Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker
Bookstores don't bring in the same dollars per square foot that, say, mall clothing stores do. Not even close. Look at, say, your typical Old Navy. They have more customers than your typical Border's, and a much higher ticket average (does Old Navy even sell anything that costs as little as a book?), in a fraction of the space...
|
A visit in a major mall these days indicates that this is indeed endemic to the entire storefront industry: The problem is with the real estate itself, refusing to come to grips with the malaise that is gripping every other industry, jacking up their prices to make up for their thinner profit margins, and thereby driving low-margin sellers out. Only the stores with the highest profit margins can afford the spaces, and those with lesser sales come and go as fast as the seasons change.
Major retail bookstores, of course, have gotten used to big buildings and big displays over the years... but they haven't taken advantage of the digital market to do the one thing that would've kept them on-site:
Downsizing. Fewer, more clever displays, combined with the sales of digital products that take up no space, would allow the stores to shrink with the financial times but not go away. A borders could fit into a small- to medium-sized storefront, not take up a block.
And still have room for bathrooms.