Borders Enters Chapter 11, Close 30% Of Stores

Borders Enters Chapter 11, Plans To Close 30% Of Stores - WSJ.com

Not surprised. I gotta say, even with the 40% its still cheaper to buy from Amazon. I will miss the coffee shop though.

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/usr

IMO, I think this is where a lot of brick and mortar businesses are headed, when the goods can be obtained cheaper and easier online, as well as the evolution of digital media.

Take Blockbuster and Movie Gallery as examples, both are shutting down stores left and right...I imagine due to digital copies available online, as well as online rental places like Gamefly and Netflix.

With business like Amazon, B&N, eBay...and now devices like the iPad and Kindle taking off, brick and mortar book stores just don't have anything to offer a consumer. Granted, there will always be people who prefer to shop in an actual store, but for most...why bother? You'll pay more and have access to far less than you would from the comfort of your own PC.

Bokeh

I have seen folks argue in B&N, Borders, etc that the prices are so much higher in the stores than on the website. Finally saw one manager tell someone "So sue me. I have overhead, they don't."

Only thing the stores will do, is order the book(s) for you at the online price and you have to pick them up at the store. No delivery.

Daniel333

Just thinking...

1) Rather than offer selection they offers isle after isle of "Bargain Books" cheap prints of books you didn't want in the first place, everywhere! Give me selection of the things I NEED.

2) Ebook readers, they came WAYY late too the market. And their's is terrible.

3) Music/DVDs, I don't get it. They started getting movies and CD during the decline of that market. Not exactly sure what the logic behind that was. And selling for WAY more than the competition.

4) Staff, I have to say every time I do in there is some kid who can hardly use their register. It's just frustrating to have a 3 person line take an 20 minutes.

5) Online sales. They never took advantage of social selling. If I click a link on this site right now for a 70-680 book, it should take me to borders' web site where I can purchase the book, right? techexams gets a cut and borders gets a cut. But I never really see them out there doing that.

6) Library... if a library doesn't have a book. Many systems send you to amazon. The library get there cut and patron gets their book. Everyone is happy. Where is Borders?

7) Kiosks, I see vending machines PACKED full of best sellers at the airport here. The machine is branded amazon.com again. Is it really that hard for Borders to operate vending machines? All I know is I bought 4 books on my way to Disneyworld last year at full cover price from a machine and I was happy to do it!

Coffee shop, I do love the coffee shop. Sipping on mochas with the wife while I walk around making my selection is always nice. I would probably recommend they get their coffee shop branded a Starbucks. Bound to increase their sales.

SephStorm

I like Borders much more than Books a Million, I am very saddened to hear this news. I nearly got my first IT job when I met someone in Borders, they have a better selections, and better discounts than Barnes and Nobles and BAM, I have also had great customer service. I hope the store in my city remains open.

demonfurbie

what will happen with there e-book reader .... ohh wait... nvm

docrice

During my earlier years in IT, I spent a lot of quality time perusing the isles of both Borders and B&N. It's nice to be able to physically touch the book, skim through it to get a feel for the writing style, it's overall quality, and perhaps decide to the greenlight the purchase (although admittedly I would almost always hit the button on Amazon instead).

These places essentially became a library for me. I did purchase books from there a few times, but only because I knew my employer would reimburse me for the expense (or I had a gift card). That helped alleviate the guilt a little. But in the back of my mind I always had that "30% cheaper on Amazon!" sign flashing at me.

If B&N goes through the same thing, then maybe eventually I'll have to start buying books based on online reviews and recommendations (which have mostly been consistent for me, fortunately), but I'll miss being able to preview it in person. I hope the Borders near me isn't on that shutdown list.

Edit: Doh, just read the list of closing Borders stores in the Bay Area. The two closest ones near me are closing. Oh, well...

TheShadow

This is interesting, summer of last year there were rumors floating around that Borders was going to buy Barnes and Noble and therefore the Nook was in jeopardy. Now Borders has no liquidity and B&N released a color Nook for the holidays and they couldn't make them fast enough to fill demand. Eight months can make a world of difference in the brick and mortar world. I have a B&N and a Borders within a block of each other at the local mall. The B&N has lots of traffic but the Borders not so much.

I kind of stopped going to Borders when they cannibalized much of their technical section a few years back. The B&N I can sit inside or outside with my Nook tied to their hotspot and preview anything in the store or online and often get a free drink or cookie to go with the time. My local B&N hotspot has quite a range and the Nook just autoconnects even in the parking lot. Oh wellAmazon has them both beat on price anyway.

All physical print media that does not get mailed to you is in trouble I think. When color eInk arrives we will see more devastation. The slowly developing for commercial use electronic paper may bring the end of books as we know it except for us Luddites with overly sensitive noses that love the paper mill and printers ink smell. There is a coming market for some one to bottle that smell in spray bottles.

Forsaken_GA

I spent alot of time and alot of money in my local Border's when I was younger.

Then there came a time where it seemed like every time I went into Border's, they never had the book I wanted in stock. Despite their machines saying they had it, I couldn't find it, they couldn't find it, etc. When this became the norm, I stopped going to Borders. Barnes and Noble had always been my second stop when looking for a book, and they graduated to first place after Borders decided to become unreliable.

Nowadays, if I'm ordering a print version, and I don't want to wait for it, I'll usually drop by B&N. If I don't care about a delay, I order it from Amazon. (Cisco Press books are the exception, I almost always order direct from them when they're offering the free Safari access for the book, so I can get started reading it while it's in transit).

I feel the nostalgia for Borders back in the good old days, but the bottom line is they didn't keep up with the times, and they only have themselves to blame for it. This is how a free market economy is supposed to work.

tpatt100

I like Borders but its pretty much impossible to stock stores, pay employees and compete with online stores that have a few locations that can service anywhere in the country. Its far more expensive to spread books out to all those retail locations and only have some of them sell.

I know they stopped stocking a lot of the IT books which makes sense since the people who would buy the more advanced IT books would order them online anyways.

Part of me thinks we are shooting ourselves in the foot where we want cheaper prices and we buy from establishments that essentially reduce the amount of employees required in order to provide us the better prices.

Forsaken_GA

tpatt100 wrote: »

I like Borders but its pretty much impossible to stock stores, pay employees and compete with online stores that have a few locations that can service anywhere in the country. Its far more expensive to spread books out to all those retail locations and only have some of them sell.

I know they stopped stocking a lot of the IT books which makes sense since the people who would buy the more advanced IT books would order them online anyways.

Part of me thinks we are shooting ourselves in the foot where we want cheaper prices and we buy from establishments that essentially reduce the amount of employees required in order to provide us the better prices.

It's not just places that reduce headcount. Many small business owners have experienced the same thing that the brick and mortar book stores are going through with wal-mart's proliferation. It's all about cost. If buying from a brick and mortar was at all comparable price wise to ordering online, I'd still buy from brick and mortars.

But since I can do math, I order online, save for when my impulse controls fail and my I WANT IT NOW functions brute force their way through my natural tightwad functions.

Wal-mart pretty much gets away with this because they've strong-armed their vendors into accepting what wal-mart is willing to pay, so they lower their overhead by controlling their inventory costs. This actually is tough for some vendors. I remember Dill Pickles and Levi's specifically regretted deals they struck with Wal-Mart, because the majority of their production capacity now goes to wal-mart, instead of being able to sell to other customers who bring in a better margin. Unfortunately, losing wal-mart as a customer is not an option, because losing that much market presence would ruin them financially.

Wal-mart may be evil, but they're damn good at business.

I suspect Amazon employs similar tactics with their vendors, in addition to the savings on overhead of not having to maintain the physical presence.

Bottom line is that if the brick and mortars could get their prices even close to the online retailers, they wouldn't likely have a problem retaining their customer base. Instead they're badly controlling overhead and other associated costs, trying to pass them onto the customers, and losing their shirts as a result.

I'm certainly not saying it's *easy* to pull that off, but honestly, I can't tell that they've even been trying. I think they've pretty much ignored the trends, and the desires of the customer, and they're paying a price. In pretty much any business, stagnation is death.

thehourman

Their PDF ebooks are cheaper then anyone else.

NetworkingStudent

cyberguypr wrote: »

Borders Enters Chapter 11, Plans To Close 30% Of Stores - WSJ.com

Not surprised. I gotta say, even with the 40% its still cheaper to buy from Amazon. I will miss the coffee shop though.

This sucks I always liked getting the 40% off or the border bucks. I used to get these weird email things about how target or petco would have some sale and they needed so many clicks to unlock this deal..I never understood those things.

One thing I did hate was I got a 40% off coupon and I forgot to bring it in to the store, and I was wondering if they could run my Borders card and validate for me. Well they said they couldn’t but, if I showed them the code or coupon on a smart phone, or went to the Apple store to print the coupon off that they would take it.

Like other posters have said Amazon is way cheaper. I get so annoyed when Barnes and Nobles asks me if I want to spend $20-$25 to save 10%...that just sounds silly. Most of the IT books I buy are $50.00 and up. I would have to buy least 5 or 6 books a year to make that money back.

TheShadow

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

I'm certainly not saying it's *easy* to pull that off, but honestly, I can't tell that they've even been trying. I think they've pretty much ignored the trends, and the desires of the customer, and they're paying a price. In pretty much any business, stagnation is death.

Or as an American movie western put it. "there are the quick and the dead"

Forsaken_GA

NetworkingStudent wrote: »

Like other posters have said Amazon is way cheaper. I get so annoyed when Barnes and Nobles asks me if I want to spend $20-$25 to save 10%...that just sounds silly. Most of the IT books I buy are $50.00 and up. I would have to buy least 5 or 6 books a year to make that money back.

For what I used to pay for books, the 10% discount, plus the monthly coupons actually made the math work. The cost of the card, the discount, ended up costing me right around the same as it would to order from amazon, but no shipping delay.

And then a few years ago, the coupons they sent no longer applied to text books, and damn near every IT book was classified as a text book. So I stopped paying for their card, and my patronage of the store lessened quite a bit.

SteveO86

Very disappointing. This will probably be an ongoing trend.

I've got 4 bookshelves of books. I just prefer the physical book.