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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

#91

Post by b3b0p »

I selfishly hope that the Barnes and Noble at the entrance inside Mall of America stays (because I live downtown Minneapolis and take the Blue Line directly there for fun). It's always busy, it's large, it's glorious and stocks the most awesome video game and obscure magazines anywhere I have seen. I love this store!

I always want to buy something, but living in small little tiny apartments all my life and finally selling off the last of my video game collection (31 large moving boxes filled) I want less physical items and buy all my books digitally. I like physical more, but with iBooks and keeping it always available at my finger tips on all my devices, it's way to convenient. I realize I might be part of the problem. There is always the downtown library.

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

#92

Post by kabdib »

LanceH wrote: post #28
legitster wrote: post #15

So, before we doom and gloom about B&N, it's important to remember that independent bookstores are doing great! https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/why-independent-bookstores-haved-... So why is Barnes and Nobles struggling? A couple of important points: Their inventory and footprint IS HUGE. Large inventory with low turnover is a margin-killer in retail. And I doubt they make much money off the books in their shelves - real…

They switched over long ago. There are far fewer shelves of books now. Of the books they do have, they are optimized for profit -- ranging from best sellers, new books by genre, and those few books from big authors that sell year over year. Most of these books are now trade paperback instead of mass market paperback. I go in needing to get Tom Sawyer and the only option they have is $15.95. They took the computers ou…

They stopped having a "new releases" part of their main sections, so if I want to find a new release in SF/Fantasy it means having to look at all the books in that section.

Granted, that section is a lot smaller now, with books front-cover-out, as you say. But it's still kind of a sucky move for steady customers.

I used to visit the local B&N every week. Now it's down to every few months, when I know exactly what I want to find there. And the B&N is about a quarter toys and board games now (this is not an exaggeration). We're down to two bookstores in our city of 600K+ people, hard to believe.

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

#93

Post by mykowebhn »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #63
legitster wrote: post #15

So, before we doom and gloom about B&N, it's important to remember that independent bookstores are doing great! https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/why-independent-bookstores-haved-... So why is Barnes and Nobles struggling? A couple of important points: Their inventory and footprint IS HUGE. Large inventory with low turnover is a margin-killer in retail. And I doubt they make much money off the books in their shelves - real…

> It's important to remember that independent bookstores are doing great! The independent stores that you think are doing great are not what many fans of independent bookshops are thinking of by the words “independent bookstores”. I fondly look back on certain 1990s independent bookshops that had enormous stock, and books were all they sold. But these days, many independent bookshops have trimmed their book inventori…

This depresses me.

One of the reasons I don't like B&N is because I feel it's a store no longer dedicated to books. They have books, but it's also a gift store, a toy store, and a stationery store. From just my estimate, I feel about 40 percent of its floor-space is for non-book items.

Another book chain in Canada, Indigo Books, operates similarly.

I think the last bastions for book-lovers are used bookstores. Also, Powell's in Portland seems quite dedicated to selling books of all sorts.

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

#94

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

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.

Target does this. The price of certain online items sometimes varies in store, but they at least inform you of it on their website.

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

#95

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

baron816 wrote: post #52
legitster wrote: post #15

So, before we doom and gloom about B&N, it's important to remember that independent bookstores are doing great! https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/why-independent-bookstores-haved-... So why is Barnes and Nobles struggling? A couple of important points: Their inventory and footprint IS HUGE. Large inventory with low turnover is a margin-killer in retail. And I doubt they make much money off the books in their shelves - real…

>before we doom and gloom about B&N, it's important to remember that independent bookstores are doing great It’s funny watching a movie like You’ve Got Mail today when the trend was reversed. That movie hasn’t aged well for many reasons now that I think about it.

F O X

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

#96

Post by mwexler »

Donald wrote: post #13
vikramkr wrote: post #2

I really hope I don't read any articles a few years from now about Barnes and Noble filing for bankruptcy after being crushed by the immense debt of a leveraged buyout...

> after being crushed by the immense debt of a leveraged buyout $680M is in the realm of a cash transaction for a hedge fund, and indeed, if you look at their SEC filing (below), this is an all-cash transaction. Expect aggressive cost-cutting from Elliot (BNs around me seem to be well staffed with lots of people standing around with little to do - so layoffs likely in the future) but the store itself should be able t…

Wow, you have a lux B&N. Most of them are desperately understaffed, between the need to reshelve books, receive inventory, manage "cash-wrap" for the long checkout lines, corral running kids, ask the guy destroying the manga to stop folding the covers, straighten the magazines that have been scattered by readers, pick up the trash patrons leave all over the store, check the bathrooms for various "presents" people leave behind, and oh yeah, help folks find the exact book they wanted from the query "that book by that guy who was a chef and then did special forces but now has that book about contract bridge" so they can flip through it and order it from Amazon.

The cost cutting has happened in many places and if it continues, sadly, even a hedge fund won't be able to save it. Sure, lots of room to improve, and a mix of cut the bad and add the good will help. But don't fool yourself, retail is hard and B&N, the good ones, is real work. I wish them the best but it's a hard road.

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

#97

Post by paulcole »

mykowebhn wrote: post #93
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's important to remember that independent bookstores are doing great! The independent stores that you think are doing great are not what many fans of independent bookshops are thinking of by the words “independent bookstores”. I fondly look back on certain 1990s independent bookshops that had enormous stock, and books were all they sold. But these days, many independent bookshops have trimmed their book inventori…

This depresses me. One of the reasons I don't like B&N is because I feel it's a store no longer dedicated to books. They have books, but it's also a gift store, a toy store, and a stationery store. From just my estimate, I feel about 40 percent of its floor-space is for non-book items. Another book chain in Canada, Indigo Books, operates similarly. I think the last bastions for book-lovers are used bookstores. Also,…

Powell’s is more of a tourist destination. Buy a mug, tote bag, shirt and 3 hardbacks you’ll probably never even read. Plus they’ve made some pretty poor financial decisions. Had to scrap renovating and expanding into a nearby building. Lots of layoffs. If they didn’t own their building they’d be long gone.

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

#98

Post by uponcoffee »

rhizome wrote: post #71
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…

From the parking lot? In your car? With which you spent $2 in gas to travel there and back?

This boils down to voting with your dollars, the root comment didn't like B&N's business practice and gave their business to someone else.

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

#99

Post by PopeDotNinja »

legitster wrote: post #15

So, before we doom and gloom about B&N, it's important to remember that independent bookstores are doing great! https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/why-independent-bookstores-haved-... So why is Barnes and Nobles struggling? A couple of important points: Their inventory and footprint IS HUGE. Large inventory with low turnover is a margin-killer in retail. And I doubt they make much money off the books in their shelves - real…

Crazy idea in alternate universe... Turn all Barnes & Nobles into libraries.

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

#100

Post by ben1040 »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #94
clarityPhone wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Target does this. The price of certain online items sometimes varies in store, but they at least inform you of it on their website.

The Target mobile app is more opaque about this.

If you have accepted location permissions for the Target app, the app will show the in-store price when it can tell you're in a store.

The only way of knowing this is that in smaller/lighter print under the price, it'll either say "Online" or whatever store location.

The most egregious example was an item I bought that cost 40% more in-store versus online, and you'd never know had you looked at the app.

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