Barnes & Noble, the largest book store company in the U.S., recently disclosed that sales from Nov. 1, 2009 to Jan. 2, 2010 were down 5% to $1.1 billion. Same-store sales were off 5.1%. Barnes $ Noble is up against a rapid increase in book sales over the internet which is dominated by Amazon and includes large retailers such as Wal-Mart. The rise of the e-reader and e-books is also in the process of undermining “bricks-and-mortar” book buying traffic. BKS peer Borders recently closed 200 of its Waldenbooks outlets and fired 1,500 people. Barnes & Noble has 775 outlets and 636 college bookstore. BKS will have to push online sales, marketing of it Nook e-reader, and close at least 100 stores.
Simply put, in the near future all Barnes and Noble stores could be out of business… Along with Borders.
I've never bought from B&N, simply because I'm not a US resident, but I can imagine many people would be devastated to see it go. It's a bit sad that e-books & e-readers are rapidly becoming more common and more popular...
ReplyDeleteI buy from Barnes and Nobles a few times, but because they don't really do very good coupons (10% off), I also go to Borders (33% coupons). I really hope that none of these bookstores go out of business. I don't own an Ereader and don't like them nearly as much as a real book.
ReplyDeleteI did and do buy from them. but only like 2 times a year. I HATE Ereaders when I could just have the real book.
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