AMong the things that caught their attention, Borders informed book publishers they won’t be able to pay them for a couple of weeks; the general counsel and CIO both resigned yesterday; they have not released their holiday sales data, yet.
I honestly don’t know if this much ado about something or nothing, our nearby Borders usually seems pretty busy, but it seems most folks are in the coffee shop and not so much in the store. What they should do is get rid of the DVDs and music sections and concentrate on books.
Yeah, I keep hearing of Border’s imminent demise. For years now people keep tolling for them. I figure Amazon will eventually swallow them up, but they’ve been plugging along longer than a lot of people predicted.
My local store was incredibly busy on Sunday; they sent out a 50% off coupon on Friday that was good only Saturday and Sunday. Plus I had $5 in Borders Bucks. I got a $50 cookbook for $20. But the things I really want are very obscure, and they’ve pissed me off a lot lately by accepting my orders online and then delaying them for months before finally cancelling them. There were several things I ordered for my husband for Christmas that he didn’t get because I was counting on borders.com.
That’s what turns me from a regular shopper into an impulse buyer – I’ll go into the store when I have a great big coupon, but when I want something specific, I’ll go to Amazon. They keep a better eye on their stock and don’t say they have something when they don’t.
Borders and Barnes and Noble shut down their stores in Santa Barbara. The 40% off everything at Borders was wicked awesome, I was able to get a lot of Christmas shopping done.
I’m not going to be too heartbroken. Like the above poster I’m now an impulse buyer. I’ll go into the store when I want to browse or something but if I’m looking for something I’ll go to Amazon because I can either get it in ebook form or get it in two days.
I wanted to buy something at the ‘local’ Borders, but the book I wanted as a Christmas gift cost twice as much as it did on Amazon. No way am I paying $50 for a book I can get for $25.
I gotta say, I am generally an impulse book buyer, I don’t wannt to wait, or often I will just browse. But now that I have a Kindle I can get books immediately and the ability to download samples kind of takes away the need to browse. I really don’t know when I will be going into a Borders again.
Every Borders around me (I live in Brisbane, Australia, so I don’t know how relevant this is on a wider scale) has gotten rid of their music sections. They were always stupidly expensive when it came to music so it’s not a great loss but I do hate to see a CD store go no matter how silly they were with prices.
People who browse at bookstores, figure out what they want, and then leave the store to order the book on Amazon because it’s cheaper or whatever make me physically ill.
I can understand why people do this, but honestly, you make me sick, all of you.
When books are extinct, and the world wide net crashes for whatever reason, and civilization is thrust into a second dark age, I’ll know who to blame.
If the bookstore had what I want OR COULD GET WHAT I WANT, I’d gladly buy it there. But when they say “Oh, we can order that,” and then I wait months before they tell me they can’t get it . . . there’s that saying “Fool me once, shame on you . . .”
Both Borders and Batrnes and Noble are in rickety shape, and have been for a while. I really hope Borders doesn’t go under, because currently, aside from college-associated bookstores, they’re about the only ones left in Boston. Barnes and Noble closed down its big store in Downtown Crossing years ago, although it’s still maintaining one at the Prudential Center. Borders has a store at Downtown Crossing, across from the Old South Meeting House, and it has one along Boylston Street in Back Bay. It also has one at the Galleria Mall in Cambridge. If Borders goes, the only store that’ll be left in downtown Boston’ll be that B&N at the Pru.* I can’t believe it’s come to that in Boston, fer cryin’ out loud. The Athens of America used to be peppered with bookstores all over the downtown area, and in Harvard Square.
If Borders and Barnes and Noble both bite the dust, it’ll be grim. The closest independent bookstore near me closed at the end of October. I’ll have to go to Marblehead or to Harvard Square for a non-used bookstore, or buy everything online.
There are still a couple of used bookstores hanging on, by the grace of Og, although most of those – like the late, lamented Avenue Victor Hugo Bookstore – are gone, as well.
I doubt that Amazon will buy them, as that will almost certainly require Amazon to collect sales tax on purchases, and they’ve been avoiding doing so. (But it would be nice if Amazon did so and let us pick up orders from the stores, and return stuff to the stores.)
I’m not sure who would buy Borders. It’s a shame as they’ll leave some big retail locations empty.
I usually do my magazine shopping at the local Borders, about once a month. They have a much wider selection than, say, Walgreens, including foreign-published magazines that cost as much or more to subscribe to as to buy every month at the store. While I’m there, I usually browse the books, and I often find something that I would never even know to look for at Amazon.
I wasn’t talking about bookstores not having what you want. What I can’t stand are those folks going to Borders or Barnes and Noble, browsing around in the books, deciding on a book that’s right there in front of them, leaving the store without buying it, and then ordering it on Amazon. I know people who do that all the time, chuckling at the money they’re saving.
Amazon is shit for browsing, and you can’t do it very well on a kindle or a nook either. I say, if you find a book you like while browsing at a bookstore, for god’s sake buy the book at the bookstore! It’s not a fucking library!
Soon book browsing will go the way of scrimshaw, and it’s something I love to do. And it’s all because some people are cheapskates.
I might be partly to blame for this, I’ve been buying books from Amazon the last few years. It’s so much easier when you can buy any book you want while staying in your chair.
I got a coupon emailed to me today for 30% off any book and normally that would be enough to get me in the store (although the 40% always gets me in). But I just bought a Kindle ten days ago and I deleted the email without much care.
Bookstores are gonna go the way of music stores. Sure, there are going to be a couple around, more indie/used stuff, but that’s about it. I’m wondering when authors might be signing specialized eBook covers that have the cover art work on them.
I guess that I’m pretty insensitive to those who cling to the smell of the paper, the crack of the spine, or the chisel to the limestone. Technology changes things. We are not meeting in a salon to discuss the world events with actual copies of the newspaper here, we are doing it here with ones and zeroes.
And Borders should have seen this coming and prepared with a new business model. They’re kind of leading the charge with one of the cheapest eReaders around too. What they plan to do after the eReaders have saturated the market is anyone’s guess but they had better have an out or there’s will be just another nail in the coffin. Frankly, I thought B&N would be out first, especially with their crappy rewards program that I was dumb enough to pay for one year.
I went looking for A Wizard of Earthsea to buy for my nephew this Christmas. Two Borders and two Barnes & Nobles – out of stock. Weeks for delivery.
Amazon had it cheaper, free shipping, and was in my hands two days later.
There is no way for Borders and B&N to compete with Amazon on price. Their one advantage – physical inventory to lure in browsers – they’ve drastically cut back on. All they have in-stock is recently published books, or whatever books some staffer might adore. Cutting out their one advantage so they don’t have to carry the inventory costs does not seem to have been a winning strategy for Borders.
And complaining that people won’t pay more so that some random Internet poster can continue to go browsing isn’t a winning strategy, either.