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The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

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Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#21

Post by reedx8 »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #4

I remember back when Circuit City fired all of its floor staff and replaced them with entry level (and bottom run wage) workers. Oddly, they went out of business not long after that. You can't race to the bottom in retail, the bottom is already taken by walmart and online stores (like amazon). You can't be cheaper or more convenient, you need to offer something they don't. For bookstores that means you have to have g…

I think your point about offering what your competitors are not is spot on: a hub that facilitates community and study, events with widely known authors and public figures, and so forth. Portland's Powells book store in the Pearl District nails this, with multiple stories of books that seemingly never end and centered right in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the city. I hope B&N replicates this because I would hate to see them go and it's why any book I buy is only from one of these chains.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#22

Post by ballenf »

Amazon's primary customer has shifted to the 3rd-party seller, i.e., it's not profit off water coolers that allows low prices.

Looking at Amazon's financials, they make more profit off of selling advertising (lightning deals, search ads & "related" sponsored listings) than margin off sales.

It really shows when you look at the lightning deals and find product after product with artificially inflated reviews. Amazon has zero interest in fixing this because customers are its product not its customers.

Hard to see how a traditional retailer can begin to compete with this.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#23

Post by awalton »

mistersquid wrote: post #8
phil21 wrote: post #6

I was out shopping 3-4 days before Christmas this year, and happened to be near a Barnes and Noble so figured I'd grab a copy of a magazine I've been wanting to read for a while. Grabbed the magazine, wandered the aisles a bit and picked up another book then went to check out. Basically I was their marketing department's dream - walk-in traffic coming to buy something cheap and specific who made an impulse retail buy…

This makes me wonder why physical retail stores don't follow Apple's approach by developing an app so shoppers can self-check out.

The app would likely be more expensive to develop and maintain than hiring a few seasonal part-timers per store (2000 people at, let's face it, minimum wage for a month is about $4M that immediately converts to sales numbers just by being conscious enough to operate a register - that's cheaper than ~10 software devs in America (at least two of which are specialists - iOS/Android devs), a manager, an office, their equipment and their benefits packages that takes a year to 18-months to produce anything at all). Maybe outsourcing it would be cheaper... but even then, your conversion rate is going to be lower than just hiring a damned cashier.

And apparently B&N was against even spending for that, even during heavy sales periods. If I were a shareholder before I wouldn't be after reading this news - I'd be going and buying Amazon stock. And a lot of this explains why Amazon has been crushing Wal-Mart - people are just done with going to stores and waiting in lines, looking around at empty cashier stations in frustration when they can point, click, and have something on their doorstep the next day with less effort.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#24

Post by nerdponx »

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #2

Barnes and Noble did some dumb things as this article points out, but they are NOWHERE near what the CEO of Sears is doing. That is corporate malpractice, gross negligence, and perhaps high treason all rolled into one. Literally look up anything online for “Sears CEO is terrible” and you will get links from NY Times, WaPo, etc. Also with BN, I mean they were going up against one of the biggest most powerful companies…

At the end of the article the author makes it very clear what she thinks is happening: they are deliberately scuttling the company and attempting to wring it dry in the process.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#25

Post by aaron-lebo »

alsetmusic wrote: post #14
InclinedPlane wrote: post #4

I remember back when Circuit City fired all of its floor staff and replaced them with entry level (and bottom run wage) workers. Oddly, they went out of business not long after that. You can't race to the bottom in retail, the bottom is already taken by walmart and online stores (like amazon). You can't be cheaper or more convenient, you need to offer something they don't. For bookstores that means you have to have g…

> You can't race to the bottom in retail, the bottom is already taken by walmart and online stores (like amazon). You can't be cheaper or more convenient, you need to offer something they don't. For bookstores that means you have to have good selection, a good environment, author signing/speaking events, and so forth. I made the effort to visit a B&N earlier this month because I was looking for good translations of t…

Don't believe it's wrong to say you are a very niche customer. Their selection of Hemingway isn't much better, but that's because they've got limited floor space.

Not sure how they could solve your specific issue unless they had much bigger locations.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#26

Post by biggodoggo »

djsumdog wrote: post #11

So the bigger question, if this trend continues and B&N goes the way of Borders ... what happens to all your Nook purchases? I only have 2 or 3, but I feel like I need to figure out how to rip the DRM off and export all my highlights/notes sooner rather than later.

I've heard from friends that https://calibre-ebook.com is the "go to" solution for this kind of thing

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#27

Post by mjevans »

djsumdog wrote: post #11

So the bigger question, if this trend continues and B&N goes the way of Borders ... what happens to all your Nook purchases? I only have 2 or 3, but I feel like I need to figure out how to rip the DRM off and export all my highlights/notes sooner rather than later.

It will surely be yet another education on why "DRM is defective by design".

Any of the free (consumer first) content loaded will continue to work.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#29

Post by nerdponx »

icelancer wrote: post #5
InclinedPlane wrote: post #4

I remember back when Circuit City fired all of its floor staff and replaced them with entry level (and bottom run wage) workers. Oddly, they went out of business not long after that. You can't race to the bottom in retail, the bottom is already taken by walmart and online stores (like amazon). You can't be cheaper or more convenient, you need to offer something they don't. For bookstores that means you have to have g…

>> Rather it's being driven by poor business decisions Agreed. It's that plus a healthy dose of panic and a refusal to accept reality - that contraction of revenue is necessary to stay alive - that causes these companies to make idiotic Hail Mary decisions that never pan out.

That, or, as the author makes clear at the end, the execs do not care about saving the company and just want to make as much as they can for themselves before it all falls apart.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#30

Post by ukulele »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #19
rayiner wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the rest of the year, the stores are empty. Which validated the company's decision: why have a bunch of full time employees, when what it really needs is part time and flexible employees to handle holiday surges (probably caused by waiting for Amazon shipping to not be an option).

Institutional knowledge and loyalty. Your entire staff can’t be flex workers if you expect customers to be treated properly (see: Apple retail for how it’s done well). Even still, see how Amazon’s flex/contractors handle deliveries (ie atrociously, as there is no incentive to care) vs UPS (a union shop). You have to align incentives. Your employees’ success is your success. Otherwise, close up shop and go home. You’v…

Comparing the level of customer care at a bookstore with that of an Apple store is pretty unfair. Apple makes hundreds or thousands of margin dollars per customer; a bookstore is probably closer to $10.
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