The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble • Hacker News Board

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#211

Post by fatbird » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 7:53 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #17

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…

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).

Nothing here validates B&N's decision.

30 years ago I was a part-time employee at a big box store from October to January. Large retailers long ago figured out how to ramp up their workforce temporarily to adequately handle the sales season that accounts for the largest portion of their sales every year.

For any retailer to blow the Christmas sales season by not adequately staffing it, which has been basic retail management for at least three decades, actually does argue for malpractice on the part of executives. It's a criminal level of incompetence, and I'm not sure whether "criminal" means "criminally negligent" or "fraudulent".

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#212

Post by goofingaround » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:36 AM UTC

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #142

goofingaround wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "ship from store" argument does not make sense. Many healthy retailers use omnichannel, ship-from-store, buy-online-fulfill-in-store, etc. These methods can improve fulfillment, increase inventory utilization, and reduce stale inventory. If a retailer wants to draw down inventory, then just cut replenishment. I believe Target Canada was accused of doing so. Implementing "faux omnichannel" and the associated IT, s…

What the author is saying is they used the “closer to customer” argument as a smoke screen to cover the fact that they performed a logisticextomy last year. The fact of the matter is logistic operations in the Midwest are favorable for the medium range retailer. In the post-warehouse age, when the book your NYC customer wants is in Seattle, you’re paying Zone 8 rates to USPS instead of Zone 3 from Indiana to NYC (or…

I don't see the logistics argument in the article.

The article states i) distraction from in-store sales for employees, ii) removing inventory from store shelves, and iii) no credit for stores.

The "stores don't get credit" argument is weak. The article implies that corporate is siphoning credit from stores to online. Sales are down 6% across the board. Samestore sales down 6.5%, online sales down 4.5%. Omnichannel does not create those numbers.

Anyway, the logistics argument depends on more than rates. Fulfilling from a midwest warehouse can be cheap; a warehouse full of product sliding down a markdown curve can be expensive.

I've been surprised by the merchant pushback to omnichannel. I've been hearing "there are no cash registers in the warehouse", etc. for years. Now we expose more inventory to customers and stores complain about selling to the wrong (usually ecommerce) customer.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#213

Post by chalupa-man » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:47 AM UTC

pfisch wrote: post #125

ruytlm wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, tons of jobs are going away (although I think it'll be 10-20 years for most of these, not 3-5 years like many seem to think), but what new sectors, opportunities, jobs, etc. will be created? How many of the people whose jobs are destroyed will be able to move into the jobs that are created? In something like 30 states [0] 'truck driver' is the largest single occupation; where would those skills be re-applied?…

I think we are pretty far from truly replacing truck drivers. There will be a long period where the truck driver is in the car but not really driving, maybe even a very long time depending on if it is enshrined in law. Even if the truck did drive itself, would it also load/unload and deal with flat tires and other vehicle damage conditions? I don't think these problems are insurmountable but I do think they will furt…

There are dozens of fully-automated train lines, some with attendants but many with absolutely zero personnel onboard, and the number is expected to quadruple within 10 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_...

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#214

Post by raverbashing » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:50 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #17

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…

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).

Self-checkouts

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#215

Post by watwut » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:55 AM UTC

watwut wrote: post #198

blhack wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the one near me (in Phoenix, near Arizona State University). It's a major anchor in a shopping center, and is busy every time I'm ever in there. The employees are also really helpful. This Christmas, I was trying to find some books as a christmas gift, and the staff made a bunch of suggestions based on books that they had actually personally read. Sidenote: finding appropriate books for 8-14 year old girls is rea…

Isn't majority of books for them? Anyway, try Asimov if she is closer to 14. 14 is when that stuff is still interesting. Edit: why the fuck would someone downvote this?

I would really like to know what is wrong with Asimov as suggestion for 14 years old kid.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#216

Post by grey-area » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:55 AM UTC

The industry is experiencing a secular decline.

There is no way back to profit for booksellers and publishers, because fewer people are buying paper books, nowhere near enough to sustain the existing industry, and authors can simply publish direct via schemes like Amazon. They've tried overpricing ebooks, taking things off Amazon, setting up their own online readers/stores (nook). Every publisher is now having real trouble making money, every bookseller also, and significantly cutting jobs - the industry is being turned upside down at every level and no-one except some big brand name authors has a viable business model. Those that are not affected because they live in a profitable niche like academic publishing will meet the same challenges soon, because they are driven by the introduction of computers and the internet, which has radically changed how people write, and how they read.

Of course the management handled this incredibly badly, and have extracted huge fees for passively overseeing the death of the company, and the story is correct in saying it is not bleeding out, but the demise of Barnes and Noble and other booksellers like it is not, it is the inevitable consequence of the shift of content online, and the huge and ongoing disruption across a range of industries that the internet and free copying of information has brought.

Ironically this may lead in the short term to the resurgence of small bookstores who sell second hand copies of books, at least until a generation grows up which has never bought a paper book, just as they have never bought a paper newspaper or magazine. But in the long term I think new mediums will arise more suited to the medium of production and transmission - now everyone in the world can access the store of the world's knowledge in their hand, mostly for free and share their thoughts with others, again for free - this will radically change our perception of culture, and our consumption and production of stories, so the disruption is just beginning.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#217

Post by randomsearch » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:58 AM UTC

grey-area wrote: post #216

The industry is experiencing a secular decline. There is no way back to profit for booksellers and publishers, because fewer people are buying paper books, nowhere near enough to sustain the existing industry, and authors can simply publish direct via schemes like Amazon. They've tried overpricing ebooks, taking things off Amazon, setting up their own online readers/stores (nook). Every publisher is now having real t…

Book sales are increasing in the UK and US

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/dat...

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#218

Post by b1daly » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 9:11 AM UTC

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #68

cowpig wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'd probably be better off finding an executive who works for 100k/yr but believes in the company.

I doubt it. Belief and passion may be necessary, but they're not sufficient. How do you pick this person? Based on the strength of their belief? Because if it's based on their experience and track record, you're back to where you started: this person likely has better alternatives and is smart enough to want to be compensated for the opportunity cost they're incurring. Also, it's all well and good to say this when it…

Well, these fancy pants CEOs didn’t really succeed, did they.

I’m sure their individual point of view, their self interest, it’s perfectly reasonable. But from the outside it’s disgraceful. How do you justify taking a $4m payout after working less than a year? Especially when you know the axe is going to fall on the lowest paid employees.

Maybe you could, you know, skip your bonus, so the people laid off might have a little breathing room.

Frankly, this kind of stuff looks borderline close to fraud. Maybe not a legal fraud, but the fraud of management who wave their hands around to act like they know what they are doing, while they loot the company before it goes down.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#219

Post by lmm » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 9:14 AM UTC

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #91

cowpig wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done a lot of hiring, and have found that salary demands are weakly inversely proportional to performance. That is to say, people whose salary demands are at the lower end of the salary range for that career have outperformed those whose demands are at the higher end. My sample size is small but significant. Food for thought.

That's interesting, but I'm pretty skeptical, and I don't even think it's relevant here, unless you were hiring executives for large but dying companies? Here's more food for thought: the five biggest companies in the US are all data-driven tech companies that are renowned for paying ridiculously high compensation. Why wouldn't they apply your framework to both save on hiring costs and boost performance?

> Here's more food for thought: the five biggest companies in the US are all data-driven tech companies that are renowned for paying ridiculously high compensation. Why wouldn't they apply your framework to both save on hiring costs and boost performance?

Because a) at their scale they need to hire in bulk b) their business (advertising, "media"...) simply don't inspire that level of passion in anyone, so money is all they can do.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#220

Post by b1daly » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 9:18 AM UTC

spookthesunset wrote: post #202

cowpig wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done a lot of hiring, and have found that salary demands are weakly inversely proportional to performance. That is to say, people whose salary demands are at the lower end of the salary range for that career have outperformed those whose demands are at the higher end. My sample size is small but significant. Food for thought.

Meh. The older and more experienced I get the more I realize I work to put food in the table and to pay for my life outside. Working for “passion” is for suckers. As the dude in that one YouTube video about consulting says, fuck you. Pay me. Pay me what market rate is and don’t give me sob stories about passion or making sacrifices to work on some life changing BS. Pay me.

Pay you for what? I don’t think many red blooded Americans resent leaders of companies that are kicking ass, reaping the rewards.

What’s eating away the civic fabric are those who put their own self interest above everyone else.

Once you get up into the millions in compensation, I don’t think the concern is that the poor naive CEO is being exploited by working for less than the absolute most they can get. Especially when the level of pay is so high, that it disproportionately impacts the bottom line.

I’m sorry, this primacy of market and money above all is sickening.