From Business Insider:
Barnes & Noble is struggling to compete with Amazon.
Barnes & Noble stores have become places where customers read, hang out, and have a cup of coffee rather than just shop.
On Thursday, Barnes & Noble reported that comparable sales dropped 6.1% in the first quarter.
We visited a Barnes & Noble store earlier this year and saw why the chain is struggling.
. . . .
The bookstore giant, which has more than 630 locations in the United States, is losing steam in its competition with Amazon. And, some analysts say, its failure to adapt to changing shopping habits could be to blame.
“People may drop in for a browse but they won’t make a dedicated trip to a bookstore,” GlobalData Retail’s Neil Saunders told The Guardian in May. “They don’t have the need and they don’t have the time. The way people shop changed, and that’s been detrimental for Barnes & Noble.”
Barnes & Noble has tried to combat people’s shifting attitudes towards shopping by creating a great in-store experience, but in doing so, they seem to have become more like libraries than bookstores. People come to browse books, study, have a cup of coffee, and meet up with their friends — not necessarily to buy books.
. . . .
The back of the first floor was dedicated to CDs, DVDs, and vinyl records. There weren’t as many people in this department as there were spread throughout the rest of the store. There was a register, but it was closed.
Next to the CDs and DVDs was a Nook display. Nobody was buying or looking at Nook e-readers or accessories when I visited — it was totally empty. Sales of the Nook have dropped 85% since 2012, according to The New York Times.
. . . .
The third floor, home to the in-store Starbucks, was incredibly busy. The café area sold coffee mugs, tumblers, and other coffee-related products.
Almost every seat in the café was taken up by people reading, working, and meeting up. It was easily the busiest part of the store.
In the neighboring magazine section, people were sitting on the benches, flipping through stacks of magazines.
. . . .
Unlike the previous floors, the fourth floor was almost entirely books. Most people were using the space to read — students were sitting along the walls studying for exams, and others were reading books that they may or may not have ended up purchasing.
. . . .
Like at many libraries, there was a cart for customers to put books and magazines back on when they were done. Barnes & Noble seemed to basically be encouraging shoppers to read books and magazines and then leave without buying them.
. . . .
While it’s great that Barnes & Noble fosters an environment where people can go to read a book, have a cup of coffee, and relax there weren’t many people actually buying books. There were registers set up on all four floors, but only the ones downstairs were in use. Only two of the 10 registers were open, and nobody was waiting in line. The store itself was packed, but not many people seemed to be buying anything. They would read a book or magazine, then put it back on the shelf.
Link to the rest at Business Insider
So many things can be done, but they can’t be done on an one-size-fits-all basis. That’s what they don’t get and don’t seem to want to do.
They get it just as well as we do. Probably better. They know all about those things, but have chosen a different path. It’s not driven by ignorance. It’s a very well informed choice.
Is it really a well-informed choice? Or have the corporate officers at B&N become so isolated and insulated, as well as tied to the major publishers, that they are unable to make the mental shift required before they can make a financial shift?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
I still believe that turning around B&N is not impossible, but less likely as each day passes.
Frankly, I hate to see B&N go, although I can’t think that I’ve bought a book there in the last 5 years. I used to love to look through their large remainders racks and buy strange books, like African safari travelogues and magic trick manuals, for a few bucks. Or a nicely printed and cheap copy of a classic that I didn’t happen to have on my shelves. Stuff that I would never intentionally seek out and purchase, but has ended up on my shelves, read and reread. And in the process, purchase a book or two that made some money for B&N, a publisher, and an author.
I don’t even know if my local B&N has a remainders shelf anymore. Why? Partly because I have retired and no longer have time to loll around in bookstores. When I was working for the man, after work was after work and I could stop in at B&N if I felt like it because I could. Now, I have so many projects, I have to schedule every day like the run-up to a major release. But it is also because Amazon has gotten better at approximating the browsing experience on line. I just don’t have a reason to stop by B&N.
Okay, B&N. Step up or die. Give me a reason to stop at your store. I still buy books, both digital and physical. I pass your store two or three times a week. Make it convenient for me to stop in to pick up a book at lower cost than waiting for USPS or Fedex to deliver it. Figure out some fantastic display that makes me want to come in and download a book onto my device in your store. Like many people, I now read more on my tablet and phone than Kindle. Take advantage of that.
Put on an event that draws me in. Make B&N the place to go to buy independent and small publisher books. Do something exciting with POD.
These things are doable, but I have a strong feeling that you have already decided to shrivel up and die. Your choice B&N.
Agree with you on all points. You’ve captured it. Even if they had only the smallest spark of desire in them to survive, they could select a few stores and really change it up in big ways to see if it works. But they haven’t.
There’s no big kiosk with four sides and four big screens that allows readers to virtually browse all their holdings and purchase right there for their device.
There’s no big concept store where they have a POD machine behind a glass divider so people can see their books being made (as well as those for delivery).
There’s no tailoring for a local based on what they purchase online so that what’s stocked is what sells. There’s no local author section other than a one-off from big pub. There’s no rotating book club cubbies.
So many things can be done, but they can’t be done on an one-size-fits-all basis. That’s what they don’t get and don’t seem to want to do.
It’s a big shame. Even if they just spent the ducats to re-vamp their e-store into something special with great searching, it would be something. But…no.
A POD machine that was interesting to watch and allowed people to immediately buy books they’d otherwise have to wait to have delivered seems like an obvious thing to try. But maybe POD printers are too expensive still, and indie books too little in demand to the physical-bookstore-shopping crowd, that it’s too big a financial risk. If so, that’s unfortunate.
I think the publishers themselves are partly to blame for the downfall of Barnes and Noble and brick-and-mortar non-used-book stores in general. Speaking solely from the perspective of someone who mostly goes into Barnes and Noble nowadays to find new science-fiction/fantasy — I rarely find anything I want to bother reading. Maybe I’m getting jaded in my old age, but a lot of the stuff being published these days seems like the literary equivalent of a summer blockbuster popcorn movie — all flash and no substance. Been there, done that. Written to the latest trend. Lately I find myself returning to books I read twenty or thirty years ago, in my youth. It’s been long enough that I’m able to reread them with fresh eyes, and for the most part, they’ve held up over the years. Writers today, myself included, just don’t compare to what was being published decades ago. No one has proven capable enough at the craft and imagination to replace the likes of Robert Silverberg, Jack Vance, and all the other past masters of the genre. There was just too much good stuff published in the past, and if the present publishing world can’t provide me with overwhelming quality to equal or surpass the past, then I’m just going to delve back into my collection for a reading experience that I know won’t let me down, and Barnes and Noble won’t get my money. The way I see it, writers today aren’t competing for the readers’ eyes with each other; they’re competing with the masters of the past. Multiply me by tens of thousands and I think that is the real problem Barnes and Noble is facing.
That is almost certainly true of SF&F. Would take a long discussion with many voices to confirm, though.
If we go by the data from Author Earnings, tradpub SF has only produced a handful of new author *careers* in the last decade and their share of all SF&F sales has declined noticeably. And, once we factor in that SF&F is very respectful of the deep backlist, which is all tradpub there would seem to be very little in the way of new voices and especially new ideas coming via that route.
Personally, I am buying zero tradpub SF other than BAEN and a few APub titles. I simply have zero interest in anything they might have to say regardless of whether it be good, bad, or indifferent. My reasons are more consumerist than anything else, though. Too many of those folks took public positions during the Conspiracy, the Hachette catfight, and the Puppy wars that…let’s say they annoyed me and leave it at that.
Between BAEN monthly bundles, my ridiculous TBR list, my accumulation of rereadable titles, and the titles coming out of Indie Inc I have no shortage of good reads. Whether it be extensions to old series, culture war screeds, or “reimaginings” of classics that don’t need reimagining, I’m done with the lot. I wish no one ill but they will simply get no more money from me. I will not support those publishers and if that’s the company they keep…
Looking for new SF at B&N is what made me realize their entire model is built around “close enough.” Need a gift for someone, “Eh, they might like this book.” Looking for something new to read? “Nothing’s exactly what I want, but this book looks okay.”
Want to find something really specific? “I’m looking for a story featuring AIs, but with a bit of a positive turn, and no apocalyptic endings.” Amazon is where you have to go.
I would even say Amazon is the only place to go for new SF if you’re a big reader. There’s more variety than the mainstream publishers, and it comes out much faster. Nothing agonizes me more than a favorite author saying, “I’ve finished the sequel, turned it in, and it’ll be on the shelves eight months from now.” “Indie publish! You get (a lot) more money, you”ll get it quicker, and the fans get the book much sooner.”
Though to be fair, a lot of trad pub authors are locked into contracts where the publishers own the world they want to write in, so they have no chance to go indie with those stories.
As a life-long SF reader, I hear you loud and clear. As a SF writer, I relish the freedom not to pitch every single blooming idea to an editor who can only think of knock-offs as money makers. Being indie has freed a lot of SF writers who were in that bind. With aq-editors only thinking of popcorn movies, it’s no surprise that the pickings are getting less and less meaty.
So, as a reader and a writer, I’m adoring the indie scene. So many good books to discover and savor.
Editor: It has a spaceship in it. David Weber already writes that.
Author: This isn’t military sci-fi, it’s exploration.
Editor: The audience won’t know the difference.
(6 months later)
Editor: It needs a spaceship, they’re in right now.
Author: But you said…
Editor: Well your other book wasn’t good enough. Write something else and we’ll look at selling it in three years.
What I used to wonder, for a while, was the Hugos. Were editors at a certain publisher pandering to a specific clique or were they just gaming the voting?
Not that I cared that much. I stopped caring well before the puppy wars.
Now the answer no longer matters.
I’ve been reading more indie, too. Even the tradpub authors that, a couple years ago, were insta-buys for me are now borrows or wait-for-it-to-go-on-sales. And pretty much forget about any new authors. All New York wants to put out these days, even in SF/F, are hyper-liberal, “literary” boring nonsense or boring write-to-trend crap full of plot holes. I’m sure there are rare exceptions, but I’ve got too much of a reading backlog to spend much time poking through and trying to find anything new I want to read. And I’d much rather spend that time finding new indie authors to support anyway.
I think the publishers themselves are partly to blame for the downfall of Barnes and Noble and brick-and-mortar non-used-book stores in general. Speaking solely from the perspective of someone who mostly goes into Barnes and Noble nowadays to find new science-fiction/fantasy — I rarely find anything I want to bother reading. Maybe I’m getting jaded in my old age, but a lot of the stuff being published these days seems like the literary equivalent of a summer blockbuster popcorn movie — all flash and no substance. Been there, done that. Written to the latest trend. Lately I find myself returning to books I read twenty or thirty years ago, in my youth. It’s been long enough that I’m able to reread them with fresh eyes, and for the most part, they’ve held up over the years. Writers today, myself included, just don’t compare to what was being published decades ago. No one has proven capable enough at the craft and imagination to replace the likes of Robert Silverberg, Jack Vance, and all the other past masters of the genre. There was just too much good stuff published in the past, and if the present publishing world can’t provide me with overwhelming quality to equal or surpass the past, then I’m just going to delve back into my collection for a reading experience that I know won’t let me down, and Barnes and Noble won’t get my money. Multiply me by tens of thousands and I think that is the real problem Barnes and Noble is facing.
The flagship Chapters in downtown Vancouver (opened with two floors, two Starbucks with a huge upstairs seating area for Starbucks) closed about two years ago. Before the end, they removed all the chairs and told me more than once that I wasn’t allowed to sit on the floor.
When it first opened, there was an upstairs Chapters with seating for 4 dozen people that never had available seats because they wouldn’t ask people who were using it without purchasing Starbucks to leave. (Their seating had become a library alternate for our very large population of ESL students and ESL tutors).
After the upstairs Starbucks died (who wants to buy a drink and then stand there to drink it) they put a long table in which was a nice place to check out books and for people to read magazines they weren’t going to pay for. The racks were always full of dog-eared magazines.
We have a new, much smaller Indigo downtown. There’s nowhere to sit and the magazines are just across from the cashiers desk so they are in excellent condition. And there’s no home decor, just books. They don’t have the same large selection, but I like going there. And I imagine it’s much more profitable than the last store.
I am with those who believe that Riggio and other shareholders are trying to extract as much cash as they can before B&N seeks shelter in Chapter 7. However, I am fascinated by how the big publishers view the endgame. Are they content to prop up B&N as long as they can even though they will eventually take a bath when B&N goes bankrupt? Do they even have a plan B?
Plan B is praying from an intervention from above…
…the 49th parallel.
They *hope* Indigo will fill the coming void.
But as Hal Jordan once said, “Hope is sitting around doing nothing, waiting for someone else to solve your problem.”
(During THE DARKEST NIGHT, by Geoff Johns. Coming to a movie theater sometime next decade.)
That would be BLACKEST NIGHT, of course. Duh.
Plan B is a reserve account on the balance sheet anticipating an eventual loss if B&N folds.
It’s a great game. The final play of the game is a loss for the publishers, but all the plays up to that point are profitable.
Suppose you are playing a game where you make $5 each month. But at the end of the game, you know you will lose $100. And quitting the game early will trigger the $100 loss. You don’t know how long the game will last. What do you do?
This is the kind of thing managers operating in a declining market have to deal with. It’s a whole different approach than riding an expanding market.
Let the games begin.
Okay, so this makes sense. And from the publishers’ point of view, you don’t want to do anything that will trigger a run on the bank, so to speak. In public, you totally go along with the perception that B&N is still in the book-selling business, as opposed to the winddown and cash extraction business.
Doing nothing is cheaper, too.
No need to offer up any extra coop money or other forms of promotional support while they whine and wring their hands over Amazon eating B&N’s lunch.
They too are extracting whatever value is left in the zombie and letting the future take care of itself.
So, on the one hand we have the literati saying the only way to discover good reads is aimlessly wander the stacks at B&M stores until you find something you like and on the other hand business insiders say that people aimlessly wandering the stacks doesn’t lead to sales and is killing B&N.
Now I’m really confuuused!
😉
“Now I’m really confuuused!”
We have a winner!
B&N only want confused people shopping there – they’ve found that only the confused/deranged/mentally unstable are willing to buy books there … 😉
That would explain their troubles.
Too bad I’m now in one of the ex-Borders territories B&N never saw fit to colonize. Which ceded the entire region to Amazon by default…
…and explains even more of their troubles.
Haha, yep. We used to have a big Borders and a Borders Express. Now we have nothing but a handful of indie shops. But we do still have those, so all isn’t lost yet. (Even though only one of them is one I like to go into, since the others are overpriced, poorly organized, too smug, and/or aggressively liberal.)
The politicized ones I can stand, more or less, but the smug ones are one-and-done. No deal, either.
So, on the one hand we have the literati saying the only way to discover good reads is aimlessly wander the stacks at B&M stores…
We discover books not though aimless wandering, but because of the very presence of the literati. They create a cultural ambiance transcending the vulgarity of the times, and connecting us to our shared literary heritage.
God Bless elbow patches, Moleskines, and eight foot scarves.
Blearrghhh…
.
.
.
That was pushing it a wee bit too far for my delicate stomach.
Urghhh!
I better go lie down a while.
eight-foot scarves.
Isadora Duncan.
B&N spent about 5 years from 2011-16 being as unfriendly to people browsing or staying as possible. It’s when we stopped going. They moved all the chairs to one section of the store (the section without outlets) put up signs in the cafe that said “No sitting without purchasing” and removed all the benches from the isles. My wife and I used to go every weekend with the kids. They would inevitably pick out a book they wanted. After a few hours of reading, I’d find something I wanted as well.
B&N started discouraging that. They all but told people to stop doing that… and guess what, they did. Now I understand they’re trying to be a bookstore again and I hope it works out for them. But I’m not in the habit of visiting anymore. They didn’t want me to be and they got their wish.
Like best buy suddenly being ‘out of stock’ if the sales idiot couldn’t get you to agree to monster cables and the extended warranty – or radio shack demanding your phone number every time you tried to buy something, B&N taught you (and many others) to not bother with them.
There is not and never was any ‘battle with Amazon’, B&N basically said ‘take them – we don’t want their business’ and old Jeff said ‘sure – why not?’
We don’t have a B&N nearby, so the issue is somewhat moot, but whenever I do wander into a B&N, I typically look at the sale shelves (more often than not, I don’t find anything, since it seems mostly to be populated with B&N’s own proprietary collections and pop fic people have tired of) and then I’ll browse around the genres I’m interested in. But unless I find something that excites me enough that I absolutely must read it right now, I don’t typically buy. Why pay full price? Even if I want to avoid Amazon, I can probably get my local indie shop to order it, and then I can get 25% off by using trade-in credit. (Plus support a local small business.)
One time (and this must have been during their “don’t sit anywhere” period), I was visiting my brother and needed to meet him somewhere. The B&N was easy, so we picked there. I ended up needing to wait for him for 30-45 minutes. I wandered around a bit, finally wanting to just sit and wait. I couldn’t find a blasted chair anywhere. At least not one that was unoccupied. I sat on the floor for a while before finally a piece of furniture became available. I think I ended up buying a bookmark, just out of guilt for taking up B&N’s airspace.
I never get the negative talk about Best Buy, though. I always have pretty good experiences there. I don’t know if the ones I’ve gone to have been better than others, or if I’m young enough and competent-looking enough (or maybe it’s just my face?) that no one ever tries to pull that kind of stuff with me. If my grandma or parents are trying to buy something there, I’m usually nearby and wandering in and out of their conversation to catch any attempted unnecessary upsells. Even then, I’ve never had them claim to be out of stock on something because we didn’t take the upsell. (In fact, when I went in recently and specifically asked a salesman what the difference was between two external hard drives that had the same size but different prices, he flat out told me there was no difference and I should buy the cheaper one.)