable, etc. That they won baffles me, but I don't care if they go down in flames.

Indies are doing well; hopefully there will be more in the wake of its failure if it goes down.
 

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This is why I've quit going to the nearest BAM. It's almost like a toy store with some books, and pop music at a volume that makes it impossible for me to concentrate enough to read the back cover of anything I find. Granted, the difficulty I have with tuning out the music is my own problem, but it seems counterproductive for them to make concentration any harder than it has to be. The last few times I've gone, I've left angry and depressed. I guess they have some sort of plan at work, but it's not one that convinces me to buy their books, which is sad because I really used to love going to the bookstore and spending way too much money on books, even knowing deep down I'd never have time to read all of them.
 
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