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Originally Posted by pl001
I did mention all the failures in that same post.
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If you say so
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Originally Posted by pl001
But Amazon got their start selling books and selection was limited.
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Actually, they listed 1 million titles at launch in 1995, which was 5 times more than the largest physical bookstore could offer (around 200k).
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Originally Posted by pl001
B&N could have used their existing clout and supply chain to offer a better selection and better prices.
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Actually, they did. As a result, they got sued by a consortium of indie stores for antitrust actions in 1998.
"Borders and Barnes & Noble are using their clout and influence with publishers to get discounts and preferential treatment," Avin Mark Domnitz, executive director of the American Booksellers Association, said Wednesday. "This poses a threat to [independent bookstores'] survival and the diversity of American bookselling. They are being asked to compete with one hand tied behind their backs."
(They settled for $4.7 million.) B&N also tried to buy out the massive book distributor Ingram, which also freaked out... everyone, since B&N would have gotten a choke-hold and priority on book shipments, and sales data on all their competitors (including Amazon). The FTC shot it down.
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Whether or not they could have executed that plan as well as Amazon is pure speculation and in reality quite doubtful as they had an interest to protect their B&M profits. However I will maintain the opportunity was there.
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The only real chance B&N had was if Amazon was unable to keep getting funds, as happened to almost all of the other "dot coms."
And realistically, that's what
should have happened. Bezos had zero industry experience, and burned up massive sums of cash for at least 6 years straight -- Amazon didn't turn a profit until 2001. It stayed afloat because Bezos was a) very sharp, b) very good at securing credit, and c) it wasn't staffed by people snorting coke under their desks while waiting for a first-day IPO pop.
Anyway.... For a year or so, B&N thought of online sales as a fad and/or cannibalization of their existing sales model. By 1997 or so, they realized they had no choice but to get into digital (while Amazon was already moving into other types of retail). My recollection is they didn't do a great job at first, but problems were certainly ironed out by 2000.
Another thing that's so often forgotten is that in the late 90s, Amazon was the underdog -- and B&N was the voracious leviathan that strangled the indie bookstores, and tried to dominate the industry by buying up competitors and merging with Ingram.
As in, if you told a bunch of book-lovers in 1995 that B&N's days were numbered, they would've
cheered. The idea that B&N is now the underdog that book-lovers hope can take on the Big Bad Amazon just cracks me up.