Briefly: "Where Will Borders’ Books and Customers Go?" - Page 2

RainingLemur · 12-30-2011, 08:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeaKing

Now I am left with the remains of Ingles, and the drug stores for magazines. The nearby Bi-Lo does have besides the same magazines, about a 5 foot section of paperbacks but they are 95 percent mostly female type trash novels. A Walmart further away does have a lot of pop and children's books, plus about a 3 foot wide shelf of Sci-fi.

That is it. We aren't just on line because we want to be. It is also because we have to be.

I lived in a much smaller town than I do now, and I know how that goes. You had to drive 120~ miles in either direction on the interstate to hit a city with an actual bookstore. Heck, we didn't even have a Wal-Mart. The books that we did have available for purchase were on the tiny racks at the grocery store, some maybe in the pawn shops.

I pretty much had to hope I could find whatever it was online, or else it was a day-trip to the city to do some real shopping.

T.D.02809 · 12-31-2011, 11:25 AM

I live in Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA, approximately a 1/2 hour north of Miami center. I would describe this area as a populated, growing, active area for all sorts of businesses. Sadly though the choices of bookstores as brick and mortar buildings is limited to a handful, maybe not even that. I know of 3 outlets: one Books A Million (one about 45 mins East of my home) and one Independent seller (about an hour South West of my home) and lastly, now, only 2 Barnes & Nobles one 15 mins. the other about hour away. There are a handful of small 2nd hand stores. It is is uncommon for them to carry new releases and no magazines or newspapers. There were 3 Borders and another B&N opened but no more. Wal-Mart and BJ's and Costco sell a limited number of new releases and usually they all have the same content. No specialty or niche books. Certainly no books older than a year.
For me this is more than sad to learn that being in this area my choices are limited. I cannot imagine living in a less city like area.
Now I go to the B&N nearest me. I also go online to Amazon, and seek out other outlets online. Yesterday I decided to pay to be a Member of B&N as they are getting my money anyway. I appreciate the large magazine selection and the coffee shop along with the ability to browse through a book section and discover new authors or new topics of interest simply chance.
I do have a Kindle and I do enjoy it. I still buy print books that I want to keep or be able to leaf through.

SeaKing · 12-31-2011, 04:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by T.D.02809

I live in Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA, approximately a 1/2 hour north of Miami center. I would describe this area as a populated, growing, active area for all sorts of businesses. Sadly though the choices of bookstores as brick and mortar buildings is limited to a handful, maybe not even that. I know of 3 outlets: one Books A Million (one about 45 mins East of my home) and one Independent seller (about an hour South West of my home) and lastly, now, only 2 Barnes & Nobles one 15 mins. the other about hour away. There are a handful of small 2nd hand stores. It is is uncommon for them to carry new releases and no magazines or newspapers. There were 3 Borders and another B&N opened but no more. Wal-Mart and BJ's and Costco sell a limited number of new releases and usually they all have the same content. No specialty or niche books. Certainly no books older than a year.
For me this is more than sad to learn that being in this area my choices are limited. I cannot imagine living in a less city like area.
Now I go to the B&N nearest me. I also go online to Amazon, and seek out other outlets online. Yesterday I decided to pay to be a Member of B&N as they are getting my money anyway. I appreciate the large magazine selection and the coffee shop along with the ability to browse through a book section and discover new authors or new topics of interest simply chance.
I do have a Kindle and I do enjoy it. I still buy print books that I want to keep or be able to leaf through.

If you go to B&N a lot it might behoove you to get a cheap nook. You can read for an hour while you are there for free as I remember. I have borrowed my girlfriend's nook sometimes when I knew I would be near one of those stores on a trip. She sometimes borrows my Kindle, and now I fear she is trying to latch onto my new Galaxy Tab 7.

Phogg · 01-01-2012, 08:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Borders was badly managed. Their fate doesn't necessarily have to befall others.

Point.

T.D.02809 · 01-02-2012, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeaKing

If you go to B&N a lot it might behoove you to get a cheap nook. You can read for an hour while you are there for free as I remember. I have borrowed my girlfriend's nook sometimes when I knew I would be near one of those stores on a trip. She sometimes borrows my Kindle, and now I fear she is trying to latch onto my new Galaxy Tab 7.

Thank you SeaKing. I did not know about that.

T.D.02809 · 01-02-2012, 09:31 AM

Yes. I agree with you. Borders' contributed to their own downfall. Sad. True though.

abookreader · 01-02-2012, 09:36 AM

It's a 30 to 40 minute drive for me to get to a real bookstore and it was pretty much that way before Borders closed. If I had been any sort of regular customer of theirs I suppose I would now just go across the street to the Barnes and Noble that sits right there.

I was reading something recently that was talking about how up to 50% of Barnes and Noble retail space will be dedicated to items other than books (cafe, music, toys etc). I wonder, at what point does it no longer become a bookstore and is just a store that has some books?

SeaKing · 01-02-2012, 04:25 PM

Great News!

I was zipping through my Inglis store a couple of nights ago, picking up my morning cereals, powdered milk (no fat), diet cokes, bananas, frozen pot pies and avoiding the ice cream and pastry areas (holding at 225lb now) and I glanced over at the new magazine (pardon me if if use the term "aborted" magazine) section and realized that they have put some paperbacks, etc. on the other side of the narrow (very narrow and very short) aisle, across from the magazines, in back of the pharmacy area.

I was late and hurrying so much I didn't even check the two Red Boxes for movies, but I will go check the new aisle section out when next I go there.

Maybe it isn't as bad as it first looked. Anyway, a little belated Christmas present!

Heck thinking about it, maybe B&N and BAM will start selling groceries and pharmaceuticals. Heck even Auto Parts. Then they will get a lot of "foot traffic."
--- One of my wives had a store. She always talked about foot traffic.-----

TechnoCat · 01-02-2012, 04:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fringecup

I now buy nearly all my books from either Amazon or Kobo, with numerous visits (and purchases) to other online ebook vendors. Off the topic a bit, but I discovered "Steampunk" books that way and I love them!

You discovered steampunk on an ebook reader? Please tell me it's coal-powered and uses gears to arrange the letters!

TechnoCat · 01-02-2012, 04:58 PM

Borders had surreally high prices on everything and a rather scattershot approach to stocking. B&N is better, but still on the high side. And neither stocked what I think of as catalog books; you just couldn't get an entire series in them excepting the top four or so sellers. That's the real reason I pretty much abandoned them years ago. I hate finding what looks like a good series but not being able to get the beginning of it.

Now, Powells in Portand, that is a book store!

fjtorres · 01-02-2012, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TechnoCat

Now, Powells in Portand, that is a book store!

Alas, they've been hurting.
http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/...off-31-workers

TechnoCat · 01-02-2012, 11:06 PM

I had no idea Powells employees even were unionized. Makes me very curious how they're paid relative to independent bookstore employees.

charmian · 01-03-2012, 05:21 AM

I didn't think Borders's prices were high if you take into account the discount coupons they were always offering. They would often have 20-30% off coupons, and sometimes even 40-50% ones.

fjtorres · 01-03-2012, 06:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by charmian

I didn't think Borders's prices were high if you take into account the discount coupons they were always offering. They would often have 20-30% off coupons, and sometimes even 40-50% ones.

That in itself was a dysfunction.
A big retailing no-no.
It conditions customers to *wait* for the coupons and discourages impulse buying and impulse traffic.
Walmart, for one, initially built itself on the premise that their everyday prices were sales prices so consumers didn't need to wait for "special discount" offers. They've moved away from that message in recent times, though.
In a business obsessed with maintaining "perceived value" and saddling their product with high list prices, deep discount coupons simply tell customers *not* to buy at regular prices.

TallMomof2 · 01-03-2012, 08:59 AM

I live in Loudoun County which is fairly large and wealthy county just west of Washington DC. There are no large B&M bookstores left. Books-A-Million closed their large strip mall store and reopened in the old Border's Express in the mall. The large Border's is gone, of course. I used to take my teenage kids to both the large bookstores so that they could rifle through the books and find what they wanted to read. I always walked out with a lot of books. Even though I only buy ebooks I would look for books for me and later buy them as ebooks.

The prices at the B&M stores were higher than online plus I had to pay sales tax but I looked at it as supporting businesses and jobs in the county. There are a few independent bookstores but so far we haven't found any that have books that we like.

Now, I have the kids search online and usually end up buying from Amazon.

12-31-2011, 11:25 AM	#17
T.D.02809 Enthusiast Posts: 38 Karma: 200 Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA Device: Kindle 3rd Gen WiFi, Kindle App for MAC	City-Rural lack Bookstores. I live in Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA, approximately a 1/2 hour north of Miami center. I would describe this area as a populated, growing, active area for all sorts of businesses. Sadly though the choices of bookstores as brick and mortar buildings is limited to a handful, maybe not even that. I know of 3 outlets: one Books A Million (one about 45 mins East of my home) and one Independent seller (about an hour South West of my home) and lastly, now, only 2 Barnes & Nobles one 15 mins. the other about hour away. There are a handful of small 2nd hand stores. It is is uncommon for them to carry new releases and no magazines or newspapers. There were 3 Borders and another B&N opened but no more. Wal-Mart and BJ's and Costco sell a limited number of new releases and usually they all have the same content. No specialty or niche books. Certainly no books older than a year. For me this is more than sad to learn that being in this area my choices are limited. I cannot imagine living in a less city like area. Now I go to the B&N nearest me. I also go online to Amazon, and seek out other outlets online. Yesterday I decided to pay to be a Member of B&N as they are getting my money anyway. I appreciate the large magazine selection and the coffee shop along with the ability to browse through a book section and discover new authors or new topics of interest simply chance. I do have a Kindle and I do enjoy it. I still buy print books that I want to keep or be able to leaf through.

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01-02-2012, 09:31 AM	#21
T.D.02809 Enthusiast Posts: 38 Karma: 200 Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA Device: Kindle 3rd Gen WiFi, Kindle App for MAC	Yes. I agree with you. Borders' contributed to their own downfall. Sad. True though.

01-02-2012, 09:36 AM	#22
abookreader Wizard Posts: 1,516 Karma: 2567610 Join Date: Oct 2009 Device: Kindles - Keyboard, Fire, 2-US, iPhone, iPAD	It's a 30 to 40 minute drive for me to get to a real bookstore and it was pretty much that way before Borders closed. If I had been any sort of regular customer of theirs I suppose I would now just go across the street to the Barnes and Noble that sits right there. I was reading something recently that was talking about how up to 50% of Barnes and Noble retail space will be dedicated to items other than books (cafe, music, toys etc). I wonder, at what point does it no longer become a bookstore and is just a store that has some books?

01-02-2012, 04:25 PM	#23
SeaKing Frequent Flier Posts: 1,282 Karma: 2058993297 Join Date: Oct 2011 Device: KB kindle aboard, Galx Tab 7.0 Plus, trying out Droid 1 as mini-tab	Great News! I was zipping through my Inglis store a couple of nights ago, picking up my morning cereals, powdered milk (no fat), diet cokes, bananas, frozen pot pies and avoiding the ice cream and pastry areas (holding at 225lb now) and I glanced over at the new magazine (pardon me if if use the term "aborted" magazine) section and realized that they have put some paperbacks, etc. on the other side of the narrow (very narrow and very short) aisle, across from the magazines, in back of the pharmacy area. I was late and hurrying so much I didn't even check the two Red Boxes for movies, but I will go check the new aisle section out when next I go there. Maybe it isn't as bad as it first looked. Anyway, a little belated Christmas present! Heck thinking about it, maybe B&N and BAM will start selling groceries and pharmaceuticals. Heck even Auto Parts. Then they will get a lot of "foot traffic." --- One of my wives had a store. She always talked about foot traffic.-----

01-02-2012, 04:58 PM	#25
TechnoCat Zealot Posts: 131 Karma: 150390 Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Pacific NorthWest Device: Kindle Fire	Borders had surreally high prices on everything and a rather scattershot approach to stocking. B&N is better, but still on the high side. And neither stocked what I think of as catalog books; you just couldn't get an entire series in them excepting the top four or so sellers. That's the real reason I pretty much abandoned them years ago. I hate finding what looks like a good series but not being able to get the beginning of it. Now, Powells in Portand, that is a book store!

01-02-2012, 11:06 PM	#27
TechnoCat Zealot Posts: 131 Karma: 150390 Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Pacific NorthWest Device: Kindle Fire	I had no idea Powells employees even were unionized. Makes me very curious how they're paid relative to independent bookstore employees.

01-03-2012, 05:21 AM	#28
charmian Addict Posts: 386 Karma: 1814548 Join Date: Feb 2009 Device: Kindle 3, Kindle PW2	I didn't think Borders's prices were high if you take into account the discount coupons they were always offering. They would often have 20-30% off coupons, and sometimes even 40-50% ones.

01-03-2012, 08:59 AM	#30
TallMomof2 Kindlephilia Posts: 2,017 Karma: 1139255 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Snowpacolypse 2010 Device: Too many to count	I live in Loudoun County which is fairly large and wealthy county just west of Washington DC. There are no large B&M bookstores left. Books-A-Million closed their large strip mall store and reopened in the old Border's Express in the mall. The large Border's is gone, of course. I used to take my teenage kids to both the large bookstores so that they could rifle through the books and find what they wanted to read. I always walked out with a lot of books. Even though I only buy ebooks I would look for books for me and later buy them as ebooks. The prices at the B&M stores were higher than online plus I had to pay sales tax but I looked at it as supporting businesses and jobs in the county. There are a few independent bookstores but so far we haven't found any that have books that we like. Now, I have the kids search online and usually end up buying from Amazon.

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