10-04-2018, 08:00 PM | #1 |
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B & N selling itself to stay afloat.
I wasn't sure whether to post this in News or in the B&N forum, but Axios.com is reporting in an article entitled The Last Big Bookstore this: "B&N announced yesterday that, after hearing acquisition interest from several parties, it has initiated a strategic review toward possibly selling itself to stay afloat. One bidder is founder Len Riggio, who owns 19% of the company but says he will follow the recommendation of an independent board appointed to handle the review. B&N's beleaguered shares soared as much as 21% on the news....For 14 years, B&N managed to hang on. But, after closing 90 of its 720 locations in the past seven years, often leaving areas of hundreds of thousands of people without a single major bookstore, it appears prepared to call it quits."
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10-04-2018, 09:25 PM | #2 | |
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10-04-2018, 09:32 PM | #3 | |
Sir Penguin of Edinburgh
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10-05-2018, 02:36 AM | #4 | |
Literacy = Understanding
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Consider one example. I made this suggestion to Riggio and his executive staff several times over the past few years and it is still (supposedly) under consideration. It should have been implemented in weeks. There are many members who buy books regularly and even preorder books. Conversely, there are many members who do neither. But B&N has records of every purchase made by a member. What it should do, and doesn't do, is as soon as a book is listed as being preorderable, an email should go out to a member who has previously bought a book by that author saying that the next book is coming and you can preorder it by clicking here. B&N guarantees that as a member you will get at least a 20% discount and if the book is offered for a greater discount at anytime through the day of release, you will automatically get that lower price. It's a simple thing to code (relatively speaking) and a smart move because preorders are generally guaranteed sales. Plus if the preorders are large enough a larger discount may be negotiable from the publisher. But B&N has not done this. I have suggested many things that could increase sales but none have gotten further than "it will be considered". It's poor management that is killing B&N. There is a great deal of potential will a little imagination. Not everyone is enamored with Amazon and ebooks are not the majority of the marketplace. |
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10-05-2018, 07:25 AM | #5 |
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There is still value in B&N assets and the sum of the value of these parts exceeds the value of the company as a whole, which is trending ever lower. This is why it is attracting external interest, probably from corporate raider types.
The board has its own plan for "raiding" the company and they don't want anybody muscling in on their action. Hence the poison pill. Since the pill is nominally for a year only, one would expect the stock to soon fall to a level where Riggio can afford to buy out the rest of the board and take it private to loot at leisure. He'll " leave it as he found it. " |
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10-05-2018, 08:01 AM | #6 | |
Sir Penguin of Edinburgh
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But I can also tell you at least two things about this person. The first is that they can make a lot more money in just about any other company (where they don't have to deal with B&N's board). The second is that this person already approached B&N about becoming CEO, and was rejected. No, the only people interested in buying B&N at this point are corporate raiders like this guy: https://the-digital-reader.com/2018/...s-taxidermist/ |
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10-05-2018, 01:06 PM | #7 |
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There are so many things wrong with B&N's business model and I don't quite understand why they don't seem to have any common sense when it comes to a lot of their business practices. I remember one time I wanted to get a book and they had a better price online than in-store. They would not price match THEIR OWN WEBSITE. I found this to be highly amusing and self-destructive. I told the salesperson "Fine, I'll just buy it elsewhere" and I did. Little things like this are what made me move away from B&N as a regular stop.
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10-05-2018, 02:17 PM | #8 |
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I wonder how many people like B&N enough to send them suggestions? I'm certainly one. As a homeschool dad, I can't calculate the massive benefits of having good bookstores nearby, that become a part of family life. A couple years ago I sent about seven well thought out suggestions to B&N (addressed to whoever was in charge at the time), like rhadin did. I didn't even get a reply.
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10-05-2018, 02:32 PM | #9 | |
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10-05-2018, 03:30 PM | #10 | |
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10-05-2018, 07:24 PM | #11 |
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Well it is what it is. They will be gone within the next few years as well as Kmart/Sears. Time to move on. Retail was getting overcrowded even before Amazon and all this was predicted about 20-25 years ago. So this is just a process. The strong retailers will survive though.
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10-05-2018, 08:05 PM | #12 |
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Man, if kmart goes away I’ll have to drive almost 20 miles to buy some of my things. We have a Fred Meyer (Kroger) but it’s so small it qualifies as a “Fred”.
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10-06-2018, 12:25 AM | #13 |
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My local B&N used to have a bunch of chairs where you could sit and read books. Last time I was there they had none.
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10-06-2018, 11:31 AM | #14 | |
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10-06-2018, 11:35 AM | #15 | |
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