My wife and I were at a Borders in search of books on Wednesday. We left, still literally in search of books. (cool…that works on two levels)
Seriously, they’ve taken out anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of the shelves in the store. It looked so empty. We’re talking five to ten thousand square feet where you could fit small apartments in the open spaces between shelves. The children’s books appeared to be unaffected and the Manga section was an entire wraparound row, by far the biggest I’d ever seen at a mainstream dealer. But fiction? periodicals? sci-fi? specialty sciences? all of them all but evaporated.
If this is the first stage in their eventually closing up the store, it would make sense. But no signs seemed to indicate this was the case. And unless that was their plan, I can’t see how getting rid of all those books will be profitable long term. The amount they save in overhead/costs/wages (the staff seemed frazzled and in short supply as well) can’t equal the amount they’re losing in sales. Take for instance us. That’s the last time we’ll be stepping foot in there.
Is this happening across the country? What’s going on at your Borders?
The Borders near me recently moved their front tables and shelves around and now there is an empty raquetball court-sized space right in the middle of the store. I thought that this might be to encourage people to walk to the back where the CDs and DVDs are (surely a higher profit margin).
Even though there is a gaping hole, the number of books remains (as far as I can gauge) the same. They just removed a lot of the “You Should Be Reading…”, “Summer Reading”, and “Oprah Book Club” tables.
Some wild guesses, which could be completely wrong.
There was some kind of accessibility issue related to the Americans with Disabilities Act or local ordinances that required wider aisles, fewer obstructions, and greater visibility of the exits.
Similar to (1), but involving the fire marshal and safety regulations.
Management has decided keep less inventory on hand (because sales are down, or simply for the sake of efficiency), and thought it would look better to have fewer shelves than have shelves that were only half full.
Some genius in marketing decided that shoppers prefer wide open stores over cramped spaces.
Fewer shelves makes it easier for employees and/or security cameras to spot thieves and/or vandals.
I had a similar experience when I tried to redeem a Blockbuster coupon recently. The store had about half the number of shelves I expected, with a lot of empty space on those shelves. And even though they had about 1/4 the inventory I remembered Blockbuster having, it was about 4 times as hard find a video because they were so jumbled.
My ex worked at a local for over 10 years. She got lucky and got another, better job just in the last 6 months. They have been cutting back, and cutting back, and cutting back until they have little to cut back. They’re going down the drain. No chance of survival.
The one I go to eliminated most of its music and has a very limited DVD selection. The book portion seems about the same, but that was a few months ago. I’ve been going to the public library instead.
I used to do displays a B&N so I always notice the state of the stock when I shop there. The one in my Arizona town was seriously thin on merchandise last week when I went in. There was a lot of empty shelf space in more than a few sections – more than can be explained by just the time of year (building up stock for Christmas is still a few months away). I know you can’t extrapolate from just a few stores, but
Our local Borders is as crammed as ever. I’m pleased, they moved the SF & F section to a corner section where the DVDs used to be. It is much easier to navigate than the narrow, dark aisles where they previously resided. It actually seems to be a better-designed layout.
I was at a Borders in Jensen Beach, FL last month, and it was a lot like you described. Felt almost empty.
Of the the two Borders here in downtown Chicago, they look the same as always…but one of them (the one on North Michigan Avenue) is slated to close soon.
Almost the same here (hadn’t gone in for months until this week) and they’ve reduced their nerd section by half, they have no board games and the like anymore.
The tables running down the center of the store to the back seem to have thinned out quite a bit, too.
Borders’ stock is all the way up to $2.00 and it lost a little bit less last quarter than in the previous comparable quarter. And that’s the good news.
Borders is and has been on the edge of bankruptcy. Per stores sales have fallen 13.5%. Since that’s an average, you can imagine how bad the worse stores are doing.
Borders has been cutting personnel (which also means dumping community events), cutting inventory, and holding sales while it desperately seeks a savior. I can’t imagine where one will come from. I doubt that B&N will even bother to take over the remnants. Too many competing locations to make that worthwhile. (B&N stores are down about 5%. Significant but not as devastating.)
Some people in the industry think it will survive the rest of the year. I think they’re being optimistic.
My local Borders looked exactly like that a couple of weeks ago, but I assumed they were just moving stuff around. I’d hate to see them go out of business…as much as I admire the notion of the cute little local bookstore, there aren’t actually any near me, and I still like to actually look through books sometimes before I buy them.
The one I go to did the same. Also, they made their non-book merchandise section (tote bags, gift packages of Burt’s Bees cosmetics, etc.) smaller, and moved the manga and comics section to the middle of the store. I still haven’t checked to see what they put where the books and videos used to be.
Funny… I was thinking of posting something similar. What I noticed was, as I was going through the fiction section, that within one turn of the shelf, I was already in the "M"s (started at the A’s). I was looking for a specific book and went to two different Border’s- both with the same shortened fiction section (and did not find my book there, either).
The Borders by me used to have chairs scattered about so you could sit down with five or six possibilities and leaf through them to find the one(s) you want. Six months ago, they vanished. I hunted down a manager to ask what happened and was told they were too much trouble. I told them they lost a customer and have not been back since.
