But look at their low gross margin again. The lease cost isn’t even in the cost of goods sold number and they still have a worse gross margin than Amazon, which shouldn’t be the case.
The bolding is mine. That high rent cost is built into their absurdly high G&A. This leads me to question if they can survive even with a bankruptcy restructuring. As I said before, I don’t think it is just a question of bad leases or too much debt, they have serious problems with the viability of their business model.
No, she lives in a small city in Wisconsin; I live in the 'burbs of Chicago. I think her city only has Waldenbooks. The B&N near me was in a large, popular mall, which I’m sure helps matters.
The thing that turned me off Borders was I had amassed a three page list of books I wanted to read/BUY (thanks to Goodreads.com friend suggestions) and it turned out they didn’t have ANY of them. I’m not talking about obscure books by obscure authors. I didn’t want “make your own yoghurt” by Earth Mother Zen or something. I was looking for the latest Nick Hornby (for example) and they had 5 copies of “High Fidelity” and a dusty hardback of “How to be good” which should’ve been remaindered out ages ago. I was able to find several things I was looking for at my local library and OF COURSE on Amazon. I cannot buy it if they don’t have it. I went cash in hand and left empty-handed, but for my cash.
That’s too bad. They just put in a fancy new one in a new building at 86th and Lex, so you can come over here like some kind of…whatever it is we’re like over here. Unfortunately it suffers a bit from too much space devoted to cards and gifts and toys and puzzles and whatnot.
B&N had a massive presence in NYC early on, so Borders probably had a tough time catching on. There’s only a handful left and their downtown flagship was at 5 WTC. There are only a handful of B&Ns left too, for that matter.
Print media is fading away into a niche category. Newspapers are shutting down (Seattle’s down to one major metropolitan daily) and the ones that aren’t are cutting back severely. Magazines are shutting down (bye bye U.S. News & World Report). Bookstores are changing their focus (eReaders, cafes, etc.) or are dying.
We all knew this transition to a digital world would happen, but it kinda sucks to see its replacing of print with our own eyes. At least books themselves will be around for a while, even as bookstores continue to decline.
The store in downtown Boston is ready to fold up. The real culprit is digital media, plus the fact that young people are abandoning print media. I give the newspapers about 5 years maximum. Looks like we are at the end of an era.
Don’t forget the Booksmith in Brookline. It’s a small, packed bookstore with highly knowledgeable staff. Also, it appears they’re paying attention to online options.
I think the time frame on that is longer than you might realize. The cost of physically producing a book (particularly paperbacks) is relatively small, and recall that even when a bookstore is paying its bills, the publisher is used to being in a leveraged position because they pay credits on unsold paperbacks when the bookstore sends them back the torn-off cover (in essence those books are on consignment).
Still, the comparisons to Circuit City are likely correct, and the death spiral seems inevitable.
i didn’t forget it, or the Wellesley Booksmith, or other bookstores (far too few) in the Boston suburbs. But i was talking about Downtown Boston bookstores, of which there were once an uncountable many, and are now a pitiful few.
This thread is depressing. I’m going to try and avoid buying books off Amazon.
I missed Borders UK when it went into administration; though not a patch on an independent bookshop, it was better than Waterstones. Neither is comparable to Foyles, though (http://www.foyles.co.uk/).
:eek: Just learned the Borders at our mall is closing in March!!! I feel like a piece of me is being chopped off. Other than the food court, Crabtree & Evelyn shop, and the opportunity to take a long walk in inclement weather, my reasons for going to that mall have dwindled drastically.
It seems to me like these these come in cycles. When I was younger, there was a B Dalton and a Waldenbooks in the mall. Eventually a Borders opened up across the street from the mall. After a few years, the B Dalton disappeared. Leaving a Waldenbooks in the mall and a Borders across the street, which became sort of odd after Borders bought Waldenbooks. Eventually the Waldenbooks in the mall disappeared too Now just a Borders across the street. Acouple years ago the mall built a new wing, including a huge two story Barnes and Nobles. So now there’s a huge B&N attached to the mall, and a Borders across the street. So even though two bookstores have disappeared, there’s still two bookstores at the mall, taking up even more floorspace than previously.
I think the B&N is actually probably a little bit better than the Borders, but out of nostalgia and a desire to avoid the Mall parking lot, I still go to the Borders. But the Borders experience is nowhere near what it used to be back when having a cafe in a bookstore was novel, not to mention comfy chairs to read in and a surprisingly good selection, and computers you could look stuff up in so you could avoid store people, and somewhat bohemian looking store people. Since then, they no longer seem to have live acts, they’ve reduced the sci-fi section by half, the audio and video sections have virtually disappeared, in general the store looks like it’s not carrying 25% of the stock it used to, a lot of the book space is now toys, gifts, and discounted items. And the only way to apply for a job is a bizarre half hour long online personality test. Going to Borders really used to be an experience, and now it’s sort of like watching someone on their death bed.
When I used to work at the mall it always used to amuse me greatly the large number of people that used the mall as a place to powerwalk indoors before the stores opened.
I feel like a piece of me is being chopped off. Other than the food court, Crabtree & Evelyn shop, and the opportunity to take a long walk in inclement weather, my reasons for going to that mall have dwindled drastically.