A city of 250,000 in US without a bookstore...

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

In B&N's defense, they are shutting down ALL B. Dalton stores.

That's a defense?

You'd think they'd have the good sense just to "rebrand" the location if it were currently profitable but just tied to a closing chain (it owned). I mean, this would never have in the car industry with car dealerships, right?

Oh, wait a sec ... never mind!

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

How in the heck would you know that???? Please enlighten me, I guess I'm a dunce, what with profits and a known territory for your business, please tell me what I'm missing. There are 250,000 others waiting for the answer also.

You're not a "dunce" at all. But basically, pretty much everything about that store is controlled by the subsidiary (B. Dalton). Employees, insurance, the lease, taxes paid, the inventory, contracts, all of it in Dalton's name. There's probably a ton of corporate accounting issues and legal obligations stemming from the liquidation as well.

Or to put it another way, no company likes to leave money on the table. If it were possible to just quickly rebrand the profitable stores and shut the non-performing ones, I'm sure they'd do it. Unfortunately, that store apparently wasn't profitable enough to justify a transition.

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

Now that I've looked into it, B&N owned the stores for 23 years (since 1987). You would think, that in 23 years, you could come up with a way to make something like that to work!

Laredo is a border town with a large immigrant population, a high povert rate and low literacy rates -- around 50% according to a Federal survey. Bookstores are closing left and right, including B&N -- whose holiday sales were down 5% over 2008, which was already a disastrous year.

B&N has a lot more to worry about than Laredo. And bookstore closures are going to become very common, as a) ebook sales increase, b) online sales increase, c) big box stores (e.g. Walmart) sales increase.

[AprilHare]

Similar thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70879

[queentess]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

You would think, that in 23 years, you could come up with a way to make something like that to work! I'm still at a loss as to how this is a positive for anyone.

Because malls are where all the serious book readers go to purchase books??

I've been to a mall bookstore just once in the past 10 years or so, and they didn't have anything I wanted because their selection is just too small due to their limited space. I'm not at all surprised it didn't work, especially when you throw online retailers into the mix, which didn't exist 23 years ago.

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

How in the heck would you know that???? Please enlighten me, I guess I'm a dunce, what with profits and a known territory for your business, please tell me what I'm missing. There are 250,000 others waiting for the answer also.

And yes, it's not just a simple analysis of "these 5 stores are profitable, so let's keep open these 5 stores and shut down everything else". That's not the way business works. As someone else stated, there are complicated legal and accounting rules that must be satisfied. Business is about making money, and nothing else. If the division is losing money, shut it down. I'm sorry that this town is temporarily without a bookstore, but that really isn't B&N's problem. If some other brand can come in and make a profit in that town, they will. Again, that's how business works.

[GhostHawk]

All they care about is that some bean counter proposed rather than looking at stores on an individual basis, they could probably save some money buy just shutting down the entire chain.

Corporations really do not care about those they serve, this is becoming more and more self evident. They care about their own bottom line, their own jobs, and maintaining their status quo, and little else.

Multinational corporations don't even care if we survive as a country.

Hopefully several smaller bookstores will pop up to fill the gap.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by GhostHawk

All they care about is that some bean counter proposed rather than looking at stores on an individual basis, they could probably save some money buy just shutting down the entire chain.

Uh, what is a for-profit entity supposed to do -- lose money year after year? Convert to a non-profit organization? Solicit donations? That just isn't sustainable.

At this point, B&N almost certainly sees the writing on the wall. B&N is probably just hoping to survive the upcoming transitions, and they can't do that by throwing money at a money-losing subsidiary.

[markbot]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

Sounds to me like it's run by an MBA. (Management By A.....)

It's not the first company that's shut down profitable stores. MBA's think they're too important to look at details, and as the article said, the B Dalton line as a whole was losing money-so let's not look at individual stores, just shut them all down. (K-Mart did the same several years ago. Bank of America did it before them. And those are only the ones I know about.)

Some MBAs are like that but not the good ones! I prefer to blame the employees of the stores for poor execution of the normally dazzling strategy of MBAs.

Also, I should point out that a business can make an accounting profit but an economic loss since accounting profit doesn't take into account the opportunity cost of the capital invested in the business...so for B&N that is probably high single digits. Thus if the store was only making back mid single digits or lower accounting return it was actually making an economic loss.

[markbot]

After seeing the entire video...I think that this is a great trend...

I can't remember the last time I bought a non-textbook in a bookstore. Books aren't emergency items so people are willing to wait a few days to get the best price over the internet usually. Bookstore prices are systematically higher.

Also, consider...
1) It is a border town so that 250,000 is inflated with non-native English speakers....who are also uneducated Mexicans.
2) There are libraries.
3) Books are sold in food and general merchandise stores in the town....so books are sold retail!
4) You can buy books over the internet....paper and ereaders.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Connallmac

Only as they relate to this quarter's bottom line.

This quarter's bottom line apparently is not of any concern to them. After all, shutting down costs money and that store was making a positive contribution to said bottom line. It seems likely that they considered the long term prospects and decided that the store was doomed.

[khalleron]

Hm. I live in a town of 10,000 and we have at least 6 bookstores.

I would argue that if Laredo has only one, that is not B&N's fault.

Nor should they be hung out to dry for closing it down - if there's a demand for books, there will be bookstores. If there is only one bookstore in town, then that's because there is probably only demand for one bookstore.

And as long as they have a library, I don't see that they're actually in any peril. I don't think I ever bought a book until I was in college, and I was always a heavy reader. That's what libraries are for.