Another recap and analysis of the Borders downfall. One item of note — half of Borders outlets were still quite profitable at the time they declared bankruptcy. #ddtb
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The End of Borders and the Future of Books – BusinessWeek
An inside look at the real reasons for the once-beloved chain's demise
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I didn't read the article, but before they closed a bunch down this year I did read one talking about why it failed. One of the reasons wasn't that no one was buying books, but they kept opening bookstores with crazy long leases…and when the stores weren't doing well they were stuck with the buildings for 10-15 years so they were hemorrhaging money. Even if they closed the stores they were in contract for the buildings. Add to the fact that they didn't come out with their version of an eReader soon enough to compete…they kinda signed their own death warrant.
Yeah, they made a lot of mistakes — getting in late to the ebook market, getting in very late to online retailing, dubious property choices with very long leases. There were a bunch of corporate-level issues that cause problems, too.
But as the profitability number I mentioned indicates, it's not significantly a matter of people not buying books any more. Which is a bit of a relief.
I keep wondering – what happens when there is nowhere to browse? As long as you are prepared to only have the Dan Browns and JK Rowlings, then some books will be sold. Few decent authors will never get published.
Agreed. We don't even have an Ereader… we prefer books. We keep talking that we don't know what we will do if the B&N close to us closes.
The counterweight to that is the rise of indy publishing. The key is going to be figuring out what’s good to pick up …
Well, Amazon ships everywhere …