Borders - in the Washington Post 1/21/1011

[SCION]

Originally Posted by luv2knit

...
2. lack of basic book info for eBooks. Can't believe the amount of books that don't have descriptions, no reviews, etc... so i found myself toggling between amazon and borders just to get sufficient info for a book.

talk about not trying to sell eBooks....

So true! I use Amazon for research.

[inertia]

I honestly think Borders will stick around. B&N was in the red just a few months ago. These stories appear and appear. I've read several articles about this in Publisher's Weekly for several weeks and only now are mainstream (non industry) sources picking it up.

Publishers don't want Borders to go out of business because a huge chunk of their sales comes from Borders.

"Publishers as large as Pearson PLC’s Penguin, CBS’s Simon & Schuster, Random House and News Corp’s HarperCollins could lose between $10 million to $50 million in sales if Borders’ goes out of business, Mr. Greco said. Some smaller publishers could go under."

(http://www.ctv.ca/generic/generated/...le1858296.html) - I've seen this article somewhere else, but I was only able to find this version.

"Publishers could lose valuable marketing space if retail stores dedicated mainly to selling books closed. That in turn spills into sales of e-books and books purchased online."

Publishers pay a lot of money for prime real estate in the front of a store. In a Borders right now, you might see a "hot young adult" display. The same titles can be listed on a Listmania list or the like on Amazon/etc but might fail to catch the eye like the in person display would. A screen can't replicate how shiny or intricate a cover might be.

There are several articles on how Amazon basically bullies publishers into discounts and also a little thing called Amazonfail.

Several articles I've read talk about the appeal of the brick and mortar bookstores and speak about how when people go into bookstores, a lot of times, they go to browse. When you go online, you usually have an idea of the subject or author or some clue of the book you want. But the B&M store, you peruse the new shelves, look at the themed endcaps, etc. There also can be a camaraderie in a bookstore - you can ask an employee or even a customer for recommendations or happen into a discussion with somebody who's carrying the same book as you, etc. Book club meetings can be held in a bookstore. Children browse much much more easy in a bookstore than online.

I think Borders will recover, just like B&N recovered. They might cut some of the deadweight, but I think they will rebound.

[ATimson]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

I spent a good amount of time and money at the original Borders in Ann Arbor when I was in Grad School. It was a fun store. The staff was very knowledgable and friendly. They had some great books in stock.

The Borders I visit now are nothing like the home store.

Perhaps more accurately, the home store is nothing like it used to be; it's just another generic Borders now.

While I've used and perhaps abused Borders' e-mail coupons, they're the only reason I shop there still; if they drop those, or even reduce them from 33% to 25%, I'm going entirely Amazon. Borders just can't compete.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by inertia

I honestly think Borders will stick around. B&N was in the red just a few months ago.

Barnes and Noble is still in the red. They expect to be in the red in 2011, too. But not so red that they will go bankrupt.

There are several articles on how Amazon basically bullies publishers into discounts

"Bullying" is not the right word for this context; large retailers have a lot of power and, like any other company, will use the leverage when they can. It's the *exact* thing that B&N and Borders were accused of doing by smaller booksellers in the 90's, and it's also what the "Agency 5" did to get the agency model.

I think Borders will recover, just like B&N recovered. They might cut some of the deadweight, but I think they will rebound.

B&N hasn't recovered, and Borders is in much worse shape. I'm not optimistic about Borders at all, simply because there seems to be so much overcapacity on the B&M sector.

[Wordeater]

10 US companies that will disappear in 2011.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/in...2011/19798647/

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Wordeater

10 US companies that will disappear in 2011.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/in...2011/19798647/

Interesting list.
Oddly, I think I'd miss Office Depot more than Borders.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Fbone

If evolving means closing B&M stores and going online only, then leave me out of it.

Evolving doesn't necessarily mean closing stores; that is simply the simplest path that requires the least amount of brains. (It also leads to a death-spiral but Borders is already spiraling well down that path.)

Alternatives are:
- relocating stores in a region (as B&N is doing in NYC)
- downsizing the underperforming stores
- changing the product mix to reflect local buying habits
- adopting POD and ship-to-store online support
- bringing in "tenant" specialty vendors

Lots of other B&M retailers are doing one or more of those things; Wal-mart, in particular, is doing all of them in one area or another.

What doesn't work is acting as if it's still 1980 out there.

Edit: One evolution that some stores (Circuit City, Wal-Mart) have tried/are trying is online shopping of the local storefront. This goes ship-to-store one better: online orders are fullfilled from B&M stock so the consumer can buy online, drive to the storefront, and take delivery right there. It takes the uncertainty out of driving to the B&M site and maximizes sales per square foot. If combined with POD it can provide the deep catalog of online buying with the instant gratification of B&M shopping.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Edit: One evolution that some stores (Circuit City, Wal-Mart) have tried/are trying is online shopping of the local storefront. This goes ship-to-store one better: online orders are fullfilled from B&M stock so the consumer can buy online, drive to the storefront, and take delivery right there. It takes the uncertainty out of driving to the B&M site and maximizes sales per square foot. If combined with POD it can provide the deep catalog of online buying with the instant gratification of B&M shopping.

Ship to store is an option well worth pursuing...but you do have to execute flawlessly.

As an example, I decided to buy a flat screen TV as a gift this Xmas, and I found a good deal at WM.com and ordered it for ship-to-store. The ordering process was easy, and while it took about a week for the item to get to the store, that was fine as I ordered in early December. It's also nice that they keep it at the store and you have three weeks to pick it up, so you don't have to conceal it around the house someplace (which is difficult with a large TV anyway). If you don't pick it up on time, they send it back and refund your card.

WM was also good at sending e-mails letting me know that it had arrived, etc. So after two weeks (Dec. 19th), I go to pick up my TV. I'm initially concerned that I will have to wait in the long customer service line...but no, you go to a different desk in the back for ship-to-store items. So I go there, and they find my and my TV in the system...but they can't find the TV in the back. They spend 15 minutes looking and still can't find it - reading between the lines, they either gave it to the wrong person or it was stolen. To make matters worse, while if I didn't pick it up my money would be refunded automatically, since I showed up, I had to take a voucher to the long CS line to get a refund on my card. With the end result that I waited more than 30 minutes to *not* buy a TV at WM.

I got a small amount of satisfaction due to the fact that I was able to order a similar (slightly better, slightly more expensive) TV from Amazon on my iPhone while waiting in the CS line; with Amazon Prime, it showed up at my house two days later.

So, yes, in theory ship to store is great. But if people are going to make a point of going to your store to pick up what they ordered, it needs to be there.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

So, yes, in theory ship to store is great. But if people are going to make a point of going to your store to pick up what they ordered, it needs to be there.

Circuit City had a 20 minute guarantee. I tried it a dozen times and they always met the challenge. (For all the good it did them, alas.)
Wal-Mart too, the one time I did ship-to-store.
On the other hand, CompUSA was notorious for their flaky inventory system; most of the time they tried to do price lookup on a new product on the shelves the database would report zero stock--they would have to go to the checkout scanner to see if it had a price. Sometimes it didn' t. There's a lot of reasons they're gone, besides BB pricing.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Ship to store is an option well worth pursuing...but you do have to execute flawlessly.

So, yes, in theory ship to store is great. But if people are going to make a point of going to your store to pick up what they ordered, it needs to be there.

Absolutely.

I do the purchase online and pick up in store as much as possible. You get to pay the online price which may be lower than the in store one. I can link from my credit card site to get bonus Worldpoints. (Walmart and Best Buy offer this) And hopefully save time and remove inventory uncertainty.

Sometimes it works well. Best Buy forces you in the customer service area where returns are handled. Wait times were long. At PC Richards it worked great. Cashier had it ready and I was out quickly.

Didn't CompUSA and Newegg go online only?

[MikeFromHC]

Originally Posted by speedlever

Sorry, I can't connect the dots. How does Amazon relate to Borders?

Borders was not flexible enough to make the needed changes in a new market.

Amazon could face the same situation in the future.

It could come out of left field. I suspect that Craigslist has had a major impact on revenue streams for newspapers and that might be the tipping point for a lot of them.

XML allows for a vastly improved search engine. Suppose a thousand or so major vendors decided that they would get rid of distributor, wholesale, and retail prices?
They modify their shipping and sell direct. Even without a portal an XML based search engine would allow you to find a green (colored) Ford in California without 124,000,000 references coming up.

[Bindi]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The current AT&T is actually Cingular; they rebranded themselves with the AT&T name after they bought the last remnants of AT&T.

This is not quite true. The current AT&T came about in a much more complicated way.

SBC -- Was a Baby Bell originally named Southwestern Bell.
Cingular -- Was jointly owned by SBC and Bell South (another Baby Bell).
AT&T Wireless -- Spun off from AT&T. AT&T was the part of Ma Bell that remained after the breakup.

Cingular purchased AT&T Wireless but kept the Cingular name.

SBC purchased AT&T and changed to using the AT&T name.

The New AT&T -- formerly SBC -- purchased Bell South to gain full control of Cingular.

So Cingular became a part of AT&T -- not the other way around. And like many other companies, AT&T bought its way into a dominant position in a new industry.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Didn't CompUSA and Newegg go online only?

CompUSA and Circuit City both were liquidated and their names bought by TigerDirect who use them as alternate portals to their online operation. They also kept two (very profitable) storefronts in Miami and San Juan.

[MerLock]

I was excited when Borders started selling ebooks in ePub format online. I guess perhaps now there is one less place for me to shop for ePub ebooks.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by MerLock

I was excited when Borders started selling ebooks in ePub format online. I guess perhaps now there is one less place for me to shop for ePub ebooks.

Don't need to worry there; the "Borders" ebook operation is run by Kobo not Borders. And Borders is only a minority investor in Kobo so it is unlikely Kobo will get dragged along *if* Borders goes chapter 7. And, so far, that is merely an "if" proposition. They may yet find somebody willing to pour good money after bad...