Quote:
Originally Posted by MV64
I love going into bookstores like Barnes and Noble, but honestly, if the chains collapse, we may see a resurgence in mom and pop bookstores, which would be a great thing.
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We won't.
Offering a smaller selection at higher prices is going to be an even less viable model in the future.
But I want to echo Kali's point that this is not really about e-books. B&N and Borders have been bleeding customers to Amazon for about 10 years - and starting about 2005, Amazon had double digit growth every year (often 20-30%) while Borders and B&N had no growth, very low growth (1-2%), or even a small loss. The vast majority of people still buy paper books - but they're buying them at Amazon.
And part of the problem is that Borders and B&N massively over-expanded in the 90's/early 2000's. There are a lot of locations with a Borders and a B&N within a half-mile of each other - just closing down one of those competing shops would do a lot for the bottom line of the remaining shop.