November 25, 2009

Brick and mortar chains suffering at home and abroad

by

While Borders UK didn’t go into bankruptcy yesterday as expected (but is about to, according to article after article), we here in the US are heading into what is supposed to be the year’s busiest few days of retail — first is Black Friday (brick and mortar’s busiest day), followed by Black Monday (online’s biggest day) — with some grim news ….

As reported in this Associated Press wire story by Mae Anderson, the nation’s two biggest chain retailers, Borders and Barnes & Noble, “both posted quarterly losses Tuesday and forecast a difficult holiday season, saying competition from discount chains and online retailers is stiffening. Barnes & Noble, the larger of the two, also cut its forecast for annual profit, and shares of both retailers fell.” (Borders UK, by the way, is no longer owned by Borders US.)

The price war between Amazon, Walmart and Target had a big part in that, say some analysts, but B&N CEO Stephen Riggio disagrees, says those charges are “overblown”: “Best sellers represent less than 5 percent of our sales and among these very top best sellers less than 1 percent of our sales.”

Hard to believe, seeing as how you have to climb over piles of bestsellers in most B&N’s to get to the other books, but in any event, one other development wasn’t helping the chain either: They ran out of Nooks, the e-reader the company is banking heavily on. “… it said orders had exceeded expectations and those placed beginning Nov. 20 would be filled Jan. 4 or later.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.

  • http://www.brendanmcnallyauthor.com brendan mcnally

    The brick and mortar bookstores are closing here and in canada and the UK. But they’re not closing in Germany. Germany is full of small independant bookstores, where you can buy poetry and books that aren’t all mainstream and they’re not going out of business.

    And Why is That????

  • http://www.brendanmcnallyauthor.com brendan mcnally

    The brick and mortar bookstores are closing here and in canada and the UK. But they’re not closing in Germany. Germany is full of small independant bookstores, where you can buy poetry and books that aren’t all mainstream and they’re not going out of business.

    And Why is That????

  • Suzanne L.

    I recently read about a very old bookstore in a village in France that was about to close. The townspeople got together, raised something like $70,000, and bought the it. Having a bookstore in town was too important to them to let it fail.

    So maybe it’s a European thing.

  • Suzanne L.

    I recently read about a very old bookstore in a village in France that was about to close. The townspeople got together, raised something like $70,000, and bought the it. Having a bookstore in town was too important to them to let it fail.

    So maybe it’s a European thing.

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