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Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M

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Re: Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M

#41

Post by thomas93 »

wnissen wrote: post #25

To save anyone the trouble, the book value (no pun intended) is only $474 million. You'd think the inventory alone would would be work more than the average $675K per store that you get if you assume their other assets (minus debt) are worth nothing.

Can you expand on what the implication of your comment is?

Book value on the balance sheet is ~$474 million, but that doesn't seem particularly meaningful in a valuation context for the business (especially considering the ~$1,123 million they are carrying for treasury stock).

As for inventory, they have that carried on their books for ~$1,000 million, which also means very little without a broader context on the state of the business.

Re: Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M

#42

Post by dymk »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #37
tnorthcutt wrote: post #33

Last year I wanted to buy Thinking in Bets (great book, btw). I was feeling impatient, so I looked it up on Barnes and Noble's website, and saw that a store where I was had it in stock. I went in to purchase it, and the price in store was a couple bucks higher than the listed price online. I asked the clerk about it, and he kind of shrugged and said he couldn't do anything about it. I walked out without the book and…

What's confusing? Shipping a book from a warehouse is cheaper and maintaining a website is cheaper than setting up and selling from a physical store. If I order a book online, I don't want to subsidize the walk in customers.

And still, nearly all retailers have adopted a price-matching policy that matches not just their own website, but competitors as well.

There's really not a good reason for their in-store price to be higher than their online price in 2019.

Re: Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M

#43

Post by clarityPhone »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #37
tnorthcutt wrote: post #33

Last year I wanted to buy Thinking in Bets (great book, btw). I was feeling impatient, so I looked it up on Barnes and Noble's website, and saw that a store where I was had it in stock. I went in to purchase it, and the price in store was a couple bucks higher than the listed price online. I asked the clerk about it, and he kind of shrugged and said he couldn't do anything about it. I walked out without the book and…

What's confusing? Shipping a book from a warehouse is cheaper and maintaining a website is cheaper than setting up and selling from a physical store. If I order a book online, I don't want to subsidize the walk in customers.

I can’t think of any other retailer that does this. Best Buy, Walmart, Famous Footwear, Bed Bath and Beyond, etc. all honor the same prices in person as they do online.

Re: Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M

#45

Post by midnightclubbed »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #37
tnorthcutt wrote: post #33

Last year I wanted to buy Thinking in Bets (great book, btw). I was feeling impatient, so I looked it up on Barnes and Noble's website, and saw that a store where I was had it in stock. I went in to purchase it, and the price in store was a couple bucks higher than the listed price online. I asked the clerk about it, and he kind of shrugged and said he couldn't do anything about it. I walked out without the book and…

What's confusing? Shipping a book from a warehouse is cheaper and maintaining a website is cheaper than setting up and selling from a physical store. If I order a book online, I don't want to subsidize the walk in customers.

What makes it confusing is that you can check local store inventory online, order online at the online price and pickup in an hour from the store. However if you grab the book yourself from the physical store and save them a step, they absolutely won’t honor the online price. You have to order online and wait an hour while they take the book off the shelf for you. Or you get exasperated with the ridiculousness of the whole thing and buy from amazon leaving b&n with no sale.

Re: Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M

#46

Post by abdullahkhalids »

vvanders wrote: post #40
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's confusing? Shipping a book from a warehouse is cheaper and maintaining a website is cheaper than setting up and selling from a physical store. If I order a book online, I don't want to subsidize the walk in customers.

It's deceptive, if you're going to advertise a price make it clear that the price is online only.

That I absolutely agree with. They should do that.

Re: Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M

#47

Post by zzleeper »

dymk wrote: post #42
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's confusing? Shipping a book from a warehouse is cheaper and maintaining a website is cheaper than setting up and selling from a physical store. If I order a book online, I don't want to subsidize the walk in customers.

And still, nearly all retailers have adopted a price-matching policy that matches not just their own website, but competitors as well. There's really not a good reason for their in-store price to be higher than their online price in 2019.

Not sure if you are aware, but matching competitor prices is actually anti-consumer. It's counterintuitive but it means that your competitors won't lower the price on the first place. Kinda like implicit price fixing.

Re: Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M

#48

Post by jpollock »

nraynaud wrote: post #39
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's confusing? Shipping a book from a warehouse is cheaper and maintaining a website is cheaper than setting up and selling from a physical store. If I order a book online, I don't want to subsidize the walk in customers.

the value of the book doesn't change depending on its distribution channel

Of course the value of a book changes based on the distribution channel.

Immediacy has value, so if you need something _now_ you will be willing to pay for that.

Also, you have to pay in time and money to go to the store, so you _may_ be willing to pay more to have the book delivered.

In both situations, the way the book gets to you changes the price you're willing to pay.

Re: Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M

#49

Post by crazygringo »

clarityPhone wrote: post #43
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's confusing? Shipping a book from a warehouse is cheaper and maintaining a website is cheaper than setting up and selling from a physical store. If I order a book online, I don't want to subsidize the walk in customers.

I can’t think of any other retailer that does this. Best Buy, Walmart, Famous Footwear, Bed Bath and Beyond, etc. all honor the same prices in person as they do online.

No, not all of them.

Over the past few years, products at my local Best Buy are regularly 20-40% more than on their site. (Unless you order through the site for local pickup... then you can get the online price.)

Walgreens is the same. Might be $12 online but $18 in my local store.

Barnes and Noble is pretty par for the course in this.

Re: Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M

#50

Post by abdullahkhalids »

nraynaud wrote: post #39
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's confusing? Shipping a book from a warehouse is cheaper and maintaining a website is cheaper than setting up and selling from a physical store. If I order a book online, I don't want to subsidize the walk in customers.

the value of the book doesn't change depending on its distribution channel

Absolutely does. The experience of going to a bookstore, browsing through the shelves, perhaps reading a few pages while sitting on a comfortable couches, perhaps talking to a knowledgeable salesperson about books (or life or anything), definitely has value. And I believe that value is greater than the convenience of ordering books online and then having to wait a 1-14 days for the book to deliver.
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