
Borders stalls book payments, doubts survival in e-book era - andre3k1
http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/12/31/borders.delays.book.payments.in.financial.deals/
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bphogan
The problem is that bookstores charge too much money.

Borders will sell my book for $49 when it comes out, whereas you can preorder
it from Amazon for around $22 which is about what it costs to buy the ebook
copy right from the publisher. Then my book won't sell because it's too
expensive, so we'll have to buy it _back_ from Borders and I'll get charged
against my royalties for a "return".

It's not e-books, it's that the prices are too high. Amazon has every book
Borders has, and if I ship the thing overnight I still end up with a cheaper
copy than it would cost to buy it across town.

Going out of business is the result of not meeting customer demand, either in
terms of relevance, quality, or in this case, price.

~~~
w1ntermute
> The problem is that bookstores charge too much money.

What exactly do you expect them to do? Do you have any idea of the overhead of
running a bookstore? It's easy to say that Borders should match Amazon's
price, but if you take one look at an Amazon fulfillment center, you'll see a
gap that simply can't be closed.

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shpxnvz
_What exactly do you expect them to do? Do you have any idea of the overhead
of running a bookstore?_

I suppose he expects them to go out of business. The cost of operating a
bookstore is irrelevant to the buyer - if the overhead is such that they can't
either compete on price or otherwise differentiate their product or experience
to justify the cost difference, then abandoning the business model seems like
the only choice.

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tjr
I still buy printed books. I almost never buy any books at a major book retail
store like Borders or BN because they carry very very little that I am
interested in buying. They used to stock more that I was interested in, but
their stock has changed over the years. I suppose they were aiming for a more
middle-of-the-road, palatable-to-all sort of stock selection, but I for one
have basically been driven away.

I initially reason, well, I must be a very unusual shopper. I buy a lot of
books on programming topics, math, science, etc., and I eschew with passion
anything written for dummies, idiots, fools, or morons.

But then I wonder, am I really so unusual? I'm not an expert historian, but I
enjoy studying history, and I'm disappointed with the local store's selection
of history books about as much as I am with their technology books. I enjoy
studying linguistics, and have watched the store's linguistics section melt
away into nothingness. I enjoy science fiction, but am dismayed to see shelves
of fantasy displace books by my favorite authors.

I can't really speak for every subject matter, but for pretty much every topic
I want to read about, the big chain bookstores seem to be dwindling their
stock, and smoothing out what little they do carry to appeal to some unknown
typical readership.

If this is indeed true of all (or even most) of the subjects of books they
carry, then I find it hard to believe that anyone who truly enjoys reading
books is content with what they carry. Which leaves... people who really
aren't very fond of books to peruse the shelves? I don't know. It doesn't make
any sense to me.

I would greatly enjoy doing more book shopping in person. I seem to be good
enough at searching Amazon to come up with good books sight unseen, but I'd
like to go browse in the store, if only the store had books in stock that I'd
want to browse.

~~~
klbarry
Not to mention, even if Borders had it, Amazon would be cheaper anyway, and
Amazon's reviews are a huge source of book information to me.

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wyclif
Amazon reviews are seriously broken. I'm surprised anyone would want to defend
them other than Amazon employees or partners.

Sure, there are some good reviews on Amazon by credible critics and book
lovers, but they have increasingly become like searching for a needle in a
stack of needles. Most reviews I read, even on academic books that the hoi
polloi don't read much, variate a great deal and swing wildly between 5 star
ratings and 0. They are also filled with petty invective, academic flame wars
that have no place on a good review site, and authors faking reviews for their
own books (or those of their scholastic rivals).

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robryan
I find them generally informative, it depends on the book I guess. If
something has 20+ reviews you can easily get a pretty good feel for it. I'd
agree with you on obscure stuff with only a handful of reviews. As long as you
don't have to trust any single reviewer there is a lot of good information to
be had, same with IMDB really, every popular movie has reviews at each
extreme, but given enough choice in reviews you can get a decent feel for it.

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frisco
The Barnes and Noble I used to go to all the time in Manhattan will be closing
January 3rd. It's really sad. The economics are fairly straightforward:
_physical stores cannot compete with the internet for goods sold._ However,
I'd only buy something on perhaps one-fifth of my visits. What they really had
was an atmosphere, and the coffeeshop / bookstore experience is something
Amazon can never sell.

They need to make a pivot into selling an experience, which is obviously
harder to monetize than sold goods. But it's certainly possible (see:
Starbucks) and it's something a lot of people are willing to pay for.

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kongqiu
What is the future of bookselling? As much as I understand the efficiencies of
Amazon, browsing through a bookstore can't be replaced by online; it's a
different experience.

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Qz
I'm under thirty, but I can't stand e-books and will be reading from dead
trees until they stop printing on them.

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wyclif
Voted you up because I like the sentiment behind your comment and love printed
books, but I still am eco-friendly enough to think it's better to not cut down
the trees if we don't have to.

~~~
anigbrowl
Books are kept, usually. Magazines are a far greater waste of paper - though
that said, most paper is from farmed wood nowadays.

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yesno
Sometime I wonder what would happen in the near-future?

Many brick-n-mortar stores (musics/cd, books, video-rental) where people used
to sort of hang-out are now closing their doors and filing bankruptcy. Many
young people are losing their jobs.

A few days ago I saw Amazon selling video games about $10 cheaper than EBGames
(this particular game: Call of Duty Black Ops).

These are places where kids and teenagers used to hang out or even work during
the summer.

Automation is replacing humans. Not sure if that's good or bad.

As much as I'd like to buy items cheaper, I'm a bit worried with the
repercussion of my action.

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fingerprinter
I haven't bought a book in a store since probably 1999. I remember buying from
bookpool.com when they were around and had the cheapest tech books.

Recently Amazon has basically dominated this market and has eaten the B&M
stores lunches, as far as I am concerned. The best thing Amazon ever did was
launch the ratings and reviews and get tons of people to add valuable content
to their site and augment the one huge disadvantage they had over B&M; you
can't tell if the book was any good. I find the ratings and reviews are as
valuable, if not more, than me briefly looking through the book myself.

Now, I don't think ebooks have much to do with this at all as I don't see
ebooks selling nearly as well as people think they will sell. I personally
hate reading in that format and will continue to buy books to read as I find
the experience much more enjoyable and maintainable. Thinks like Safari online
are just AWFUL ways to consume material, IMO. The only reason I have ebooks is
if I travel and want to have something to read on my iPad instead of carrying
4-6 books with me.

Oh yeah, and don't get me started on the price of most technical ebooks!

All in all...B&M stores like Borders are dying b/c they couldn't or wouldn't
adapt in the face of someone like Amazon who is better at the modern game than
they are. This is very much like Netflix v Blockbuster...

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rmason
Our local bookstore (part of a regional chain) has three times the shelf space
for Manga than they do for computer books.

I used to like browsing in bookstores but now its like they don't want my
business. Why should I have the bookstore order something for me? I pay more
than Amazon and they add no value - that's why they're failing.

~~~
jamesbritt
"Why should I have the bookstore order something for me? I pay more than
Amazon and they add no value ..."

They add value by allowing you to physically browse through books to see what
they're like.

I buy some books based on author or recommendation, but otherwise I'd prefer
to be able to flip through a book (a, no, "Look Inside!" isn't the same) to
get a feel for it.

There's also the serendipity factor you get just from wandering around a book
store, picking stuff up because the cover caught your eye or whatever.

The problem for the bookstore is all of that is available to people whether
they make a purchase or not, so they end up being the display room for Amazon.

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QuantumGood
Starbucks should sell more books, and find the right size for their "mega
store"...which would basically be the size of the old small neighborhood
bookstores. They have the atmosphere similar to what people loved about old
small neighborhood bookstores.

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DanielBMarkham
I was just telling my wife this morning that the book business has changed
radically -- there's been a seismic shift in the last year.

I don't see how the brick-and-mortar guys are going to do it. Even if you
charged more and offered a high-touch experience, folks will just come in,
browse the books, then scan them on their iPhone and buy them on the net.

Ebooks throws an even bigger monkey wrench into the works.

Major changes are coming.

~~~
oiuytyuioiuy
Some bricks and mortar stores are doing fine, the local shops that stock local
books and local authors and sell used books are doing great. Amazon gives them
a global market for their used stock.

The chains that campaigned against net price agreements and talked about
business and not being sentimental are no complaining about ebooks, Amazon and
supermarkets - well tough

