From Forbes:
After eyeing a retail transformation through broadened product assortments and an in-store café (and restaurant) push, Barnes & Noble says it’s back to books following a disappointing quarter.
. . . .
“Book sales continued to strengthen, and we saw improved traffic and conversion trends. As a result of the improving trends, we will continue to place a greater emphasis on books, while further narrowing our non-book assortment,” said CEO Demos Parneros, who assumed his position in April after predecessor Ron Boire’s eight-month stint in charge.
. . . .
Barnes & Noble’s Nook brand of e-readers, billed as its digital business, brought in about $26 million in revenue for the quarter, a decline of more than 25% from last year. The retail segment saw sales dip about 7% to $770 million. The firm has been offsetting shrinking sales with cost-cutting attempts and said Tuesday it plans to reduce costs by $40 million for the full fiscal year.
The ailing bookseller is perhaps a prime example of the retail industry’s struggle to modernize itself in an age of consumerism increasingly dominated by ecommerce and helmed by Amazon.
Link to the rest at Forbes
A quarter is not long enough to prove anything works or doesn’t. If that’s all the time they can afford trying it they might as well give up now.
But, but, but…
A quarter’s worth of results is all a B&N CEO dujour gets!
Figure it out:
A quarter to move in and scope out the real lay of the land.
A quarter to panic and cook up a scheme that might produce an incremental boost big enough to measure.
A quarter to ride herd on the implementers hoping they can deploy something somewhere on schedule.
A quarter to pray the scheme works.
A quarter to watch the results filter in and polish the resume.
By then the board is ready to hit reset.
Expect restaurant talk to end by spring.
And a ‘harry potter’ book can make them think it’s working (and the lack that it’s not.)
A bit like radio shack, by the time they tried to change their ways their old customers had moved on and weren’t coming back.
Okay. Then, how many quarters would be enough?
Q1 has a 6,6% loss. Other stats I’ve been able to gather over previous years (although not this particular one) keep showing declines (sales, for example). The stock price has had some quirky bounces, but has lost a third of the value these last 5 years, while the dow increased 85%.
So, do tell… How many quarters is enough to say “it doesn’t work” [or does] ?
Also,
http://www.nasdaq.com/earnings/report/bks
I love that tiny little column… “% surprise”.
Take care.
It depends on the effort in question, the management team, and the cpmpany.
Microsoft is notorious for giving every new business three tries before giving up. Some, they eventually get right. Some they give up after a year. (MS BOB.) Apple gave the Apple III and LISA a couple years before pulling the plug. (And the Apple III had essentially a 100% failure rate.)
Even the Edsel had a full three year run.
Of course, some ideas are so bad they never should have been tried (Sony’ eVilla–even the name was a bad idea). But those are indictment enough of bad management.