(Business Week) Bookstores closed not because of poor sales

[Andrew H.]

The borders in my city were some of the first ones outside of Ann Arbor and, in the 90's, were very well run and had the feel of an independent bookstore. On most Friday or Saturday nights they were a venue for local musicians (acoustic), who set up and played in the cafe area. It became a popular "date night" destination for me and other like-minded people.

This stopped around 2000 and the store became more generic...but it never struck me as being badly run - although I'm sure this varied from store to store. But, yeah, their large DVD and music section was a mistake. Which was too bad in a way - they did have an excellent selection of less common DVDs and DVD sets, many of which I would have liked to buy, but they were too expensive. And not my a little, either - on more than one occasion, I'd think - I'd like this DVD series; it's $30 on Amazon, but I'd like it now, so I'll pay $40 and get it at Borders now. Only to go to Borders and discover that it was something like $60.

But I don't think that Border's is really any sort of parable about corporate greed. Both Borders and B&N expanded explosively in the late 80's and 90's. This made perfect sense at the time, and they basically crushed all before them. (And there were hundreds of articles written at the time about how this was Bad For Authors and heralded the Death of Books - pretty much in the same way that Amazon is discussed today). In retrospect, they both overexpanded, but it was hard to tell this at the time, and it was also hard to predict that Amazon would become what it did.

[J. Strnad]

Very interesting article. Thank you!

[theducks]

I liked my local Borders.

Another K-Mart casualty, why am I NOT surprised. They have just about ruined OSH (founded in San Jose) with their 'central control' style.

[xg4bx]

Originally Posted by morriss003

I love printed books. Other than my own ebooks, I only have two or three other ebooks. Waldenbooks was great. I bought books there weekly. When Waldenbooks become Borders, I bought books there also, a lot of books. I always had a membership card. But gradually Borders seemed to become disinterested in their books. They seemed to be more interested in their CD's and games, and the coffee shop and other stuff. You could see it in the way they displayed their merchandise. In the last year of Borders on Maui, I went there often. They almost never had the book I wanted and it was always difficult to find. More and more, I found myself buying from Amazon. I was not surprised when they shut their doors, I had been expecting it.

roughly half my local b&n is dedicated to coffee, the nook and toys/games. the actual book section seems to be shrinking.

i had the same complaint about borders you do, i was literally never able to find the book i was looking for,everything i searched for required ordering. if i wanted to order i'd be home on amazon. and it wasn't oddball stuff either, they wouldn't have mass market paperbacks that had just come out. the only thing they were good for was "oh, i didnt realize that was out. let me add it to my amazon wish list when i get home".