I always wondered why they are not trying to compete with Amazon in selling books online. I know they also sell books online and I know they have the Nook but I don’t think I have ever bought a book from their website. Is Amazon executing so perfectly that they simply can’t be beat?
Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M
131–140 of 197 posts
Re: Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I did hear some rumbles about how their nonunion employees were mad at conditions. I am sad their technical bookstore went the way of the dodo.
Their technical bookshop was awesome. I remember spending many hours there in the late 90s
Re: Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did hear some rumbles about how their nonunion employees were mad at conditions. I am sad their technical bookstore went the way of the dodo.
Yeah I used to live a few blocks from Powell's Technical about 10 years ago. What a place.
What was great about it?
Re: Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah I used to live a few blocks from Powell's Technical about 10 years ago. What a place.
What was great about it?
For someone who grew up in the middle of nowhere Florida, being able to walk somewhere that had not just a book or 2 on any technical topic imaginable but 2 SHELVES full was amazing.
Re: Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
What was great about it?
For someone who grew up in the middle of nowhere Florida, being able to walk somewhere that had not just a book or 2 on any technical topic imaginable but 2 SHELVES full was amazing.
I bought my graduate physics textbooks there
Re: Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M
#136So, 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.
Actual idea: Treat your local bookstore like a library. They don't care if you read their books as long as you stay in store and are respectful. Plus they have actual up to date selection with no waiting list for new releases. And spending money at the cafe is probably higher margin for them anyway.
Re: Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M
#137Earlier 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,…
I once went to Dussmann in Berlin (https://www.kulturkaufhaus.de). IMO, this is what a modern bookstore should be like.
Re: Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Crazy idea in alternate universe... Turn all Barnes & Nobles into libraries.
Actual idea: Treat your local bookstore like a library. They don't care if you read their books as long as you stay in store and are respectful. Plus they have actual up to date selection with no waiting list for new releases. And spending money at the cafe is probably higher margin for them anyway.
That used to be more of a thing in the 1990s. The big chains used to have lots of seating, even sofas, and as a fast reader who can read a typical 300 page book in a couple of hours, I used to spend most of my weekends reading books for free in big bookstores. They've wised up. There isn't a lot of seating these days.
Re: Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ne…
i also noticed the app matching the in-store price based on location. and yup, store employees will match online prices without question, but only if you ask.
i don't shop there much anymore, but i've done bopus (buy online, pick up in store) before to get the online price directly.
Re: Barnes & Noble Set To Be Sold To Elliott Management For About $683M
#140Earlier 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.
I don't know anyone who reads significant numbers of books on smartphone/tablets. It's either print books, ebooks, or audiobooks. And looking at print book sales over the last decade, there hasn't been a consistent downwards trend. Personally, I like to buy print books because I can give them away to friends or family after I read them. I also get a lot of print books from my local library, because there's nearly alw…
Personally, I have read a few thousand books but I have not bought a physical book for myself in years.
When I ride the subway and I see a lot of people reading on devices and relatively few books. Book sales seem to be propped up by gifts, where regular readers love the convenience.
This is especially true of older readers who love being able to increase the fount size.