Borders Books, Dead At 40 443
theodp writes "There will be no storybook ending for Borders. The 40-year-old book seller could start shuttering its 399 remaining stores as early as Friday (store closing map). The Ann Arbor, MI-based chain, which helped pioneer the big-box bookseller concept, is seeking court approval to sell off its assets after it failed to receive any bids that would keep it in business. Hang on to those Borders Midnight Magic Party memories, kids!"
It's their own fault. (Score:2, Insightful)
Honestly they were overpriced on everything. I have not set foot in a borders or a Barnes and Noble for 3 years now because of their price gouging. No I'm not a trendy yuppie who wants a $4.00 coffee while I browse your store trying to look trendy. Honestly they went for "upscale" instead of a model that would have survived..
If they would have stuck as a "mom and pop" ish look and had a big old book or used book section they would still be thriving today. Instead they took the "snobby U of M rich guy i
Re:It's their own fault. (Score:4, Insightful)
The mom-and-pop book stores you long for were dying out harder and faster than Borders did, and the ones that survive do so because they've found things beyond the collections of books you mention to sell (mostly, they're transitioning to hybrid coffee shops, galleries, meeting places, lecture venues, etc). Barnes and Noble survives because they squeeked by with the Nook just in time to not get completely eaten by Amazon.
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This is Slashdot. That goes without saying.
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Ah, but this is Slashdot. Nothing goes without being said.
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I wouldn't say Borders was particularly expensive, or that Amazon is particularly cheap. Where Amazon dominates is reviews. When I am looking at any product, book or otherwise, I always go and read the reviews on Amazon. Other web sites are cottoning on to this now - people want to know if something is any good and value uncensored reviews from other consumers. If people are coming to your site to read the review then there is also a chance they will buy from you.
Brick and mortar shops can't replicate that.
Amazon holds almost all the cards (Score:5, Interesting)
Speaking for me, where Amazon dominates is in selection and in *used* books (and used videogames, etc.). If I want a book on a particular subject, I can drive to my local Borders and hope they have a decent book on it (usually not the best on the subject) and pay full retail price on it. Or I can go to my library and look at a bunch of books that are usually years out of date and hope that I can find a decent one that isn't checked out. Or I can go online to Amazon, see every book ever published on the subject, read reviews to find the best one, and then buy it used for a small fraction of what it would have cost new. And the same applies to videogames, DVD's, etc.
The only real advantage that brick and mortars enjoy is that I can get a book immediately (but the Kindle is making even that point moot), and that I can browse. But, since my tastes are not exactly mainstream, browsing isn't really much of an advantage to me. I have no desire to browse isle after isle of Harry Potter knockoffs and vampire romances, thank you. And I'm not a big coffee drinker.
There's a kernel of truth in the GP post (Score:5, Interesting)
Books at brick and mortar stores tend to be overpriced compared to those sold online. That's not because Borders is gouging them, but because the publishers demand so much. Retailers' margins are thin. So yes they are expensive but Borders didn't "do it to themselves." Borders and B&N have a quaint, warm, relaxed experience but the most hard core book buyers go online now for better prices.
B&N actually survives because they have a good website in competition with Amazon, and frankly their selection has always been better than borders. B&N also has Starbucks in their stores, which gives them a hipster mystique for those who just want to come in and sit and read and have some Starbucks coffee. Funny enough, Borders tried to get early in the game of book selling online and who did they contract with?... Amazon. Most people don't realize this fact seriously delayed Borders' web strategy rather than enhancing it. They didn't have the vision to see web commerce coming and Amazon did to them what they did to mom and pop book shops. And they spent no time getting any experience in marketing and selling on the web because they contracted with Amazon in the early days. I'm betting Amazon knew this and went ahead hoping to basically steal sales from Borders original paltry websites. So in a sense, Borders did to it to themselves, it's just it had everything to do with not getting online fast enough.
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B&N also has Starbucks in their stores, which gives them a hipster mystique for those who just want to come in and sit and read and have some Starbucks coffee.
Interesting fact:
Seattle's Best Coffee, which was the coffee featured in and the focus of the coffee shops in Borders, is a wholly owned subsidiary [wikipedia.org] of Starbucks.
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First, you're comparing a used book store to a new book store.
Second, HPB has higher margins because they run their bookstore like a college bookstore - buy back the textbooks for a fraction of what you're going to resell them for. And you're not worried about clearing out space for new books because your inventory is always changing.
I love HPB but there's two rules of HPB:
1. Don't ever come in looking for something specific. You won't find it. Unless it's something like a Dan Brown novel where there's a tr
Re:It's their own fault. (Score:4, Insightful)
The response was: "The mom-and-pop book stores you long for were dying out harder and faster than Borders did, and the ones that survive do so because they've found things beyond the collections of books you mention to sell (mostly, they're transitioning to hybrid coffee shops, galleries, meeting places, lecture venues, etc)."
Yes, I did compare a used bookstore to a new bookstore but only to show that the original assertion was likely correct. You don't need to sell non-books to keep a new bookstore in business. Selling used books is a viable alternative.
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Selling used books is a viable alternative.
For now. I do like my local used book store, but it's a 20 minute drive each way for me, and their selection is necessarily limited, largely towards best-sellers and self-help books (high turnover types, I imagine). They sell for half of the list price, and split that 50/50 with the consigner.
By contrast, Amazon can offer me any used book, usually for much less, and have it mailed to me for $4. The reviews are better than browsing in almost every case.
If I neede
Re:It's their own fault. (Score:4, Insightful)
How were they overpriced? They sold at the same exact price any other brick and mortar book store sold new books at - the price stamped on the back by the publisher. You want used books - go to the Strand.
Re:It's their own fault. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Their books weren't overpriced but their cd's / dvd's / blu-ray's were obscene. When you see Border's charging $40 for a new movie and you can walk into Best Buy down the street and buy the same exact thing for $20, there's no reason to buy non-book items from Border's.
Their stance on cd's/dvd's was/is really strange. They charge obscene prices for them, as you say, so the only times I ever bought these items from them were when they were on clearance (very rare) or when I got some especially good deal mailed to me - like the time they sent out a coupon for 60% off any boxed set (which I used to buy Flying Circus on DVD). I don't know anyone who regularly bought movies or music from them. And yet, a couple of years ago they went through and completely redid the interior o
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How were they overpriced? They sold at the same exact price any other brick and mortar book store sold new books at - the price stamped on the back by the publisher.
Just about any amount stamped on a product by a manufacturer is by definition overpriced. Those numbers exist mainly so that retailers can show how much of a "discount" they're offering.
If you're a captive in a place like an airport gift shop, then you're usually stuck paying the full stamped overpriced amount. However, if a retailer tries charging those prices to non-captive customers, then they'll likely eventually find themselves in the same boat as Borders.
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In their defence, the "snobby U of M rich guy in a turtleneck" direction is usually quite profitable.
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No it's not. Not when they typically adopt the latest change... I.E. buying online and the Ebook.
The turtleneck crowd adopted the Kindle fast. guess what that leaves... only the poor people to buy books in a book store.. and the poor people are turned off by the prices. Honestly, their prices on all non books were downright obscene in their markup often 2X of what best buy had them at.
When you target the rich demographic, you have to change what you offer to match what they are after... and Borders was
Re:It's their own fault. (Score:5, Insightful)
I always thought Borders was the shop for pseudo-intellectuals who were terrified of books. I couldn't think of any other explanation of why they had a much lower ratio of books to floor space than any other book store I've ever been in. I went in a few branches around the world, and never bought anything.
Here's a hint for anyone wanting to run a book store: it helps if you stock a wide range of books, on big shelves, not just a few tables with some artistically arranged on them.
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Honestly they were overpriced on everything.
Too true. I live outside the US, and can get books air-freighted in from Amazon in the US for significantly less (half the price, sometimes a quarter of the price) of the shelf price at the local Borders. That's a pretty severe sign of price-gouging.
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Selling at MSRP is hardly "overpriced" and they regularly gave out coupons for large discounts and had sales.
Outside of technical books, I generally prefer going to a brick and mortar for books over a site like Amazon even if it does cost me 20% more. It is much easier to search through a topic or genre for a book that interests me when there is a huge shelf full of actual books then trying to do searches on the internet. I tend to buy books for pleasure reading on impulse, so again, the internet model do
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Borders probably did have special pricing deals with the publishing companies, but they needed to net 40% or more profit per book to cover their operating expenses.
But somehow, their small, independent mom-n-pop competitors could sell books at the same MSRP even though they didn't have these special pricing deals or economies of scale?
Sorry, they were gouging, plain and simple.
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While an e-book reader with always-on 3G doesn't really make browsing any easier, it certainly makes impulse buys of books dead simple.
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It is simply very difficult to shop for books online unless you already know what you want. For technical books and books from an author I know and like, Amazon is fine. For random "Hmm, I feel like reading something new" times, it's much nicer to wander around inside a store. I'll pay the extra 20% to be able to have shelves. real books that you can flip through a read a few lines, and a friendly person that you can ask about what's new and what they're read recently. Yes, of course they're trying to s
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I'm assuming that they keep track based on the fact that I use their wifi to buy the books. The Nook seems to know that it's in a B&N and the wifi seems to know you're using a Nook. I don't think I've ever used the "read in store option", simply becasue it's easier to flip through the physical books while I'm there. I should probably ask someone at the store, they probably know.
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The UK Borders chain closed down about a year or two ago. It's a bit of a shame because we really have nothing else comparative nationwide, perhaps the closests is Waterstones but most their stores only sell the latest romance novel or Jordan autobiography and shite like that rather than a useful range of maths/science/computing books. Short of going to a handful of cities like Cambridge which still have good book stores, there's really nothing- pretty much the whole of the North of England seems devoid of
Re: Cafe at Borders (Score:3)
I was amazed and annoyed that they didn't even have real sodas! No Coke or Pepsi or Mountain Dew or Sprite or 7 up.
Instead you had to buy strange expensive caffeine free root beer or fruit sodas etc.
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But of course, there was only the one Borders at that time. And I remember it was considered quite a coup to get a job there: you had to take a test on a broad range of literary knowledge. I believe they lost it when they embraced the "big box" concept and lost the really intense staff.
Looks like.... (Score:2)
No great surprise. (Score:2)
They're competing with Amazon. The one thing they could've relied upon, namely the fact that there are a lot of older people who like books and don't understand the internet or computers, is a lot less true now than it was even five years ago. Hell, my mom gets most of her new book purchases online, from Amazon or elsewhere.
Take note: businesses can die in this day and age even when piracy is removed from the equation. Legitimate online purchases will probably do more to kill bookstores, movie rental and
Fahrenheit (Score:5, Insightful)
Who needs to burn books and things that last when you have technology to do it for you?
I hate to say it but technology both gives you freedom and inherently takes other freedom away.
Books will slowly become the domain of the academic and public service, so they will gradually fade from prominence. With ebooks, you are at the whim of the ebook publisher, DRM, the ebook reader manufacturer and of course electricity.
Don't let that stop you buying ebooks though, I try own a physical version for important books. I see an ebook as a modern day convenience most certainly not an equivalent replacement.
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With ebooks, you are at the whim of the ebook publisher, DRM, the ebook reader manufacturer and of course electricity.
Dude, if you get to the point where availability of electricity is preventing you from reading, you're going to be using your paper books for firewood or toilet paper. Either that, or somebody else will be stealing them from you for those purposes.
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Re:Fahrenheit (Score:4, Insightful)
What did you say? (Score:3)
Speak up kid! Come a bit closer so I can hear you... closer... closer... *whacks arcite over the head with the fully annotated works of Tolkien in hard cover* try that with your kindle. See, the blood and pieces of brain just scrape off while your kindle would have broken as the cheap plastic toy it is.
Whacking whipper snappers, just one of the many reasons books are better.
I got a bible from my great-grandfather that went around the world and survived two world wars on the front lines. Your drm'ed bible is
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Oh, you jest about digital information.
Books cannot be locked out based on date
Books do not require an internal power source
Books can survive missing a page or two, devices are less resiliant (scratch the screen, for example)
Books allow for easy notation
Books can be passed on without concerns of format compatibility.
Books cannot be remotely edited, and the various editions actually add to the assorted nature of books. (ooh, a first edition, sweet! but the 3rd edition was where they got rid of the translatio
Re:Fahrenheit (Score:5, Insightful)
Congratulations on tossing aside thousands of years of human history. The written word is necessary in a society where not everyone has the ability to purchase a digital device which may or make not work depending on the whim of the manufacturer and the ability of electricity.
any human on the planet with an internet connection will be able to access them.
Congratulations again. You've just excluded at least one third of the world's population, most likely closer to half, who don't have a net connection and will probably not have one in the foreseeable future for various reasons. Cost and infrastructure being the two biggest culprits.
A physical book is what reminds us that not everything has to be available at an instant, that we can take our time to sit down and enjoy ourselves without the worry of glare off a screen, our batteries running out or spilling our Dew on the device and shorting it.
While books may be perishable, they are far more durable than any electronic device. Excluding fire and lack of light, a book is available at any time and any place. Not so with an e-book. In addition to spilling a liquid on it, one can crack the device if misplaced in a bag, scratch or otherwise damage the screen, lose power, bake it in the sun, and a whole host of other issues, including mold.
People have always looked back when something we took for granted was replaced by something which was supposed to be "new and better". To quote Barney Stinson, "New is always better." To which Ted asked, "So those new Star Wars movies, are they better than the old ones?"
Ted then asks Wendy what their newest Scotch is, to which the answer is, Jimbo Jim's Grape Scotch. Oh, and don't let it touch your skin.
New is not always better. If you feel the need to rush through your day, go for it. But don't tell others they won't be able to sit down and take their time to read a physical book because you think they are a waste. There's a reason the few copies of the Guttenberg Bible, the works of Shakespeare and Darwin's works are so valuable. They are the physical manifestation of the author writ for all humanity. If a book is sufficient for Jean Luc Picard, it is sufficient for everyone.
The same cannot be said for a bunch of electrons.
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I will be a devil's advocate here, even though I use e-books all the time (mainly because it is a lot easier to carry a Kindle with an IBM Redbook and the O'Reilly UNIX admin books on it than to have the physical volumes.)
We are giving a lot of power to the people who sell the eBook readers. It might be that in the future that the next Catcher in the Rye may not be subject to book burnings and bannings -- it may just silently vanish due to a kill command issued to our readers.
eBooks are still in the infanc
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The information is "forever" only so long as the media lasts, and only so long as you can still read the media.
I have various backup media, which were the primary form of media since I've been a programmer, which would require custom-built hardware to be readable today. Not only is the hardware no longer commonly available, the hardware wouldn't be able to interface with any modern computer.
I have books, however, which were printed a cent
Re:Fahrenheit (Score:5, Interesting)
Books last centuries. We're able to read Da Vinci's journal and Fermat's copy of Mathematica where he wrote down his famous last theorem. How long will an e-book last? Will notes and remarks remain for the life of the e-book?
Your assetion that digital is forever, which is the entire basis of your statement, is simply and completely false. Digital data has not and will not withstand the test of time. Most sites from the early 90's, just two decades ago no longer exist, even if you're only looking at contents and not layout or design. Even the Wayback Machine doesn't have every page of every site, not to mention that there are sites that existed before the Wayback Machine. Even if a site was archived, the chances of the Wayback Machine and archive.org no longer being present within the next 100 years is much greater than the chances of all copies of any book degrading to the point of illegibility in the same timespan. The only information stored digitally that has even a chance of being perpetually propogated for more than a few years are the things that remain popular throughout. Historically, the only thing that remotely qualifies are religious and philosophical texts. And even then, most of those texts are often passed down to modernity having gone through translation, modification, and pieces have been outright lost.
You need to snap out of the "technology is humanity's savior" and "newer is always better" attitude. Technology is an enabler. That's all it is. It doesn't replace what exists already, it makes certain trade-offs to enable other things and open up other doors.
Books can be read with no electrical infrastructure, no equipment except your eyes, and can survive any environment. Your e-book reader needs a power source and the maintenance thereof, and can only operate under normal conditions. The contents of a damaged book can be partially recovered, in particular, the parts that aren't damaged. The contents of a damanged e-reader may not be recoverable at all. And I'm not even talking about DRM, which makes it even worse. Books can be buried underground for ages during times of turmoil. Your e-book reader's battery will be unable to hold charge after a few decades. Books are relatively easy to print and copy, difficult to retroactively modify, and impossible to completely remove from the face of the planet, short of burning every last copy. Electronic books, especially on a DRM'ed medium, can not only be removed from your perpetually-connected reader without your consent, but the contents can be subtly or otherwise changed en mass. Books cost $7-$10 for a mass market paperback, $20-$30 for a hardcover. E-books cost the same, plus the cost of the reader and the electricity the reader uses.
Besides which, I'd like to see you try to recover your e-book reader after you've dropped it into your pool or the ocean or even the toilet (in fact, you might not care to recover your book while you'll probably be more motivated to recover your reader, which is a huge plus for books right there).
There's a reason why certain aspects of life have remained the same for centuries, and it's not necessarily because people are incapable of or resistant to change. Some things have already met the ideal or are so close to them that any further attempts at improvement will require more time and effort than the improvement is worth. Books are one of them.
Re:Fahrenheit (Score:4, Interesting)
Books will become antiques and collectors items. If one looks at the 21 century information society, books have no place in it. Once all current books are scanned and fully digitized, any human on the planet with an internet connection will be able to access them.
How about those without Internet connections? Either those that just don't want them, or those in places that don't have them?
Not everyone (not even the majority) are connected 24/7 like many Big City Dwellers.
Some people just don't feel the need to be tethered.
And - believe it or not - *MANY* people *like* books.
Re:Fahrenheit (Score:5, Insightful)
You are absolutely correct.
A company would never remove books on your device, would they?
Books will never be re-written to remove dangerous paragraphs will they?
Your Ebook reader will never be designed for obsolescence will it they?
The online services of your ebook will never go down?
If your ebook provider goes bust, they will obviously have thought of that and leave behind the books behind for you to download, right? If they don't go bust they will never phase out the service, ever?
Your Kindle would never be stolen would it?*
Your books will always work on other eReaders?
* This point depends on my assumption that people are more likely to steal an Ebook than a regular book.(Do people honestly steal books?)
Re:Fahrenheit (Score:4, Interesting)
Forgot to preview that one. That should say people are more likely to steal an ebook rindle (like a Kindle) than they are your soppy romantic novel.
Re:Fahrenheit 1346 (Score:2)
won't be missed (Score:2)
We've got a Borders here in town... And I won't miss them when they close their doors.
It's been a long time since I was able to go there and buy a book that wasn't on some best-seller list. And they've got more movies, music, calendars, and bookmarks than they have actual books at our store. There's a reason they're going out of business.
Re:won't be missed (Score:5, Informative)
We've got a Borders here in town... And I won't miss them when they close their doors.
It's been a long time since I was able to go there and buy a book that wasn't on some best-seller list. And they've got more movies, music, calendars, and bookmarks than they have actual books at our store. There's a reason they're going out of business.
They would have gone out of business sooner if they only had books. They added all those other things in an attempt to get people to come in and buy something at least...
Re:won't be missed (Score:4, Interesting)
They would have gone out of business sooner if they only had books. They added all those other things in an attempt to get people to come in and buy something at least...
I'll certainly agree that reading, in general, is less popular these days. And it must be hard to run a business that sells books these days. Especially with a monster like Amazon out there. But I don't think the solution is to become some kind of half-assed media retailer.
Start selling video games, or movies, or music... And now you're competing with folks who've based their entire business on that (EB, FYE), and the commercial giants like Wal-Mart who can genuinely afford to do a little of everything. You aren't shoring up your strengths with diversity - you're venturing into very dangerous waters populated with some very hungry fish.
Our local Barnes & Noble is doing just fine. Yes, they carry some bookmarks and calendars... And they've got a Starbucks in the lobby... But the vast majority of their store is devoted to books. Shelves upon shelves of books. They've got a huge section of very cheap used books... They've got all the current best-sellers... They've got a wide assortment of pretty much everything - fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, romance, all of it... They've got knowledgeable employees who can actually tell me something about the books on the shelves, and help me find what I'm looking for... They've got less popular, more obscure titles that I can't find elsewhere (like at Borders)... They've got comfortable seating right in the midst of all the shelves so that I can actually sit down and read through a chapter or two and see if I want to buy the book... And they are genuinely embracing digital distribution.
In short - where Borders dealt with a changing book market by watering-down its offerings to the point where I had no reason to visit their store; B&N has responded to that same changing market by improving its offerings and becoming my first (and usually only) stop when looking for a book.
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EXACTAMUNDO. I come from Santa Cruz and the borders there is the most useless bookstore EVER. If you're a yuppie you can stay basically eternally but the slightly scuzzy are kicked out rapidly, and they make up a big portion of scruz. The selection is shit, mostly just bestsellers as you'd imagine... and just a couple blocks up the street is Logos, one of the best used bookstores (they have a massive new selection as well) that I've ever been to. I won't just not miss it, I'll be glad when it's gone, and th
You've got mail (Score:2)
Sales Tax (Score:2)
The lesson I take from this is that the local retail is doomed unless we figure out how to address the online tax advantage.
Borders is a high profile example of a brick and morter shop that can't compete in an environment where its primary competition has an unnatural advantage. Amazon doesn't pay sales tax. Sure, it had some missteps along the way, like having Amazon run its web sites. But if Borders can't compete, do you think Mom and Pop retailers will? This impacts not or future local retailing envi
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The US could introduce a goods and services tax at the federal level and pass the revenue to state (and ultimately) local governments.
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Which would raise the price of everything, and do nothing about the online advantage.
Buying from Amazon generally means you'll pay no sales tax. If the Feds were to add a goods and services tax, everyone would pay that AND the sales tax.
Except for online retailers, of course.
Or do you really think the States will do away with their sales taxes just because the Feds hand
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The US could introduce a goods and services tax at the federal level and pass the revenue to state (and ultimately) local governments.
Businesses that have offices in multiple states are already used to filing lots of state paperwork. There's no reason to get the fed involved - just charge sales tax for goods shipped to the states that collect it. Its not a very big lookup table. Then the businesses send a form and a check to each state every quarter - that's potentially 200 extra items of work per year. Nothing for Amazon. Software and services to handle this for small businesses would appear overnight if it was to much work to do by
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It's not just the tax. Even if they do pass some law that clusterfucks the online retailers with having to deal with every town in Podunk County, West Bumblefuck, they still can't beat the websites' biggest advantage: selection. One website can list the inventory for a ton of warehouses/distribution centers (a la Amazon) whereas the B&Ms are limited to what's there. Which gives the latter the edge when you need your widget right now... assuming, of course, that it's in stock and you don't have to order
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Amazon doesn't pay sales tax
In some places they do... I'm in New York and my Amazon orders certainly do have New York sales tax added. Bummer my Oregon state billing address doesn't override that... But oh well, that's just one of the costs of living in New York City...
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It isn't sales tax - it's not having to pay property tax, or salespeople, or operating expenses on retail stores scattered all over the country. A few percent sales tax is nothing when Amazon regularly discounts *everything* 10%-20% off MSRP.
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The tax advantage is rather modest, and usually eaten up by shipping on online purchases (though Amazon has unusually good shipping terms and can avoid this to some extent). The big advantage is logistics and supply chain. Amazon maintains a dozen or so Warehouses, Borders maintains hundreds of stores. Amazon, in total, probably employes fewer people than Borders employs in a particularly large state like New York or Texas. When you go to borders and they don't have you want, you go home and order from
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The lesson I take from this is that the local retail is doomed unless we figure out how to address the online tax advantage.
The only direct online tax advantage is sales tax, possibly the most regressive of all taxes, with the possible exception of certain low-income related sin taxes like tobacco taxes. In a race to the bottom, either the sales tax goes bye bye, or the local retail businesses, employees, and customers, go bye bye. Places that desperately want a sales tax can keep it, if they're willing to adsorb the unemployment, and people who are willing to live in an area with retail ghost towns. More power to them, but I
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That doesn't address the travel advantage. I don't care to PAY to TRAVEL to LOOK at BOOKS when I can browse and buy online. That's more than a few percent price penalty. If I have to ORDER a book in person then I must TRAVEL to pick it up.
I don't care about store ambiance when I can chill in my recliner at home and shop naked while surfing /.
data peddler never was a good biz model (Score:4, Interesting)
Technology caught up with their distribution system.
But I don't think much of the long term prospects of the likes of Apple's music business and Amazon either, at least not in its current form. Sure, they're relatively hot and new now. But fundamentally, they're still all about charging customers on a per copy basis. We won't settle for less than the best forever. And I don't think the Netflix model is it either.
I think the future is the digital public library.
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I Wouldn't Worry About It (Score:2)
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The 40-year-old book seller could start shuttering its 399 remaining stores as early as Friday
Seriously, what's with the recent rise in usage of the word 'shuttering'. I mean, I'm gay and all.. but I'm not THAT gay to use the word shuttering.
In a bad economy, it's only natural that the supply of synonyms for "closing" would be getting low.
They did it to themselves (Score:5, Funny)
Borders Played a Pivotal Role in My Career (Score:5, Interesting)
After I got out of grad school in the early nineties I discovered that having an advanced degree from one of the top 5 universities in the country didn't count for squat. After 18 months' fruitless search I got a job at a hedge fund fiduciary. 8 awful months later the giant hedge fund Long Term Capital Management blew up and nearly took the US economy with it then & there. People invested in hedge funds freaked, pulled out all their money, and I was without a job again.
I got a temp job in Northern Trust Bank's Private Banking division working up investment plans for rich people. The Private Banking division used Excel, of course. It was slow, and repetitious.
So I spent evenings and weekends sitting in Borders taking notes from their books on Visual Basic and VBA in order to automate the process. I couldn't afford to buy the books, I was so poor, and the library only carried books on Fortran and Basic and COBOL. I taught myself how to program that way (yes, I know it was only Visual Basic), and wound up reducing the turnaround time of the Private Banking division from 2 wks to an hour and a half. The division manager promptly fired me and stole my work, but I had found a new window of opportunity. I did more VB work, then added MS Access, then transitioned to VBScript during the dotcom days.
I switched to LAMPP in 1998 and haven't looked back. But it was those days & nights in Borders that allowed me to chart a course for a relatively stable career, given the turbulence of IT and Internet over the past decade. I dunno if their business model has any future, but for me then it was the right place at the right time.
RIP Borders
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After I got out of grad school
one of the top 5 universities in the country
the library only carried books on Fortran and Basic and COBOL
These three statements don't seem to go together. I attended a big no-name public uni and transferred to a small no-name college (smaller grad class than my high school...) and their libraries were beyond awesome. Especially the big no-name uni which subscribed to apparently every research journal that exists. Unless the school is located in a slum area, the libraries never check for ID or have any security at all, just show up in the evening when the older folks take night classes, carry a backpack and/
Why libraries are dying too (Score:4, Insightful)
and the library only carried books on Fortran and Basic and COBOL
You point to a larger issue with public libraries here. With Amazon they've become almost worthless. Their collections are usually laughably out-of-date and small. Back in the day this wasn't so much a problem for them, because the only alternative was the local bookstore. But now Amazon has a selection that puts even university libraries to shame, and you can buy CHEAP from them (used copies of books often cost just a few dollars, even with shipping). Now there is really no need to settle for a crappy library book that's way out-of-date when I can *buy* the best book on the subject for next to nothing on Amazon (and no due dates to worry about).
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yeah, they died because people went and dog-eared their books without buying them.
I don't approve of his practice, but actually the big booksellers have all their inventory on consignment, so they probably don't care. That's why they were able to crush the local booksellers so easily, who had to purchase their inventory.
Hard to find stuff (Score:2)
I mainly shopped for DVDs in borders stores but lately they have reorganised and made it really difficult to find stuff. I could never work out their system so I wound up doing alphabetical searches in each small category. It would be easier if they just had a big stack of titles, alphabetically sorted. I assume this was some MBA inspired technique to get me to discover something else to buy in the other categories, or to spend more time in the store. In practice I couldn't find what I wanted so I went to J
Good Riddance to Bad Business (Score:3, Interesting)
Doesn't surprise me. I worked for a chain bookstore (not Borders) when I was at uni, and they put me in the Motivation and Health section. By the way, let me introduce myself, I'm a teacher who specialises in working with gifted kids, and one of the things that I'm really good at is picking good, relatively advanced books for young kids who are beyond the books that their librarians and teachers use for other children. I read a lot of kids and YA fiction, and textbooks and educational texts, of course, but also scifi, fantasy and historical fiction, as well as non-fiction books in a number of areas. Notice something missing? I don't fucking read Motivation or Health! I can't even take those fucking books seriously, let alone sell them!
This wouldn't have been a problem, if it weren't for the rigidity of the PHB's that ran the place. My role was to stand by a shelf, and only help people who needed help with that section. One of my colleagues' spot was to stand by the self-service information computer behind a shelf, and almost literally jump out at people if they were having trouble with the search functionality (which only googled the bookstore's public website). As much as possible, I wasn't to move, and I had to do things as quickly as possible. One day, I spent 20 minutes upselling ~$150 worth of photo books and Australian kids' books to a tourist and I got a formal warning for walking away from my section and leaving it in the hands of two of my colleagues.
Let's talk about my colleagues, though. There was a guy hired at the same time as me who I was speaking to one day... Me: "So, what books do you read?"; Him: "Oh, I don't."; Me: "You don't... Read books?"; Him: "Yeah, they're boring." Awesome. He was Employee of the Month at some point after I left. I haven't been back there in a while, but I think he's probably still working there.
Their buying policy was brilliant, also. They bought hundreds of copies of things that they thought fit with the Australian psyche, i.e., obsessed with sport. So we were always left with hundreds of copies of the latest ghost written biography of some cricketer that we could literally not give away in the end. These books were always such an albatross around our necks that our PHB's were insisting that we keep them on the shelves, and sending newer, more popular books to storage or to the warehouse. If you wanted one of those newer more interesting books? You have to wait for it to be retrieved (a couple of days, usually), but please take a heavily discounted the 3rd volume of Warwick Smythe's test cricket antics that he paid someone from South Africa to write.
I shouldn't complain too much though. The 50% employee discount was awesome. Most of the long term employees were great people. Some of the supervisors were genuinely cool people. I laugh as I remember back to thinking back over having to help people "find a book, it has like a blue cover and words, I think", or "choose a motivation book for me, I don't know which one to choose."
These book chains are dying because they're trying to do business as if nothing has changed. They're hiring the cheapest, dumbest possible labour when people are only willing to go to a bookstore and pay a bit more than they would at Amazon because they want to talk to someone knowledgeable and well-read about books.
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I'm a teacher who specialises in working with gifted kids
Cool, I enjoyed your type when I was a student, received good advice. Sadly, locally all those positions have been eliminated to save money, hire bilingual teachers, hire guards and truancy officers, etc. So look out for your job..
because they want to talk to someone knowledgeable and well-read about books
Ask yourself honestly, if anyone could afford books if the retailer had to pay your current salary to sales clerks... Also don't take it personally but you missed the biggest problem with your previous management, if I want book buying advice about "motivation and health" I wan
You've got FAIL (Score:2)
Borders locations? (Score:2)
I live in the Lansing, MI area, about 60 miles from Ann Arbor. I've never seen a Borders book store.
The booksellers I see here are Barnes & Noble and Schuler Books & Music (based in Grand Rapids, MI, 60 miles in the other direction).
Apparently we DID have some in the area under Borders other name, Waldenbooks, but those were tiny compared to the huge, sprawling stores the other two have... the closest Barnes and Nobles is a two-floor building in the middle of East Lansing, across from the Michigan
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boarders did not sell the Nook... Barnes and Noble sell the nook.
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Not to mention being extremely hackable and able to run stock Android. As an absolute last resort if B&N fails (probably not likely, but possible) you could just put stock Android on it and grab Nook and Kindle readers. The Nook reader to keep your old stuff (most of it isn't DRMed, and even if it is they'll probably be required to keep the key servers up), and the Kindle reader to buy new stuff. I'd still be sad if B&N died though. That would leave only BAM around here, and I've never like the
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Why? The Nook is from Barnes and Noble, this story is about Borders.
And that could be part of the problem... The two stores are awfully difficult to distinguish... I certainly have trouble. I know where the locations for a few are, but remembering which is which is hard. Even inside they're mostly pretty similar. If one closes, then I can carry one less loyalty card in my wallet. More convenient for me...
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Borders would routinely email out 40% coupons on any one item if you signed up for their free "Border's card." It made the books essentially the same price as Amazon.
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Re:Sad (Score:5, Informative)
I don't shop online generally, and refuse to use amazon on principle, so it all suck a bit. If I have to buy books online I tend to use AbeBooks, a collective of independant bookshops.
You do realize that AbeBooks is owned by Amazon.com, don't you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com#Acquisitions [wikipedia.org]
Re:Sad (Score:5, Interesting)
Why publishers put up with demands for supply at zero-profit (sometimes negative profit) terms from amazon I don't know
Not sure what you're talking about here. Publishers sell at the net price, which is typically 50% of the cover price. Book stores then sell at the retail price and pocket the difference. When Amazon is selling a book at 45% off the cover price, it means that the publisher is still getting 90% of the sale price. When a book store sells at the cover price, it means that the publisher is getting 50% of the sale price. Authors are typically paid a percentage of net, so we get the same amount irrespective of where you buy the book.
At least, that's how it works with my publisher.
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As an aside the best book I saw when browsing the computer section was a 70 something page book on hacking that told you could be a 31337 hacker by learning how to port scan. I should have bought it just for the lols, but I thought at $3.00 it was overpriced, went for a map of Tokyo instead.
Re:Slashdot no longer... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's more geekier than Reddit or Digg. You don't get long interesting comments on Reddit or Digg. It's a bunch of kids spouting memes.
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Cool story bro.
(I couldn't resist.)
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The difference between the Kobo and the Nook/Kindle is that Borders partnered with Kobo whereas B&N/Amazon developed their own ereaders. From what I can tell, the Kobo is still going to be alive even if Borders turns to dust. Here's a nifty little article: http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/18/borders-may-be-dead-but-e-reader-kobo-is-still-alive-and-kicking/ [techcrunch.com]
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My impression was that Borders focused more on non-books than B&N. They usually had a music section, dvd section, probably other stuff. I didn't wander much past the books. Never understood who would by a DVD set at Borders when usually there was an adjacent store like Best Buy where you could get it for a little less (not to mention Amazon for a lot less).
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It affects me because the one near my house had the best computer book selection I've ever seen. Seriously - they had at least two dozen racks of computer books, divided up into fine-grained categories - algorithms, graphics programming, MS languages, C, Basic, MacOS, Windows, Unix, Embedded, etc...
Another location, not too far away, has an incredible magazine selection. They carry scholarly journals, foreign language magazines, specialty art and architecture magazines, two racks of newspapers from every ma
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Lesson among all brick and mortar stores: your selection will always suck compared to online stores. Figure out a niche for yourself such that your selection doesn't suck so much, or have an online presence that's useful. I've given up a long time ago on blindly driving to a freaking store in the hopes they'd have this one thing I need and lo and behold they don't.
Gifts? My wife likes books about subject X, I'll probably find something she will tolerate at B+N. If she wants book number #X of #Y in series of #Z then hellloooo amazon. Admitted we'd all be better off if I gave her an amazon or itunes GC, but that's not socially acceptable in my culture.
So, for birthdays, no problemo, nice distribution across the year. Calendar holidays are a big problem, I have not retail shopped between thanksgiving and christmas in some years, will not tolerate the behavior of oth
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Auto parts stores "get" what you just posted, and often have complementary websites so you can find out what they carry and what's in stock.
They ADAPTED to "I need it now" with same and next day delivery, a mix of online and onsite purchasing, etc.
If they can do it, I'm not impressed with other businesses who can but CHOOSE not to. I don't need brick and mortar book stores. Shopping online is faster and much more convenient.
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The B&N stores where I am will call the other "local" B&N stores in the area for the book I'm looking for, _then_ say they can order it for me if they don't have it. If it's in one of the other stores, I'll gladly ride over to get it. But if it's "I'll order it", I decline. I can order it and I don't have to come back to pick it up.
[John]
Don't know (Score:2)
The one in Utrecht has a large number of cash registers and still you frequently got to cue. Lets not forget that Holland has no Amazon, importing from the US costs a fair amount at the border in taxes, duty and admin costs and bol.com can't escape sales tax like Amazon can in the land of unfair competition.
ABC also moved to a bigger location in the heart of amsterdam (Spui) and has 2 bookstores in spitting distance.
As for the post below, a dutch bookstore selling mostly dutch books... gosh... the SHOCK! Do
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Lets not forget that Holland has no Amazon, importing from the US costs a fair amount at the border in taxes, duty and admin costs and bol.com can't escape sales tax like Amazon can in the land of unfair competition.
But importing from the UK (which does have an Amazon) shouldn't have any costs at the border because both are in the EU (and the UK doesn't have the European equivalent of sales tax, VAT, on books). Of course, I'm not sure that the UK or US Amazon is particularly strong on Dutch language books.
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I thought my local Borders (in Perth CBD) was great as a place to buy computer books if they had the one you wanted on the shelf. Bought a couple of books from them (including a book on QT and a couple of Java books)
You've got that completely backwards (Score:5, Informative)
I looks like another one that missed that a lobby group for bookshop chains including Angus and Robertson set that policy decades ago and have been lobbying to continue it ever since, right up until at least a few months ago. It was nothing but a barrier of entry to small bookshops that were left with little choice but to buy from the big distributors. It was like that in the 1980s (when I worked in a small technical bookshop) and it's been kept in place ever since purely for the benefit of the chains.