Does it make you feel any better to know that I frequently use Amazon recommendations to first buy a used book by a particular author, and then, if I like the writing, I buy new books from B&M stores? See, the thing is, I’d be happy to buy books at B&M stores…if they were in stock. And that’s my major complaint.
You’re welcome.
I adore that store. My only problem is lugging all my books and DVDs home afterwards. I typically find five - ten books I really like for $10 - $15.
Yep. This is key. It’s simply a waste of my time to traipse down to B&N only to be faced with having to order the book I want anyway. I don’t expect them to have every book, but there are empty shelves in the Princeton and Hamilton stores, lots of them, so I don’t understand what’s going on.
Stupid Kindle. I actually spend MORE money on books now. It’s just way too convenient.
I remember Barnes and Noble as being THE textbook store in the greater NYC area.
I hate to hear of any bookstore closing.
Other than the obvious (Amazon Prime) – the one by me closed down four months ago.
1.) Selection in relation to online booksellers, particularly Amazon. This is going to be a problem for any brick and mortar store, and I can’t really hold it against them. While it certainly would be awesome if I could walk into a physical store and walk out with a bunch of books on, say, Welsh, or obscure YA novels from the 1980s, I understand that a physical store only has so much space, and that, if they have to choose between carrying the entirety of Margaret Mahy’s books or fifty bajillion copies of Twilight, the latter is going to sell better and serve a lot more people.
2.) Organization. I’m not sure whether B&N or Borders has the better selection; it’s probably pretty close. It’s just a hell of a lot easier for me to find things at Borders than it is at Barnes and Noble. There seem to be more individual sections in both fiction and non-fiction, and–in the stores I go to, at least–the major categories are indicated on signs that are hung from the ceiling. This means that I can see them the minute I walk into the store. Now, I’m likely to browse for a while in the store, but I’d rather browse things I want to look at instead of spending five-ten minutes trying to find the section in the first place, or browsing through a bunch of books that should really be in three sections, not one group.
3.) Lack of search kiosks. This means that I have to ask an employee whenever I want to know if they have something or what section it’s in. This is fine if I’m looking for something boring. This is less fine if I’m looking for something that’s kind of out there. This is even less fine when my purchases are multiple and. . .interesting. (“Yeah, do you have the Alter translation of the book of Genesis? Cool. How about this really old, trashy book about vampires? Okay. Oh! And do you carry 2600?”) Then they’d insist on walking with you to find it. I think it was sort of a corporate policy, because if I just asked them to point, they wouldn’t. Eventually, they included search cabability on their website, which was better than nothing, but not good for in-store browsing.
4.) Their discount card requires a payment. Borders’ doesn’t.
Several people have mentioned the fact that Border’s doesn’t charge for their membership and B&N does. As I stated earlier, B&N’s discount is 20% on hardcover, 10% on paperback and all other in-store services, and tons of additional savings (15% off coupons, etc). Border’s discount is a $5 credit (which must be used within a specified time period) for each $150 in purchases. That’s 3.33% for which I would gladly pay the $25 B&N membership fee since I spend much more that $250 a year (or $125 if I buy only hardcover books)!
I get coupons by email from Borders, too. The thing with paying for the membership is that you’re taking the gamble that whatever you pay for it will be offset by your purchases. Given that I tend to buy most of my books on Amazon, there’s no guarantee that I’ll make up the original investment for a B&N card; hence there’s risk. Borders costs nothing, and so there’s no risk. When it comes to something like this, I’m pretty risk-averse. It might not be strictly logical, but that’s how my mind works.
I don’t go to B&N because there aren’t any that are very accessible to me.
It doesn’t matter how “good” a deal it is; on strict price shopping, no physical bookseller is ever going to compete with online. A quick check of my Amazon wishlist shows the top three new hardcovers all between 27% and 34% off cover price.
I’d be more likely to have remained a Barnes & Noble customer if they never had any discounts at all, but concentrated on competing in the areas where online can’t.
What happened to Scrantom’s?
However, this is very conditional…if the store doesn’t have what I want, then I’m not going to buy anything there, so it doesn’t matter how great the discount is. If I can’t find anything to buy (as has happened on my last three trips) then I’m not getting ANY discount.
I tried going to B&N today. I had looked on their website for a book that hadn’t been in stock at Borders (it’s a brand new book and not something too obscure). The website said that it was in stock at the B&N near me. There were no kiosks to check on it myself so I went to the info desk and they told me it wasn’t in stock and that it would have to be special ordered.
I had also brought a list with me of several other books I wanted of the Sci-Fi variety. I had thought, since the store is so friggin big (two stories! with escalators!) that they might have a better selection. But they had zero. Not even the reasonably non-obscure ones. I started getting the impression that the selection is not actually larger (at least in SF - they definitely had a far superior selection of local books) but that their shelves were just larger, and included things (manga, graphic novels) which Borders had in a separate section…
Granted, the website had a cool feature - you could ‘reserve’ the in store copy, and get an email confirmation, which presumably would have let me know if someone randomly bought the copy i n the 20 minutes it took to get there (or prevent the purchase). If Borders has this feature, I haven’t seen it.
That’s not really a rant. Borders is more convenient, so I would tend to go there anyway. But if this had been a test of whether B&N had some greater draw for my needs, it failed.
Anyway, when I got home I checked the website again, maybe there was some very narrow chance that someone bought the book in the half hour it took me to get there and look for the book. Now suddenly the website lists the book as having a future release date!! There’s no longer an option for reserve, or even check if a particular store has a copy, because the only option available is now “pre-order”. When every other website has the old release date of last week, proven true by the fact that others were able to purchase copies and write reviews.
My experience has been bizarre and unsatisfactory (other than eye candy) and while I won’t assume that this was a typical experience, it will definitely need to be counterbalanced by a significant positive experience for me to reconsider my shopping habits.
I do all of my bookshopping at Wal-Mart.
I know you’re laughing, and you think its tongue in cheek, with your fleeting superiority. But I honestly can’t afford Barnes and Noble. I can get even better deals at K-Mart.
I’ve bought books at WalMart and KMart but the selection is really limited.
Yep. Any store that’s not a dedicated book store is only going to carry a very few titles, and they’re going to want to carry only best sellers…which generally isn’t going to be what I want to read. I won’t read Dan Brown at any price, and I’ll pay only a dollar or two for a book written by John Grisham.
I hadn’t heard that B&N was closing!
Shoot, I actually like the local store. We don’t have a Borders. We do have a great USED bookstore though. No independent new books stores either.
Guess I won’t renew the discount card my mom and I share.
We have a fantastic public library, but I like to OWN my favorites!
The one I go to most every weekend 11 miles away is definitley cutting back on their music and video shelfspace. They moved the audio books into it first and now each w/e there are fewer and fewer cd/dvd/br selections on display. The place is always crowded on the weekends, but it was empty of customers on Wed. eve when I dropped by after a dental appt. I did order a new (work-related) $73 book and had it shipped to my home PO Box for $43. Their remainder (heavily-discounted) section is getting larger, too.
They also just sent me $50 in gift cards because I earned so many “points” there, for using their 10% discount card and their 5% discount credit card. I am still amazed at the large number of freeloaders that they allow to peruse the magazines and books and leave them on the benches for the help, including the MANAGER, to pick up and reshelf, for CS.
They are pushing their Nookie, with a manned display right inside the entrance. I haven’t gone e-reading yet as I still like the heft and feel of books(and, yes, the pictures). My walls runnethover with them, Shirley, about 500 LF of shelving.
There’s stll an expanded Books-A-Million in town, though, if’n B&N folds.