Quote:
Originally Posted by Scarpad
The only thing I lement about in this news is that it might cause the B&N Stores to go away and I would not like that, I think we need physical bookstores, most mom and pop's are gone, caused by B&N and Amazon unfortunately, and if B&N go I would miss having no where to go to browse all the latest books and Mags. Well other than the library
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The B&N bookstores have been going away for years now.
Its a slow motion fade that won't be slow much longer.
The current XMAS sales show same store revenues roughly flat, the same as 2012 and 2011... despite *adding* all sorts of toys and trinkets. So their book sales have been steadily declining on a per store basis and all their added "higher margin" merchandise has achieved is patch the bleeding. 50% of all book sales are online--both e- and p-. 50% of fiction is now ebooks. Factor in reduced shelf space for everything but bestsellers and that fabled traditional bookstore browsing experience is already gone from the few places that ever had it.
And then there is the ongoing plan to shut down a third of their sites altogether.
Just yesterday B&N announced a closure in Pasadena and another in NY, fifth avenue to be exact. (Word is, their landlords in NYC are constantly fielding questions from other retailers about when their sites will "become available".)
And the thing is, companies that embark on triage downsizings have always ended up doing bigger, faster closures. Especially when they announce openly that the expect to be doing it for a decade or more. Once they stated they were downsizing the side of the business closest to profitability by a third, they made a 50% downsizing almost a certainty, and not in ten years, but in five or less. Maybe a lot less.
Because their statements and actions (and retractions and inactions) have driven a lot of people to worry they won't be around for the long haul. Which drives them to act accordingly and look elsewhere.
Unless they can reassure people that they are going to be around, more customers will go elsewhere which will lead to more bad news which...
They're called death spirals for a reason.
Customers adapt, even if the company can't.
This has happened before; it will happen again...