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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

#171

Post by kgwgk »

chii wrote: post #167
kgwgk wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s not complaining about the price tag not matching the online price. He’s complaining about the cashier applying the tag price and not the lower price advertised online. I also find it confusing when retailers apply different prices online and at physical stores, unless the fact that the online price is different is very clearly stated.

but would you find it weird if one physical location charges a different price to another store at a different physical location?

For some kinds of retail businesses I do expect one price independent of the location within the country. Not for groceries, of course, but I do expect consistent pricing in Zara or Ikea.

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

#172

Post by drivers99 »

jschwartzi wrote: post #108
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…

It actually costs them a ton of money to physically label the prices on each book. B&N adds their own sticker over the top of the MSRP when they receive the book. Changing the sticker every time the online price is changed would cost them a small fortune. If you're ever wondering why the online price differs from the in-store price by a significant amount, usually it's not because the retailer is trying to gouge you.…

B&N doesn’t put their own price stickers over the MSRP / barcode. In certain sections they would have an X% off on the top-right of the front cover like new and best seller hard-covers, and specific prices on the discounted/remaindered looking stuff, but that’s also on the front cover. The main sections divided by topic (which is all full price) don’t have any stickers. They just sell stuff at full price and then apply discounts if you’re a member (only 10%), coupons etc.

Borders did put a sticker on every book. 2nd & Charles does too.

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

#173

Post by lotsofpulp »

chii wrote: post #167
kgwgk wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s not complaining about the price tag not matching the online price. He’s complaining about the cashier applying the tag price and not the lower price advertised online. I also find it confusing when retailers apply different prices online and at physical stores, unless the fact that the online price is different is very clearly stated.

but would you find it weird if one physical location charges a different price to another store at a different physical location?

And no bats an eye at paying more at a restaurant in SF or Manhattan.

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

#174

Post by sokoloff »

kortilla wrote: post #159
sokoloff wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it’s anti-consumer in some significant ways. I think of it as not competing as vigorously as you could on price, by publicizing that for the consumers who are willing to do extra work, that you’ll eventually honor the best price they found at a qualifying competitor, but that you’re not going to be the one who initiates the first salvo in the price war.

You’re gonna have a bad time in business if you think the objective is to lower the price as much as possible without regard for what the market is paying.

Indeed if I thought that, which I see no evidence to suggest that I do.

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

#175

Post by lotsofpulp »

kgwgk wrote: post #171
chii wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but would you find it weird if one physical location charges a different price to another store at a different physical location?

For some kinds of retail businesses I do expect one price independent of the location within the country. Not for groceries, of course, but I do expect consistent pricing in Zara or Ikea.

I see no reason to expect people in lower cost locales to subsidize people in higher cost locales.

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

#176

Post by tannhaeuser »

neodypsis wrote: post #137
mykowebhn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

I once went to Dussmann in Berlin ( https://www.kulturkaufhaus.de ). IMO, this is what a modern bookstore should be like.

I like the Soviet-style Karl-Marx-Buchhandlung better if it's still around (it was featured as a location in The lifes of others I believe).

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

#177

Post by nichos »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #99
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.

Which become internet kiosks for the homeless.

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

#178

Post by petra »

Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #148
jimmaswell wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the long run, most book stores are doomed. There's no way around it no matter how nostalgic some are for physical books - the medium is an obsolete novelty with the advent of smartphones/tablets. Some book stores will remain but it'll be a niche thing like vinyl records and horseback riding.

This common prediction has not at all been borne out by facts. Physical books still remain popular -- maybe not as popular as thirty years ago, but there's a lot of reasons why that would be the case (general availability of entertainment from competing media). Most importantly, there was a 2017 study that showed that young children prefer reading physical books to reading books electronically. Physical books have be…

The iPad isn't the right comparison.

The eInk device is a better comparison, and according to research(1) it's comparable in most ways to paper reading, but it has some problems with helping people maintain chronological order.

So eBooks as good as books don't seem so far off.

(1)https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.0003...

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

#180

Post by shaklee3 »

jschwartzi wrote: post #108
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…

It actually costs them a ton of money to physically label the prices on each book. B&N adds their own sticker over the top of the MSRP when they receive the book. Changing the sticker every time the online price is changed would cost them a small fortune. If you're ever wondering why the online price differs from the in-store price by a significant amount, usually it's not because the retailer is trying to gouge you.…

Home Depot has solved this in their appliances section. They now have e-ink screens on everything.
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