Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemurion
I don't think they will be that significant - the chain's not closing, just losing about 1/3 their stores. It will make a difference to some markets, but on the whole the industry will take it in stride.
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I agree. This sort of thing (restructuring under bankruptcy) is not uncommon in many industries. The reasons this case is newsworthy is because of the loss of jobs in the current economy, and because the book industry as a whole is being watched closely right now by those interested in how ebooks are changing things now and going forward.
I feel bad for those affected, especially since my area will be one of the local markets affected with the closing of not only a store but also a distribution center, but I don't think this particular case represents an accurate omen of how the industry will fare going forward.
Having been on the inside of something similar several years ago, I also know that when a company says "XX killed our sales", it often means either "XX hurt our sales and we weren't prepared" or "XX hurt our sales at a time when we were putting money in the wrong areas". Sometimes it's even a case of "We've been making bad decisions for a long time and XX is a good thing to pin all the blame on". Yes, there are genuine cases when some "big new thing" wrenched the rug out from under a company, but in many cases the company's executives are complicit in their faltering.