Who will fill the gap if B&N collapses

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Philippe D.

OK - so we do have many "big box" brands, typically supermarkets belong to one of a small number of brands. But since they don't get to discount books, they don't have any leverage on publishers and I don't think they get bulk prices for them (I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the "no discount" law for books only applies to final resellers; still, since the publisher knows the reseller will not be allowed to change the price, I don't think he'd have a strong incentive to sell in bulk at lower prices).

Sounds like your law regulates both ends. No discount so no need for different prices.

[Philippe D.]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Sounds like your law regulates both ends. No discount so no need for different prices.

Yes, but I'm not a lawyer, and I've never worked in publishing or bookselling; I don't really know what it says exactly. I know there are exceptions to this "fixed price" law, but I really don't know what they are...

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Philippe D.

Yes, but I'm not a lawyer, and I've never worked in publishing or bookselling; I don't really know what it says exactly. I know there are exceptions to this "fixed price" law, but I really don't know what they are...

I just found it interesting how different countries deal with buying and selling.
Cultures are fascinating to me.
I think I will get this right. Silly off-topic question.
How do you make pomme frites? (Pommes frite). Not sure which is correct as my French is lousy at best
I hope I typed fried potatoes. .

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by barryem

I wonder if Amazon will really let B&N go under. As soon as they go out of business Amazon is the only place to buy books. People already call them a monopoly, correct or not, and if B&N goes away that'll increase mightily.

Good point, and I hope you are right.

Reminds me of this good book explaining how, among other things, how A & P, when the world's largest retailer, avoided promotions likely to bankrupt competitors. However, according to what I'm now reading, Amazon is a MBA-heavy company in a world where typical MBA's consider worrying about the welfare of competitors almost as absurd as welcoming a union.

Originally Posted by barryem

Anybody remember when Apple was about to go under and Microsoft made a very large cash investment in them, probably with that same issue in mind. That saved Apple and it probably was as important to the welfare of Microsoft.

Microsoft is culturally different. Also, they started out as an Apple supplier and have long gotten a lot of revenue from selling Microsoft Office software to run on Apple hardware. So it's more natural for them to support Apple.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Good point, and I hope you are right.
Amazon is a MBA-heavy company[/url] in a world where typical MBA's consider worrying about the welfare of competitors almost as absurd as welcoming a union.

I don't think it much matters whether they are MBA heavy or not. Amazon will act rationally on a cost/benefit basis. It needs to worry about anti-trust law, first in the strict sense and if that is okay then in an expanded sense of just how difficult an environment they will face from complaints, allegations, enquiries etc. Personally I can't see them lifting a hand to help B&N. B&N have nothing they want, not even their physical stores which are much too big for Amazon's model, unless Amazon perhaps want to combine them with Wholefoods, their experimental supermarkets etc., though I doubt it.

B&N might be a good investment for the large trade publishers, perhaps even as a joint venture. This would of course not endear them to independent bookstores. Also, given the bad decisions and lack of vision shown since Amazon came on the scene, there is absolutely no reason to believe they could run it successfully.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by darryl

I don't think it much matters whether they are MBA heavy or not. Amazon will act rationally on a cost/benefit basis. It needs to worry about anti-trust law, first in the strict sense and if that is okay then in an expanded sense of just how difficult an environment they will face from complaints, allegations, enquiries etc. Personally I can't see them lifting a hand to help B&N. B&N have nothing they want, not even their physical stores which are much too big for Amazon's model, unless Amazon perhaps want to combine them with Wholefoods, their experimental supermarkets etc., though I doubt it.

B&N might be a good investment for the large trade publishers, perhaps even as a joint venture. This would of course not endear them to independent bookstores. Also, given the bad decisions and lack of vision shown since Amazon came on the scene, there is absolutely no reason to believe they could run it successfully.

I agree that Amazon will, and probably SHOULD act rationally on a cost/benefit basis as regards this matter. But in all honesty, I don't care about the long term health or even continued existence of Barnes & Noble. I don't see how they have helped my community culturally. Or even promoted the idea of reading in general.

Before Barnes & Noble, there were four bookstores in our small city of 100,000 people. There were two locally owned shops and 2 corporate bookstores. A couple of years after B&N coming to town, the locally owned shops were gone, and 2 years after that, the smaller corporate shops were gone. Maybe those shops would have closed eventually, anyway, but I know we went from 4 shops, each with a very different character, to a single large shop with a single, bland, fake "hip & happening", character.

I don't see Barnes & Noble as any sort of community asset. They have about the same value to the community as the local "Olive Garden" restaurant. Whatever happens, happens I guess. I don't wish them ill, but I don't owe them any support, either.

[darryl]

@GlenBarrington. Believe it or not, I'm in Australia and care even less than you. I suspect Amazon will take most of the cake with independents taking the rest. Either way no loss.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by darryl

I don't think it much matters whether they are MBA heavy or not. Amazon will act rationally on a cost/benefit basis. It needs to worry about anti-trust law, first in the strict sense and if that is okay then in an expanded sense of just how difficult an environment they will face from complaints, allegations, enquiries etc. Personally I can't see them lifting a hand to help B&N. B&N have nothing they want, not even their physical stores which are much too big for Amazon's model, unless Amazon perhaps want to combine them with Wholefoods, their experimental supermarkets etc., though I doubt it.

B&N might be a good investment for the large trade publishers, perhaps even as a joint venture. This would of course not endear them to independent bookstores. Also, given the bad decisions and lack of vision shown since Amazon came on the scene, there is absolutely no reason to believe they could run it successfully.

Amazon has been heavily invested in government lobbying for quite some time. That is also part of the reason that Bezos bought the Washington Post. I suspect that they are vulnerable to an anti-trust suit, but depend on their government contacts to keep the threat at bay. They probably have less influence with the current administration than they had with the previous administration.

Like Nature, markets abhor a vacuum. If B&N goes belly up, then I'm sure that various actors will move into that space. It may be independent book stores in some places or a chain in other places. A lot of people still like browsing for physical books. B&N actually had a great thing going and totally blew it. I'm sure that at some point someone will study B&N and point to the various decision points that lead to their collapse. My personal guess is they over extended and lost the connection with their customer base, especially when they bought out Borders.

I have been trying to think of what would make me go to a physical book store again. Can't really think of anything, to tell the truth. I've already got alternates for everything I use to go to B&N for.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I have been trying to think of what would make me go to a physical book store again. Can't really think of anything, to tell the truth. I've already got alternates for everything I use to go to B&N for.

I think that's the core issue. All the "innovation" in the world won't win back those customers who no longer see a need to visit your physical location. Most of them didn't go away unsatisfied with the experience. They just went away.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I think that's the core issue. All the "innovation" in the world won't win back those customers who no longer see a need to visit your physical location. Most of them didn't go away unsatisfied with the experience. They just went away.

In general, people change habits for a reason. B&N could have keep some of those customers at B&N if they had handled things differently. I would still be a B&N customer if they had a more extensive/robust ebook store. I use to go to B&N to find what new books were out. If I found a book I wanted, I would check to see if it was in the B&N ebook store. It rarely was. Then I would check the Amazon ebook store. It was usually there. Only if I couldn't find an ebook version did I buy the physical book. For a while, I kept going to B&N for the DVD's but then they cut back on those, so I started order those through Amazon.

If they had expanded and improved their ebook store, then they might have kept me as a customer. They could have had special orders for physical books, DVD's and cd's shipped directly to the customer with a quick turn around. There are a lot of things they could have done, but didn't.

Of course, once you lose a customer, it's very hard to win them back.

[WillAdams]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Microsoft is culturally different. Also, they started out as an Apple supplier and have long gotten a lot of revenue from selling Microsoft Office software to run on Apple hardware. So it's more natural for them to support Apple.

yeah, but it's worth looking at how that turned out, both for Apple and the industry:

https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.p...y=MacBasic.txt

[GlennD]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Barnes and noble is not and never has been a cozy bookshop that steers readers to good, fun reads. Rather, they and Borders were the reason why thousands of cozy family owned bookshops went out of business in the 80's and 90's,long before Amazon even existed.

Am I the only one who doesn't miss the family owned small bookstore in the slightest? When I was a kid and the first Barnes and Noble opened up in Bellevue WA, it was practically a religious experience to go inside and browse. Forget the mom and pop shop with 100 SF & Fantasy books in a back corner, I was thrilled to go to a store with every title in a series available all at once instead of just the latest one.

Oddly, I feel the opposite about used book stores. I live just north of Portland, and Powell's Books has driven almost all of the small used book stores out of business. The problem with Powell's is that you very rarely encounter a "find" - it's so populated and picked over that you just see zillions of copies of the most popular stuff. (Again, this is mainly the SF&F area.... )

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by darryl

Amazon will act rationally on a cost/benefit basis. It needs to worry about anti-trust law, first in the strict sense and if that is okay then in an expanded sense of just how difficult an environment they will face from complaints, allegations, enquiries etc.

No one really knows how much they need to worry about being punished for destroying competitors, low pay, opposition to union organizing, or taking tax benefits from hard-pressed states and municipalities. So far, it hasn't hurt them. But, as the mutual funds are forced to disclose, past performance doesn't guarantee future results. And often it isn't at all predictive. So the Amazonians can't make those kind of decisions rationally. Deciding how much emphasis to put, in making business decisions, on ethical precepts, can't be done with a spreadsheet.

Originally Posted by darryl

Also, given the bad decisions and lack of vision shown since Amazon came on the scene, there is absolutely no reason to believe they could run it successfully.

If you want to look at the effect of bad decisions, read more about the New Republic, one of whose articles you linked in #7. Every big publisher I know of has been far more successful at keeping their headline writers from bolting than has that sadly diminished former national treasure.

The New Republic is a good example of an organization that had the vision to go all out for digital while alienating long-time key writers. I no longer subscribe. Since I am just one person, this means nothing. But they've lost so many other subscribers, while going from weekly, to biweekly, to, now, ten times a year, that I can't even find them owning up to their current circulation figures.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by GlennD

Am I the only one who doesn't miss the family owned small bookstore in the slightest? When I was a kid and the first Barnes and Noble opened up in Bellevue WA, it was practically a religious experience to go inside and browse. Forget the mom and pop shop with 100 SF & Fantasy books in a back corner, I was thrilled to go to a store with every title in a series available all at once instead of just the latest one.

I think it might depend on the local mom & pop shop. I haven't been there in years, but I know a lot of people who would hate to see Uncle Hugo's/Uncle Edgar's disappear from the area here. I remember a few local shops long gone however that I don't miss in the least. I miss B. Dalton more than those shops, but that may just be the nostalgia of going there a lot as a kid.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

I think it might depend on the local mom & pop shop. I haven't been there in years, but I know a lot of people who would hate to see Uncle Hugo's/Uncle Edgar's disappear from the area here. I remember a few local shops long gone however that I don't miss in the least. I miss B. Dalton more than those shops, but that may just be the nostalgia of going there a lot as a kid.

Locally, in Atlanta, we use to have the SF&Mystery book store. I first found David Weber there, mostly because a relative (sister I think) worked there and recommended him. Like most such places, it existed on a slim profit margin, had to move when the rent went up too much and then went out of business when the customer base didn't follow the store to the new location. This was before the B&N hit the scene big time.

The other big indie was the Oxford book store, a general interest book store. It really had the same feel as the better B&N, i.e. knowledgeable staff and a coffee shop in store.

I rather miss both those stores, I spent a lot of money at both.