Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Irving
Lynch certainly screwed up with the tablets (which in themselves are not so bad) and put the company in a bad position, but Riggio bringing in bean counters who only udnerstand the physical side to run everything is exactly the wrong thing to do. Whether B&B does the electronics themselves or through a deal with someone else, they need to have a robust digital presence that integrates with their stores or they'll just keep circling the drain.
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I think it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of business to complain of Riggio bringing in "bean counters". This chart shows the problem pretty clearly; Nook was losing half a billion dollars. On sales of $775m.
Clearly, they needed some bean counters, in about the same way that someone with a knife in their stomach needs a doctor.
Of course they also need a digital strategy. But not *this* digital strategy; it's a disaster. Probably they should focus on e-readers and their e-bookstore and stop trying to compete with Apple and Google in the tablet space.*
They should also try to make better use of their pbookstores and stop being afraid of cannibalizing their own sales. Worries about cannibalizing their own sales are, I think, why so many of their pbook/e-book crossover plans have been so lame.** What if you could go to a B&N store and, while browsing, buy a book you see on your nook (or on your phone with the nook app) quickly and easily, without having to go through the checkout line? Maybe you could tap the book with your device and purchase it that way. Or maybe there is some sort of numerical code that you could quickly enter (maybe from the front page) to purchase the book. Whatever they do, the key is to make it genuinely simple and convenient. Almost as if you cared about giving the customer a genuinely good experience.
(And not to worry about a future in which the bookstore is filled with Nook users who just use the store for showrooming and never buy a pbook: the alternative to this future isn't everyone buying pbooks; the alternative is everyone staying at home and buying from Amazon.)
*The jury is still out on whether this is a good approach for Amazon. Although Amazon does have a significant music and video presence, which B&N does not.
**Steve Jobs: "If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will."