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Kind of sounds like these stores were "underperformers". Even under ideal circumstances they would be money losers but the rest of the chain could support them.

The current situation is far from ideal as far as Barnes & Noble is concerned.

The two B&N's that we do use here are in Orlando proper and neither one is remotely convenient to us.

On the other hand, Books A Million has a location that is very high traffic and very convenient for us. So, guess who gets the majority of our local book business?

Mark Gosdin

Do you think Kindle is to blame for the downfall of major bookstores in America?

revolutionotaku wrote:

Do you think Kindle is to blame for the downfall of major bookstores in America?

It's certainly part of the equation. Borders' failure can probably be traced in part to the fact that they were way too late developing their own e-reader. Although, I don't think there's any denying that the main reason the big booksellers are having trouble is they cannot devise good strategies to compete with Amazon.

I think Books-a-Million is on to something with their 2nd and Charles stores (they sell used books, games, and DVD's), though. In that business model, you're not trying to get customers to visit your store and buy new books at 1.5 times Amazon's price. One of their marketing bits is "the thrill of the hunt"; the idea being that when you visit the store you might find something good at a bargain price (I've bought many OOP manga there at good prices!). And, the margins have to be a lot better on used books.

I really don't have any comment for this, the only chain of book stores left aside from the surviving g barne's and noble, is half price books.

daggerbob wrote:

B&N doesn't really have a good manga selection anyway. For manga they normally have maybe 2-3 rack sections for manga and graphic novels and they normally tuck them way back in the store. They give more space and better location for vampire romance novels than manga, at least in the B&Ns that I recently went into.

It's better, and usually cheaper, to buy manga at one of the many on-line stores. You can probably get a better deal at a local comics shop if you have one in your town. The shop I use both pre-orders and holds manga for me and gives me a free 10% frequent shopper discount.

Not mine. My B&N has 3/4 of an aisle dedicated to manga. It actually has more manga than it does American comic books/graphic novels.

revolutionotaku wrote:

Do you think Kindle is to blame for the downfall of major bookstores in America?

Not necessarily, since the Nook's sales are down. While the Nook isn't nearly as popular as the Kindle or iPad, you would think they would see SOME growth in sales over time, instead of their sales being DOWN in an age of tablets.

Cecilthedarkknight_234 wrote:

I really don't have any comment for this, the only chain of book stores left aside from the surviving g barne's and noble, is half price books.

Books-A-Million is still here. They're actually getting pretty good business.

Is there a list of closed stores around yet? I'm curious about the ones closing in Chicago. I'd love to know if they are closing stores just within the city limits, or around Chicagoland, which would include at least three I know of.

Last edited by Kruszer on Sun Jan 13, 2013 11:56 am; edited 1 time in total

Crap, I hope these guys don't go under too. They're expensive, but they're the only physical place around to buy a friggin' book.

Not that I'd be totally opposed to continuing to online shop for them like I do, but I like the atmosphere of the B&N too much, with the coffee shop and cushy chairs.

On the plus side, I'll be able to do what I did multiple times when Borders closed, and get multiple dozens of books in one day. On the down side, there may very well be no more book chains left, further compounding how moronic we as a country are becoming. It's a win-lose, I guess.

Although if they close, it will be kind of nice on independent booksellers.

I'm not surprised at all. My local B+N is basically a library. People pick up books, go sit down and read. The only thing making money is the cafe.

Also they set up chairs/tables right infront of the shelves. Everytime I go in there to find something, I got someone sitting down right infront of the shelf who won't move when I say excuse me. I've complained to the managers and told them was a stupid business practice this was, but they pretty much said "Oh well."

Plus everything is so much cheaper on Amazon.com and rightstuf.com. I barely pay $7 for $10.99 manga anymore.

A store near me is closing but thankfully it is not the regular one I go to.

I am already not over Borders closing, I don't want the same thing happening to B&N.

Well, not like there were any in my area to begin with :/ The one in my area closed down a few years ago, since a Borders competed with it across the street :/ Why did the B&N leave?! If only they knew about Borders' fate... The only thing left in my area (rather than travelling a good 40 mins to get to a B&N), is Half-Price. So, basically we are forced to chose from used items :/ Sometimes good to find rare OOP stuff at, but still, no new selection :/

Still, Rightstuf's sales have everyone beat! I have a budget and a large list of manga/anime to buy, so I need to use the most efficient method for me. ...I do miss bookstores though Sad

Funny, I haven't heard of Chapters in Canada suffering!

I used to buy books from Barnes & Noble every month when I was a kid, but I haven't been to one in years. It takes $8 and 4 street cars to get to the mall (where B&N is) and back, thanks to Port Authority constantly raising rates and cutting service. I occasionally buy e-books, but I prefer physical stores and books.

Oh no. This is just like Borders. Sad

I supported Borders like mad when they were in existence, buying loads of books from them each year. I've been buying books at B&N now and I don't understand how they can be failing when all the people who used to buy at Borders have switched to B&N plus B&N had its own customers from before. I also thought the Nook was doing well in sales.

Yes, B&N does some things wrong, like allowing customers to use them essentially as a library. If I were in charge, I'd never put the magazine section RIGHT NEXT TO THE CAFE, as I see in many B&Ns. People just take magazines and even books from the rest of the store and just hunker down for hours in the cafe, reading for free.

They're the only remaining big national chain bookstore in the U.S. You would think they would study Borders' failure and do everything they possibly could to avoid going down like them. There are a lot of people who want to support bookstores, enough of us that we should be able to help B&N stay afloat, at least I hope so.

This doesn't surprise me at all, I more or less saw this when Borders was about to collapse. Barns And Noble prices for manga have been rather high for some time and frankly, it's just cheaper to buy manga at Amazon and even websites such as eBay as well.

The Nook really did not do much for them in recent years and it really doesn't help that as Cpanime has mentioned that some B and N stores are basically a library. I am not shocked that some of the managers don't really care, as it's easier to look the other way than potentially be yelled by a irate customer that might call corporate and complain about "rude" employees. I've seen this happen several times.

Welcome to the digital age though people, eventually even Amazon and other online merchants are going to stop selling physical books and start selling digital versions.

PurpleWarrior13 wrote:

daggerbob wrote:

B&N doesn't really have a good manga selection anyway. For manga they normally have maybe 2-3 rack sections for manga and graphic novels and they normally tuck them way back in the store. They give more space and better location for vampire romance novels than manga, at least in the B&Ns that I recently went into.

It's better, and usually cheaper, to buy manga at one of the many on-line stores. You can probably get a better deal at a local comics shop if you have one in your town. The shop I use both pre-orders and holds manga for me and gives me a free 10% frequent shopper discount.

Not mine. My B&N has 3/4 of an aisle dedicated to manga. It actually has more manga than it does American comic books/graphic novels.

revolutionotaku wrote:

Do you think Kindle is to blame for the downfall of major bookstores in America?

Not necessarily, since the Nook's sales are down. While the Nook isn't nearly as popular as the Kindle or iPad, you would think they would see SOME growth in sales over time, instead of their sales being DOWN in an age of tablets.

Cecilthedarkknight_234 wrote:

I really don't have any comment for this, the only chain of book stores left aside from the surviving g barne's and noble, is half price books.

Books-A-Million is still here. They're actually getting pretty good business.

I've never seen a Book-A-Million in my entire life (are they regional? I live in Texas), so if B&N goes out...I'm screwed.

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