Barnes & Noble’s New Comeback Plan

[Wearever]

If they make you pay at the table ziosk , it will be a trap. If it's anything like their web.site. You'll be stuck there for hrs. trying to pay your tab.

[Ravensknight]

Barnes and Noble new Strategy:

We won't suck this time.
We Promise!!

This reeks of desperation to me...

[Alpha o]

Stop supporting that damn discount card so ferociously. I had clerks that didn't want to check out any purchases unless I listened to the stupid spiel.

Some of us don't buy enough for the card to be worth it. Amazon has most, and places like Alibris can find the older books, even if the postage is prohibitive. And they don't bug you to buy a discount card.

(Amazon does push Prime - but it covers other things besides books, so it might be worth it to some)

Couple of times, I just dropped the books on the counter and left.

Yeah I guess nothing says yummy like a bunch of dusty old books no one wanted to buy. That should attract a lot of people into their restaurant. NOT! Unless you are a real bookworm of course. LOL! Nothing is going to save the Brick & Mortar bookstores.

[MGlitch]

if it's anything like their cafe and bookstore pairings the books aren't going to be the ones no one wanted. They'd be new releases and bestsellers. I can't imagine them closing down and remodeling store after store, so it seems likely that they'd just re purpose the cafes to meet their needs.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Noooooooo!

Its "Barn[es] & Bar"

They plan to have books (of course!); alcohol (of course!); and cows one can milk (of course!).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by murg

From one of the articles, the dining area is surrounded by books shelves, presumably with the books for sale.

Of course, most of the diners will just assume that they're there for atmosphere. In fact, I bet most diners would be surprised that they were real books and not the ones like Ikea uses.

IKEA has real books. At least my local IKEA store does. Admittedly they're all in Swedish, but they're certainly real books.

[Apache]

I take my own library with me when I eat out. I do not need B&N's books.
Apache

[murg]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Yeah I guess nothing says yummy like a bunch of dusty old books no one wanted to buy. That should attract a lot of people into their restaurant. NOT! Unless you are a real bookworm of course. LOL! Nothing is going to save the Brick & Mortar bookstores.

They're not going to be dusty.

The books'll be greasy, with food stains.

[Wearever]

Originally Posted by murg

They're not going to be dusty.

The books'll be greasy, with food stains.

I hope that's not B&N's idea of home cooking

[Barty]

Remember when people lamented B&N would kill all the independent book shops? I think that was the premise of that rom com You've Got Mail. Now Amazon is killing B&N. There's always a bigger fish.

They should skip the food and go straight for the drinks. That seems to be popular.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Welcome to Bar & Noble

I was thinking Bars & Noodle

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Barty

Remember when people lamented B&N would kill all the independent book shops? I think that was the premise of that rom com You've Got Mail. Now Amazon is killing B&N. There's always a bigger fish.

There's no doubt that large chain bookstores do kill independents. Waterstones (the dominant bookstore chain in the UK) killed the majority of independent bookstores here, because the independents were unable to compete with Waterstones' prices.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by HarryT

There's no doubt that large chain bookstores do kill independents. Waterstones (the dominant bookstore chain in the UK) killed the majority of independent bookstores here, because the independents were unable to compete with Waterstones' prices.

Isn't Waterstones headed the same way as B&N? Waterstones don't sell ebooks any more, and well Nook is not doing all that great.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Isn't Waterstones headed the same way as B&N? Waterstones don't sell ebooks any more, and well Nook is not doing all that great.

Waterstones is doing/has done what B&N should do. They never got in to selling their own ereader. They shut down their ebook store. And the stores are given the freedom to display books that sell well in the area rather than what B&N does which is to make every store as much the same as possible given the dimensions and layout differences between buildings.

I believe Waterstones has actually become profitable. Where as, thanks to the Nook, BN is in the gutter. They seem to be trying to shed some of the costs, they outsourced the eink devices, which was the only physical device BN still mucked with. I think part of that deal included the firmware for the Nook being developed by others. It remains to be seen if these changes can salvage the Nook, if if the questionable quality of service that comes with outsourcing in the name of the bottom line will be the final coffin nail in the Nook.

Having owned every eink Nook beside the first generation, I can say that features have started to seriously dwindle in the last two models. The Glowlight Plus just caught up to the Kindle Voyage and Kobo GloHD both of which were available well before the launch of the NGP. It also suffers from odd design decisions.