More bad news for Barnes & Noble

[Steerpike]

It looks like getting into the Nook business is part of what's killing them. So, would they have been better off just trying to stay a brick-and-mortar bookstore and doing the best job possible of providing the best bookstore experience to customers?

Barnes & Noble: The Final Chapter? | Breakout - Yahoo! Finance

 

[Devor]

That reads very bleak.

Of course the Nook was going to cannibalize their store sales. Any idiot could see that. You would think they would have had a plan for how that was going to work for them.

One of the problems they mention in the article is the size of the B&N stores. Regardless of the Nook, I think that their rent is the insurmountable problem. Print sales were always going to shrink with the digital age, but they're going to taper off well below a sustainable margin for most stores that size. The Nook might have sped that along, but it would still have happened.

Maybe they could rent out space or expand their product line, but it's probably too late for that.

 

[Steerpike]

Maybe there is still time to split the company, and separate the Nook portion of it. They already got Starbucks space in a lot of their stores. I wonder if there is another service they could bring in from an outside company that would be a good fit in some of their additional floor space?

 

[Devor]

I've been trying a bit to think of something they could do with their floor space, but I'm drawing a blank for what would fit the brand. I don't have a serious idea. But I keep thinking, for instance, of expanding into other creative products, like painting or music, and possibly converting space to rent out as a by-the-hour artist studio. I have no idea if that would work, but based on other articles I've read, it sounds like something they're nowhere near capable of pulling off something like that.

 

[Philip Overby]

It would be great, in my opinion, to just have a regular old bookstore. I worry that this is impossible nowadays.

I have always been a huge buyer of books, but recently I've become quite prejudiced to not buy books if they're not available on Kindle. Because I move so much, I just can't lug all these books around with me anymore. If Barnes and Nobles can figure out how to capitalize on both the print and digital market and still keep their stores intact, they could possibly stay afloat.

Perhaps they could offer digital deals if you download the books in-store? That way if people come there to download books, they may buy other stuff as well.

I'm no businessman though, so I don't really know what I'm talking about.

 

[Curatia]

I used to work for B. Dalton, which was the smaller mall store child in the B&N umbrella. While we had a much smaller footprint, we focused more on our booksellers being knowledgeable about the inventory and on customer interaction. I would love to see a return to that kind of more intimate environment. I have customers I still know by name 15 years later. The big box style can be so impersonal, downloading to the Nook can provide the same level of service without spending the gas money.

 

[Alexandra]

I'm no businessman though, so I don't really know what I'm talking about.

It seems that the same can be said about many of the backroom thinkers at Barnes and Noble

 

[Devor]

Perhaps they could offer digital deals if you download the books in-store? That way if people come there to download books, they may buy other stuff as well.

There are things they could do. But the Barnes & Noble I use has four floors and is bigger than Macy's. It survives for now because it's NYC and they've closed a dozen other B&N's nearby, which has consolidated traffic there. But sooner or later it's going to have to close. There's always going to be enough traffic to support the occasional bookstore, just not one that size.

The thing to consider, however . . . . usually when a big megastore closes, you have skilled people who leave, who have money and resources and a big idea about what went wrong. And sometimes they start up their own stores, or join existing stores and help them do better. The big question for the future of the retail book industry, to me, is whether any of the people from B&N will do that.

Unlike Borders, B&N has people with expertise in both ebooks and brick and mortar. Once they're separated from all the problems of the existing storefronts, some of those people might be in the perfect position to figure out the right balance between bookstore and ebooks, whatever it is.

 

[Steerpike]

I like B&N, and I'd like to see them thrive, and to see the Nook business continue as well, to form a viable competitor to Amazon (I don't like market concentration in one company).

They're in a stuff spot, though. I use Amazon a lot. Their online offerings are superior to B&N. I have my Prime membership, where I watch movies and shows and get deals on shipping. I buy not only books but pens, notebooks, phone cases for my daughter, gifts for family members, computer parts or accessories, and just about anything you can think of. Much more than is available through B&N's online store.

So it seems like B&N is stuck in the middle between brick-and-mortar books and a much more book-oriented online business. They're not doing the brick-and-mortar thing entirely well anymore, and they're not up to par with Amazon in their online offerings. It seems like being halfway there in both arenas isn't working out for them.

 

[Devor]

So it seems like B&N is stuck in the middle between brick-and-mortar books and a much more book-oriented online business. They're not doing the brick-and-mortar thing entirely well anymore, and they're not up to par with Amazon in their online offerings. It seems like being halfway there in both arenas isn't working out for them.

Yeah, I think that's right. Amazon started with books but has become the Walmart of the online world. B&N online is trying to specialize in books, and this day and age, the only place that leads is to acquisition by another company. Their storefronts are too big to survive on just books. The online presence is too small to survive on just books. They need to expand their product line, drastically, beyond books, but I don't see how.

 

[Ophiucha]

From my experience with Barnes & Noble, and a similar shop up in Canada (Chapters), the expansion into anything else is pretty difficult since nearly all of their locations are a stone's throw away from a Best Buy or similar 'big box' CD/DVD/video game store. Chapters, aside from having their own eReader (Kobo), reminds me more of Borders in terms of its presentation. The dedicated children's section with cute animals and comfy chairs and a library-like atmosphere, more 'events', a Starbucks, a huge section on the lower floor dedicated to weird gift shop trinkets (book ends, $30 pens, plushies, cheese knives, greeting cards, that sort of thing). I find/found B&N to be less inviting than Borders, with less to look at and tempt you (I could never leave Borders without buying a bookmark - I don't know why, because I never even use bookmarks).

Of course, B&N is still in business, so they must be doing something right, but as someone who has probably only ever bought two books or three books from them (at least once out of necessity), I must admit I'm not sure what that is.

 

[Kit]

Okay, I'm hearing you all saying that Barnes & Noble is circling the drain, so I thought I'd better get in there and use up some gift cards.

I'm kinda worshipping my new Kindle Paperwhite, but dang.... there's just nothing like walking into a big B&N with a handful of gift cards and walking out many hours later with a heavy bag. If that's that last time I'll ever do that, I'll really miss it.

 

[Devor]

Here's some advice for B&N from someone at HBR.

Should Barnes & Noble Turn into a Mini-Mall? - Roger Martin - Harvard Business Review

As I said before, I think it's too late for this kind of thing. And I doubt that most product categories would lend themselves well to the B&N brand. I don't think there's much of an opening for just another retail store, and I don't think B&N would have the expertise to carve out a competitive advantage.

But still, it's a strategy that addresses the bigger problem, which is the sheer size of many of their stores.

 

[Addison]

That's a problem with technology. It's putting so many occupations out, thus so many people are losing their jobs. I have a kindle but I rarely use it, except to look at e-mail on the go. There's something true and real about holding a solid book with real pages in your hands.