Borders is dead

Jstas

http://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/Borders-seeks-approval-to-liquidate-1471467.php

There will be no storybook ending for Borders. The 40-year-old book seller could start shuttering its 399 remaining stores as early as Friday.

The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based chain, which helped pioneer the big-box bookseller concept, is seeking court approval to sell off its assets after it failed to receive any bids that would keep it in business. The move adds Borders to the list of retailers that have failed to adapt to changing consumers' shopping habits and survive the economic downturn, including Circuit City Stores Inc., Blockbuster and Linens 'N Things.

On Thursday, Borders is expected to ask the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of New York at a scheduled hearing to allow it to be sold to liquidators led by Hilco Merchant Resources and Gordon Brothers Group. If the judge approves the move, liquidation sales could start as soon as Friday; the company could go out of business by the end of September.

Kind of a drag.

dkg999

Amazon wins, unfortunately.

AsSiMiLaTeD

It's not just Amazon, it's their unwillingness to jump on board the 21st century, namely the eReader game. Barnes & Noble is doing ok last time I checked, and I'd suspect their Nook has some relation to that.

Joe08867

Borders has been going down for a while. I used to find some of the best music there.

It is a shame when a real store goes down though. I like to see and touch what I am buying. Call me crazy...

tonyb

I have a huge Borders close to my house. Over the years,everytime I went in there for a book, it was never available in store, only online. Then whats the point of a huge store ?
Plus they were pretty biased as to what recently released titles they would put on display when you walked in. I'm wondering if certain publishers paid x amount more than others for certain titles or if they were just biased to a degree that it was so obvious.

Either way, glad their gone, never cared for them that much anyway. Sure,alot of people will be out of work, but you would of had to be oblivious if you didn't see the writing on the wall years ago.

WilliamM2

Haven't been in one for 15 years or more, so I won't miss it. Too bad for 10,000+ employees though.

Jstas

dkg999 wrote: »

Amazon wins, unfortunately.

Actually, Borders has been mismanaged for years now. That and like assimilated said, slow to adapt new technologies killed them.

Amazon didn't kill Borders. Borders killed Borders. If anything, Barnes and Noble had more to do wit it than Amazon. B&N just offers a better experience IMO. I've never had a problem with one and they have never told me "We can't get that book." I've been treated like crap at Borders just because of teh books I was buying. I actually had a clerk, whom I asked to help me find G.W. Bush's book sneer at me and then dropped the book on the floor when I reached for it.

heiney9

I will miss grabing an Iced Mocha and sitting and reading all the magazines so I didn't have to buy them. Borders is a little closer to my house than B & N, where I can still go and read magazines for free.

H9

AsSiMiLaTeD

This is why I try to shop local as much as I can. Even if it costs me a few extra bucks I prefer to buy locally when I can, especially on things that I like to physically touch before I buy.

Stuff like books and music I'll buy from Amazon because i don't see the value in 'touching' those before I buy, but pretty much anything else I try to get locally unless it's either unavailable or prohibitively expensive.

It drives me crazy when I see people in Best Buy playing with a phone or whatever and then say they'll buy it on Amazon because they can save a few bucks. Everybody keeps doing that and eventually the local stores are going to go out of business and we won't be able to do that any more.

I'm always shocked at how short-sighted people can be.

mudwrx

Adapt or die.

polkatese

Borders used to carry a great selection of music/CDs, including a comprehensive section of Jazz. But their prices are significantly higher than Best Buy, by 20+ percents. Which is unfortunate since BB is located almost literally across the street. Before long, it removed the music and video sections for obvious reason.

It is unfortunate to lose them.

cfrizz

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

It's not just Amazon, it's their unwillingness to jump on board the 21st century, namely the eReader game. Barnes & Noble is doing ok last time I checked, and I'd suspect their Nook has some relation to that.

Jstas wrote: »

Actually, Borders has been mismanaged for years now. That and like assimilated said, slow to adapt new technologies killed them.

Amazon didn't kill Borders. Borders killed Borders. If anything, Barnes and Noble had more to do wit it than Amazon. B&N just offers a better experience IMO. I've never had a problem with one and they have never told me "We can't get that book." I've been treated like crap at Borders just because of teh books I was buying. I actually had a clerk, whom I asked to help me find G.W. Bush's book sneer at me and then dropped the book on the floor when I reached for it.

This is precisely right. Borders was Johnny come lately to get on board with ebooks, and by the time they did, it was too little too late.

The problem with finding the books that you want is because the stores are only pushing the types of books they think will sell, also with lack of space, they can't keep titles on the shelves for any great length of time so they have to move them out for the next big book.

B&N isn't in the best of shape either, but they are hanging in at least for now.

The next big battle will be over the drm of ebooks & the price fixing of ebooks going on by the big publishers. Ebooks are not allowed to be discounted at all, and are usually more expensive then their paperback counterpart. This was brought about because Amazon was willing to sell $9.99 new release bestseller ebooks and the publishers didn't like it.

The bargains with ebooks are with lesser known writers and with small publishing houses. This is where I do my shopping for books.

All those who have purchased Kindles and Nooks are pretty much locked into these 2 stores for their books and readers, especially the Kindles, since unless you strip the drm you can't move the books over to any other reader. While the Nook has it's own epub drm, which doesn't allow their books to be read on any other reader, but the Nook will read their own version, plus the standard Adobe drm.

This is why I didn't get either one of these readers. I'll never get a Kindle, and will may think about the Nook when my Sony bites the dust.

Hopefully by then, they will have a standard format for ebooks.

tonyb

Jstas wrote: »

Actually, Borders has been mismanaged for years now. That and like assimilated said, slow to adapt new technologies killed them.

Amazon didn't kill Borders. Borders killed Borders. If anything, Barnes and Noble had more to do wit it than Amazon. B&N just offers a better experience IMO. I've never had a problem with one and they have never told me "We can't get that book." I've been treated like crap at Borders just because of teh books I was buying. I actually had a clerk, whom I asked to help me find G.W. Bush's book sneer at me and then dropped the book on the floor when I reached for it.

Same experience at mine bro. They definately pushed a political bias. Never a problem at B&N, no attitudes, biases, displayed everything as they should be.
Like you said, a better experience.

Don't know who owns Borders, or even care, so long Borders,wish I could say it's been nice, but it hasn't.

bobman1235

heiney9 wrote: »

I will miss grabing an Iced Mocha and sitting and reading all the magazines so I didn't have to buy them. Borders is a little closer to my house than B & N, where I can still go and read magazines for free.

I wonder why that business model doesn't lead to huge successes for them?

cfrizz

tonyb wrote: »

Same experience at mine bro. They definately pushed a political bias. Never a problem at B&N, no attitudes, biases, displayed everything as they should be.
Like you said, a better experience.

Don't know who owns Borders, or even care, so long Borders,wish I could say it's been nice, but it hasn't.

They were originally started by 2 brothers I believe and they sold the stores out to K-Mart I think. Naturally once a big corp takes over they don't give a *hit about anything except their stock price, and mismanagement ensues. Hence only selling best sellers, over expanding with too many stores etc.

dkg999

dkg999 wrote: »

Amazon wins, unfortunately.

My comment was more focused on business models versus the specific reasons for Borders demise.

The internet business model is a game changer and traditional retailers are still struggling with adapting. I'm remodelling a house and because I have to pay my subs for installation I'm ordering more over the internet, things like water heaters, HVAC, electrical supplies, etc, than from big box or local building supply stores because it's cheaper for better stuff and no tax and shipping costs. Sad but true. I just ordered carpet and vinyl at 40% of the cost locally, for much higher grade stuff.

headrott

IMO Borders is overpriced (at least for movies and CD's), even though they do have relatively good selection. They carry many Criterion Collection movies for example. But, they are at full list price, unfortunately.

Greg

heiney9

Another thing for brick and mortar stores is buyers adapting to not needing it "right now". I know of atleast a couple times I've been in a B&M store looking at the item right in front of me, then using my Droid X to look up on-line pricing to find it 40-60% less and ordering it on the spot while standing in the B&M store; willing to wait.

H9

dkg999

They've put up signs in all our local stores with a picture of H9 and a warning to not spend time helping him and to take away his cell phone :eek:

fatchowmein

Same experience here with the poor service at Borders compared to a trouble-free, loitering encouraged B&N experience. I did have a fav Borders and a B&N store both with a huge selection of classical music only to see them massively reduced to make room for severely overpriced Bluray movies. I have yet to step into a Borders since then but I still like to loiter at B&N.

zombie boy 2000

Wow. I can't say I'm surprised with the current climate, but the Borders near me is always REALLY busy.
There's always a ridiculous wait in line to make a purchase as well - so it's not just people browsing.

maximillian

cfrizz wrote: »

All those who have purchased Kindles and Nooks are pretty much locked into these 2 stores for their books and readers, especially the Kindles, since unless you strip the drm you can't move the books over to any other reader. While the Nook has it's own epub drm, which doesn't allow their books to be read on any other reader, but the Nook will read their own version, plus the standard Adobe drm.

See here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats#Supporting_Hardware

My wife has the Nook color and loves it. I can easily put text, PDF, HTML, and ePub ebooks on the device. She can also borrow books from our local library which uses Adobe DRM (which you mentioned). I believe BN uses the open ePub format whereas the Kindle uses it own format.

Both Amazon and BN have iOS applications to purchase and read their books. I would think that a generic Android app already exists or will be coming for both devices.

I still give the Nook color a slight advantage over the Kindle since it is more of a generic device (it runs Android). BN recently opened an app store for the Nook. The Kindle is very limited in what apps it can run due to their use of eInk. Of course, more generic Android and iOS devices may eventually win the hardware space. Whether or not Amazon and BN can keep their audiences at that point is still to be determined.

With all that said my wife does like purchasing from BN's website. They have many $0.99 books and have free book Fridays where she sometimes finds some gems. Kids books are nicer to read on the Nook since it's color. However kids books tend to be more expensive compared to physical copies. It might be OK on the Kindle app but I haven't looked into their offering.

Borders ignored this market and is now facing the consequences of that decision.

DMara

maximillian wrote: »

See here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats#Supporting_Hardware

My wife has the Nook color and loves it. I can easily put text, PDF, HTML, and ePub ebooks on the device. She can also borrow books from our local library which uses Adobe DRM (which you mentioned). I believe BN uses the open ePub format whereas the Kindle uses it own format.

Both Amazon and BN have iOS applications to purchase and read their books. I would think that a generic Android app already exists or will be coming for both devices.

I actually followed online instructions to root my wife's Nook Color and turn it into a tablet running Honycomb

George Grand

heiney9 wrote: »

Another thing for brick and mortar stores is buyers adapting to not needing it "right now". I know of atleast a couple times I've been in a B&M store looking at the item right in front of me, then using my Droid X to look up on-line pricing to find it 40-60% less and ordering it on the spot while standing in the B&M store; willing to wait.

H9

Does that thing let you order a magazine free of charge also?

cfrizz

maximillian wrote: »

See here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats#Supporting_Hardware

My wife has the Nook color and loves it. I can easily put text, PDF, HTML, and ePub ebooks on the device. She can also borrow books from our local library which uses Adobe DRM (which you mentioned). I believe BN uses the open ePub format whereas the Kindle uses it own format.

Thanks for that link Max!

BN's epub is not really open since you can't take any of their books and load them onto a Sony or Kobo etc. readers. Supposedly this is because Sony & Kobo don't want to purchase BN version from Adobe.

I hate all these companies trying to lock me into just using their stores, and I simply won't do it.

I would love to get a tablet, but right now all of them are too expensive, and the Nook color is a popular choice once you root it. But I'm not a root sort of person.

dkg999

Cathy - I've been using my Acer Iconia tablet as a reader with the Amazon and other e-reader Android apps. It's not a cheap tablet, however I've been impressed with its performance and am using it a lot more than I anticipated.

cnh

Borders is 40 years old? That's news to me. I remember all the great 'used' bookstores that you could find in NYC before the mid-80s or so. And that included the Barnes & Noble Sales Annex-which was a fantastic resource for students--you could find almost 'anything' in there at a great price before you had the internet. And I bet that their stock if it were still around would still be 'better' than what you can dig up on the web.

And let's not forget the Strand, etc. Ah, what a golden era that was! ebooks, OK--but there's a LOT of scanning that needs to be done there before that can match what I had access to years ago.

Borders? No real opinion there. But I have had the same experience as tonyb above!


cnh

heiney9

George Grand wrote: »

Does that thing let you order a magazine free of charge also?

No, but it also doesn't dispense over priced coffee drinks either. I figure $5-6 for a coffee drink allows me to look at some magazines guilt free. B&N actually encourages it.

H9

Jstas

zombie boy 2000 wrote: »

Wow. I can't say I'm surprised with the current climate, but the Borders near me is always REALLY busy.
There's always a ridiculous wait in line to make a purchase as well - so it's not just people browsing.

Down by me, there is a Borders across the street from a B&N. They get the same amount of traffic in and out but you rarely wait more than 5 minutes in line at B&N. Often times, I walk up to the line and am in front of a cashier immediately. They can handle anything from returns/exchanges to renewing frequent reader club memberships. At borders, the cashiers only cash out books and other merchandise.

The only time I've ever waited in line at a B&N is around Christmas time and they have 6-8 cashiers at the counter and still can't keep up with the number of people.



Oh and Doug, you can read magazines for free in the B&N too. they also, most of them at least, have coffee shops.

The other nice thing about B&N is that if you are in the store and they don't have the book you want on-hand, they will search other stores. If no one has it and they have it online, you can have it shipped straight to the B&N store usually free shipping. If they have at another store and you don't want to go to the other store, they will get it sent to the store you are at for you. Takes a couple days usually. B&N seems like they want you to buy stuff from them and they will make it as easy as necessary to do so. Borders, not so much.

And yes, I've noticed a similar political leaning as tonyb. In fact, there is a Borders a block from my building in Philly and I would rather walk 6 blocks to the Rittenhouse Square B&N to shop than go back in the Borders and be treated the way I was when getting the G.W. Bush book for my father.

dkg999

Jstas - it's H9 that reads the magazines for free at Borders and B&N. They won't let me take them into the bathroom to read, so I have to subscribe to the magazines I like.

And B&N has more outrageous CD/DVD prices than Borders! Not a huge B&N fan. Go Amazon!

cfrizz

dkg999 wrote: »

Cathy - I've been using my Acer Iconia tablet as a reader with the Amazon and other e-reader Android apps. It's not a cheap tablet, however I've been impressed with its performance and am using it a lot more than I anticipated.

They are supposed to be coming out with a 7" model sometime this year, I'm going to be checking it out.