The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble • Hacker News Board

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#411

Post by el-y0y0s » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

avs733 wrote: post #294

eludwig wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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…

>Oh my God. I realize that the cashiers have been ordered to do this (I assume) but knock it off already! Why should they? If they don't they will get fired. Business goes up or down that cashier doesn't get paid more or less...they have no incentive to risk their job for a customer. These companies are so obsessed with squeezing a nickle out of 5% of their customers because they can _measure_ that. Its 'impossible'…

If I'm incented to sell memberships, I'm going to sell the sh out of memberships. The pearl clutching in this thread is apparent, but remember, they have the data, we don't.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#412

Post by Momquist » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 6:47 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #355

pboutros wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming the executive here makes sense. But saying the "company deserves to fail" ignores the livelihoods of everyone below that person in the hierarchy, who gets fired because mgmt has different incentives than the workers.

Then how would the feedback loop be completed to provide information about which strategies are good and bad?

That's assuming that someone recognizes which strategy was responsible for failure. Blaming the competitors, or the employees, is probably much more comforting and easier for upper management.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#413

Post by greedo » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 6:56 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #401

greedo wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wow, you're correct. Yet another example of the stellar leadership from Riggio...

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#414

Post by stillsut » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 7:09 PM UTC

I feel for the grown man who dresses up in costumes to read stories for children. I respect him. And yet if there were some subjective corporate performance metrics he had to game to keep his job, I think other employees may know how to work the system better than him. A lot of the best employees are bad at office politics, because they simply love what they do. If there's something to be said about mass-layoffs, it's that they're maybe better than targeted and subjective firings.

I think B&N was a wonderful place and concept while the underlying forces were working: it seems like a lot more people want to work with books than there are/were jobs at Independents or Libraries, and B&N got them into a business with the cashflow to support dozens of people on the floor. Are there enough jobs in the brick and mortar book business for everyone without B&N? Probably not right now, but there might be a new franchise concept at some point? Time for one of these people to start it.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#415

Post by Johnny555 » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 7:15 PM UTC

deadmetheny wrote: post #319

Johnny555 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that replacing long-haul drivers will happen sooner than you think. Self-driving (though human monitored) trucks are already operating: https://www.wired.com/story/embark-self-driving-truck-delive... I think the first step will be replacing long-haul truck drivers with autonomous trucks, they'll start at a depo near a freeway and end at a depo at the other end, then a human will drive to make the local delive…

>Autonomous trucks will handle flats and other roadside breakdowns the same way many human drivers do -- pull over and wait for the repair service to come. Not to put too fine a point on it, but you clearly have no idea how the trucking industry works.

My dad was an owner-operator for 30+ years, so I think I know a bit about the industry.

Which part of what I said do you disagree with? That Company Drivers ask dispatch to send the a tire service truck when they have a flat?

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#416

Post by dang » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:17 PM UTC

mrep wrote: post #143

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #36

This is the flip-side of creative destruction. Amazon and ecommerce in general have given us a world where brick and mortar retail often just can't compete. 99% of these layoffs and restructurings, etc. are just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The writer of this article seems to think that the executives are just trying to milk the company all the way down, but it's not even clear to me there's a better o…

Haha, you literally just came upon the realization for the economic use cases for unemployment benefits and also the main reason our government has one. You should read some economic textbooks as the world will make a whole lot more sense once you do.

> Haha, you literally just came upon

This breaks the HN guidelines in two ways. First, it's uncivil. Second, it falls far short of this:

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."

Could you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow those rules when commenting here? It does take an effort, but it's an effort everyone needs to make if we're to succeed in having a bit higher quality here than internet median.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#417

Post by DaveWalk » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:43 PM UTC

greedo wrote: post #362

loorinm wrote: post #183

Reading that Storytime guy’s tweet, I really wondered: Has this guy never taken a look at his situation and noticed something off? He works in a relaxing huge retail store reading books to kids for free, and makes above min wage and keeps his job for the next 20 years and supports 5 kids??? That’s insane, and completely abnormal. No one else with that same type of job has that kind of life. It reminds me of someone I…

Your comment is so uniformed. Relaxing? The guy is a receiving manager. That's a physically tough job, requires a high level of organization, and he still takes time to help on the book floor by doing storytime. A receiving manager at B&N makes around $15-17/hour. If his partner works, that's a reasonable enough amount of money to live, but not in a high COL location. How is this abnormal? What's abnormal is thinking…

I couldn't agree more with this. I think it's the OP that hasn't taken a close enough look at the B&N employee's "situation" and just spouted off an opinion.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#418

Post by DanBC » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:46 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #239

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…

When looking for books for children I look at the CILIP Carnegie award to find winning and shortlisted books. I then noodle around the other books written by those authors. The award covers a wide range of ages, so some books might be too young. Here's a press release for the 2018 long list: http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/press.php?release=pres_2... Here's a list of all Carnegie winners: http://www.carnegiegreen…

I guess this list isn't massively useful, so here are some actual books.

The Explorer by Katherine Rundell (but anything by this auther, she's written some excellent books) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Explorer-WINNER-COSTA-CHILDRENS-AWA...

The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd https://www.amazon.co.uk/London-Eye-Mystery-Siobhan-Dowd/dp/...

and The Guggenheim Mystery by Siobhan Dowd and Robin Stevens https://www.amazon.co.uk/Guggenheim-Mystery-Robin-Stevens/dp...

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#419

Post by pseingatl » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:50 PM UTC

joshpadnick wrote: post #148

The thing that frustrates me most about the slow, drawn out demise of first Borders and now Barnes & Noble is that there has never been a bold vision for the future. The mega-bookstore was a great model in the 1990s, but post-Internet, they really needed to leverage their space to do something magical. One idea I would have loved: Browse your books in store, but buy them for Nook or Kindle -- at the same prices you p…

Great idea. Don't carry physical books at all; maybe just a postcard-size flyer to advertise a particular text. Buy the postcard--which could be signed by the author--and get a code to download the book. Turn the spaces into, a la FNAC, exhibition spaces, deliberately permitting 'cataloging' of similar products.

Keep in mind that the publishers don't really have skin in the game. Theirs, at least in the U.S., is wholly a consignment business.

Put in an Espresso Book Machine for those who want paper copies.

Make the stores membership only: blend bookstores and libraries. Offer an experience not obtainable elsewhere.

Re: The unnecessary demise of Barnes and Noble

#420

Post by DaveWalk » Fri, Feb 16, 2018, 8:50 PM UTC

a-nikolaev wrote: post #159

Just wanted to say that in NYC, the quality of book selection at Barnes and Noble is just amazing. In my opinion, it's way better then the hyped Strand, for example. So, maybe, go to your local B&N some time and just buy a book? Support brick-and-mortar bookstores, while we haven't succumbed to Amazon just yet.

In Boston the downtown B&N is actually pretty uninspired, and the store is probably 60% non-book items. It's like an airport bookstore (Hudson News in the US).

And yet, from my experience no place in the city has a more comprehensive catalog of magazines (some come close). Go figure!