The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble • Hacker News Board

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#401

Post by tzs » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 6:10 PM UTC

greedo wrote: post #352

tzs wrote: post #253

It would probably help some if their website didn't GIVE YOU LINKS to places you can buy the book you are looking at for less. I was looking up a book I'm thinking of buying, and right below the customer reviews section on the page they have a Google ads block, and the first ad was for the book at thriftbooks.com. The ad touted it for cheap used there, but clicking it also shows they have it new, too, for $25 (B&N on…

I can't reproduce this on any browser...

If you have a decent ad blocker, it blocks those. I only get them if I turn off uBlock Origin.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#402

Post by AnimalMuppet » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 6:13 PM UTC

auxbuss wrote: post #250

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…

Try Frances Hardinge. The Lie Tree [0] won loads of awards. I'm not in the target age range obviously, but my favourite is Cuckoo Song. Her earlier books are definitely for a younger audience. All Hardinge's books have young female protags. Philip Pullman's, His Dark Materials trilogy [1]. The protag, Lyra, is one of the most interesting young female protags in literature. (This is one of those trilogies that you can…

Note that the His Dark Materials books are a fictionalized advertisement for atheism in the way that C. S. Lewis's Narnia books are for Christianity. If that matters to you, you may want to pick something else.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#403

Post by swaggyBoatswain » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 6:15 PM UTC

eludwig wrote: post #260

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…

>>Two cashiers working out of 8 or so possible registers And the worst part about this is that each cashier seems determined to relentlessly pester me with annoying questions at the register! Did I want to join this loyalty program? Did I realize that I could save $5 by signing up for so and so. Do I want to get on the B&N mailing list? Really aggressive questioning. Oh my God. I realize that the cashiers have been o…

I have this same experience with B&N as well, getting grilled on a milion questions is annoying.

Another thing is I like knowing what kind of readers have read similar books to me, and their opinions of said book. I prefer to just buy everything on my kindle, its easy and convenient. Not a big fan of hard copy textbooks much anymore

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#404

Post by eloisant » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 6:15 PM UTC

wnevets wrote: post #205

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…

Just another case of business being penny smart and dollar dumb. "Traditional" media did the exact same thing when faced with competition from the internet. They reduced the quality of their service & product when they saw a reduction in customers which only fueled a further reduction in customers, rinse and repeat til death.

Or executive are smart about the dollar in their pocket, they don't care if they kill one company because they'll just find another nice executive job in another one.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#405

Post by occamrazor » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 6:17 PM UTC

frogpelt wrote: post #380

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…

Imagine if stores had a way for you to pay for your physical stuff on your phone without waiting in a physical line. 1. Use their app to scan the bar code 2. Pay with a card 3. A self-service printer prints a receipt/confirmation of purchase. 4. Show it to an employee on your way out the door. Might be an inventory nightmare, but it could be done.

Some Coop supermarkets in Switzerland allow this.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#406

Post by eloisant » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 6:20 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #315

mattmanser wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks more like the idea that paying CEOs lots of money because they are worth it really isn't working. Because they aren't worth it.

A good CEO, of which there are a few are worth the money. There are a few cases (Steve Jobs comes to mind) where a new CEO has come in and turned a failing company around, or a new CEO has come in and tanked a great company. If a company finds such a great CEO who leads the company into making billions, then they are worth a lot of money as reward for their efforts. Business schools have studied this. One of the stro…

The thing is Steve Jobs was taking a $1 salary.

Even if you can find a great CEO with a great plan with your company, I don't think paying him 10M$ instead of 500k will make him more efficient or be necessary to retain him.

Also I don't think the CEOs salaries are a results of competition for the best (like tech workers), but CEO being generous with themselves (and their peers as they're all in each others' board).

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#407

Post by heedlessly2 » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 6:20 PM 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).

Why don't most retailers hire workers as independent contractors? They could fire without legal consequences?

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#408

Post by Spoom » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 6:22 PM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #395

frogpelt wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if stores had a way for you to pay for your physical stuff on your phone without waiting in a physical line. 1. Use their app to scan the bar code 2. Pay with a card 3. A self-service printer prints a receipt/confirmation of purchase. 4. Show it to an employee on your way out the door. Might be an inventory nightmare, but it could be done.

By "inventory nightmare" you mean "theft", right? Because that's the real problem. There are already self-serve lines in many stores, but they still have to watch people to try to prevent theft. And it turns out people are really, really slow if they aren't trained as a cashier. Sure, the cellphone eliminates the slowdown, but it also eliminates the primary way they currently prevent theft. Amazon is working on a sto…

Imagine that each piece of inventory had a per-item unique RFID permanently attached to it. Not just a model unique RFID, unique to that particular instance. Imagine that your phone can read that RFID. Your phone also has an app that can connect to a database, identify the particular product that the RFID represents, and complete a transaction online. Once the transaction is complete, the store's security systems are updated so that that RFID can pass through the entrance scanners without the alarm going off.

Potential pitfalls include the cost of the RFIDs, the ability to detach the RFIDs at any point, the ability to read the RFID on your phone, and alternative entrance / exits of merchandise (e.g. toss through a window).

Are there other reasons that this could not work?

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#409

Post by criddell » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 6:34 PM UTC

burlesona wrote: post #70

Yes this is creative destruction, but Amazon is able to sell at a loss because Wall St. sees the infinite dollar signs at the end of this road when they’ve literally killed off all competition. Selling at a loss is anti-competitive and should get them hammered by anti-trust, but somehow the US government has decided that, in this generation at least, monopolies are fine as long as they don’t raise prices. As a custom…

Does Amazon sell at a loss? I'm pretty sure they've been profitable for a couple years now. And how could Amazon be a monopoly? They have larger competitors.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#410

Post by bleezy » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

indubitable wrote: post #106

I think many people tend to grossly overestimate the profit levels of large companies. Let's take Amazon since they're arguably the reason for the failure here and a company I think many perceive to be lush with money largely because of 'greed.' It also hits on notions from this paper like companies just not hiring enough employees, even if only at certain times. Amazon currently grosses $178 billion. However, their…

You are being downvoted because Amazon is a bad example. They are intentionally not profitable so that they can lower prices to drive others out of the market and reinvest all revenue into R&D and horizontal expansion. They could net way more than $3B if they wanted to.