Borders Books: A painful time to be a megabookstore

@Linkat,

Quote:

Well it happened - the Borders near me is now closing as well. As a book member I get their emails - "Starts Today! Braintree store closing" This was a store not on the original list and it is usually very busy - at least when I go in

I am not sure how many got added to the closing list, but we lost two more in Washington State...this is after the first round where Borders shrunk by 1/3, announced just weeks ago.

edit...they added 27 to the 200...

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Bad news here in Tulsa, too. We have two Borders. They announced one would close about a month ago, and now the other one is closing as well. I'm sorry to see them go...I much preferred them to Barnes & Noble, our other big chain.

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I know it's not Borders, but it's a bookstore I treasure, Hennessey & Ingalls. I'm worried to look it up..

They had a terrific photography section (she salivates), art section, architecture books from all over the place, landscape architecture, garden design, and an older book section you found if you ever needed to take a restroom break and I'm not sure those were for sale, but probably; a slight but interesting travel section by the checkout counter. Magazines related to at least some of all that - the japanese architecture mags were wonderful, sigh.
I spent too much money there but nowhere near what I wanted to.
A lot of my books were bought used or very used, which is fine with me as I like patina, but bought from other than H & I. But H & I is the gold standard to me.

I passed by closed art and arch bookshops in Berkeley and Chicago on visits to those cities, but can't compare for obvious reasons.
Adds, it is also lucky that myself and pals were in a hurry when we passed Rizzoli in New York. That could be the death of me.

Whew, it's still there (although around the corner from when I frequented it).
http://www.hennesseyingalls.com/hennessey/

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@djjd62,

Didge wrote:

Quote:

i still love a good independent bookstore, and a good used bookstore is like a little slice of heaven on earth

Oh me too...as a matter of fact one of my favorites fell victim to the big bo0kstore Barnes and Noble when they built right down the road from them. Maybe the swing will be back toward the independent bookstores - I loved taking the boys up on Saturday to the tiny little bookstore and having the owners wife read to them. I went to all of their signings and had great conversations with some of the authors. I just don't get that feel at Barnes and Noble or Books-a-Million - which are our local large booksellers.

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@Linkat,

The additional above and beyond store closings must mean that their asset liquidation isn't as successful as they initially planned it to be. Today was the first (and perhaps) the only day I walked into a closing Borders store. While walking home, I dropped by the soon to be closed Park Avenue branch.

Didn't buy anything myself.

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@tsarstepan,

Quote:

The additional above and beyond store closings must mean that their asset liquidation isn't as successful as they initially planned it to b

No, the added stores means that the creditors did not think that management is sufficiently pessimistic about the future of the business. These are probably stores with high leases that management thought they could support, but which creditors want taken out of the operating costs. Remember, that bankruptcy allows them to walk away from these leases, which they will not have the chance to do till next time they go into bankruptcy....

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Went to a store closing today, it was a little enervating, nothing was in alphabetical order so for example I was looking for a plain paperback of "the Hobbit," and there just wasn't any looking for it, really. Just luck, what you happened across.

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@hawkeye10,

That's interesting. The Borders I went to in Chicago was on Michigan Avenue.. I might have taken a photo of the tulips in the designed strips between buildings and cars. Or, that might have been a block away.

The Barnes and Noble in Marina del Rey was .. in Marina del Rey, a "good" mall.
Actually, I think they were in west los angeles, as we were, a couple of blocks north, but real estate has different names there, all ok with the post office, versus actual city maps. (I haven't checked, but I highly doubt that that mall was in the marina.. but not positive, could be wrong.)

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@tsarstepan,

They got what they deserved, if they simply sold books instore/online they'd still be around.

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@francocig,

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They got what they deserved, if they simply sold books instore/online they'd still be around.

I will never forgive either them or B&N for making their stores hostile to browsing sessions. Once they made it clear they wanted me to buy and leave I ended my multi year boycott of Amazon.

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I just saw this article this morning.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704474804576222642969830886.html

Burn baby burn I say. Maybe this sort of thing will allow for the occasional mom and pop to succeed again.

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Mumpad says that borders will no longer honour gift vouchers from friday this week. (not sure of the date)

Some time ago it was announced borders would only honour vouchers on a buy one get one free basis.
ie you have a $50.00 voucher. You must first purchase $50 worth of books then they will give you a further $50 worth of books.

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Borders inches closer to liquidation

Quote:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Borders Group moved closer to liquidation after a key takeover offer from a private investment firm was rejected Wednesday.
Borders, which filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year, had reached a deal in June with Direct Brands, owned by private investment firm Najafi Companies, to sell an undisclosed number of its stores to the firm.
Under the terms of the deal, Direct Brands would purchase Borders' (BGPIQ) assets for $215.1 million and assume $220 million in liabilities. The deal was subject to bankruptcy court approval.
On Wednesday, Najafi Companies said the deal fell through.
Amazon sales pop as Kindle books overtake paperbacks
"We regret to confirm that Direct Brand's proposed agreement to keep Borders operating is no longer supported by the deciding parties," the company said in a statement.
"The deciding parties' legal team and financial advisors have elected another option which is in contrast to what we had envisioned for the future of Borders," the company said.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/07/14/news/companies/borders_liquidation/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=hp_bn3

Adios Borders, you were kinda OK for a short amount of time.

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@hawkeye10,

I wonder how the Barnes and Noble "relevancy" model is working. Theyve begun taking over operations of college bookstores and then open big superbook stores as attachements.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

I wonder how the Barnes and Noble "relevancy" model is working. Theyve begun taking over operations of college bookstores and then open big superbook stores as attachements.

The NOOK will give them some time, plus now that Borders is dead there might be enough market to support them. I really dont like what they do to college bookstore from what I have seen though (take over of the Bookie and Visitor center WSU Pullman Wa), but at the moment there is still money to be made there. As text books go away though they will be done . They can still sell university logo swag, but I think that will mostly go to mail order and you cant love on that as a brick and mortar operation.

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@hawkeye10,

text book pub is better deling with the changing paradigm of books v other means of transmitting information/
B^N runs several U bookstores and takes part in the actual publishing of teacher syllibii , "texts" and occasional papers. AS the speed of research increases, so does the speed of publish to dissemination.
Its waay better for a college teacher to develop their own texts
1. the return to the teacher is better(even after the department and college overheads are taken)

2reserach reports for grants and funding agemncies is more quickly turned into actual usaebleinfo rather than just some reports that get lost in massive volumes.

No matter how positioned a company is, they realize that they cant plan, they can only react.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

The NOOK will give them some time,

ctually, the NOOK was made just for partnering with libraries. Public libraries are having a time trying to decide what their missions are. Libraqries have been passing the I Pad for the NOOK based upon all the bullshit that Apple tried to load their platform with. A public library is a community center and information center. The mode of information transfer and access shouldnt be subject to some market pressure if the end users dont want it.

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@farmerman,

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Public libraries are having a time trying to decide what their missions are

That is a political problem, because Libraries were never designed to decide for themselves what they were to be , they were told by the people through their representatives in local government what they where supposed to be. Local leaders have abdicated, all they have to say now is to spend as little money as possible. Libraries have gone through relentless waves of defunding, which started long before the Great Recession.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

Libraries have gone through relentless waves of defunding, which started long before the Great Recession.

so whats incorrect about becoming ones own resource? Funding for libraries in US have always swung between public funding and private endowment
although budget realities have made library missions tougher, libraries are always urged to go and do fund raising on their own.

The real challenges are for small rurarl libraries to retain excellent library directors who excell at their own missions of funding (Most great library directors act more like executive directors of non profit agencies like Nat Wildlife or NRA). Many of these directors can increase their salaries by "job hopping" and filling up the coffers of their next library.

Many county libraries have taken to giving directors homes with incentives to own if they stay for a given number of years. Its almost like MLB (except the slaries are waaay lower)

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@farmerman,

Quote:

so whats incorrect about becoming ones own resource? Funding for libraries in US have always swung between public funding and private endowment
although budget realities have made library missions tougher, libraries are always urged to go and do fund raising on their own

UM, I pay $66 a year in taxes for my library, my guess is that this is more than the national average but IDK.

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Borders Books: A painful time to be a megabookstore

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