Borders Bookstore closes down (invasion, economy, government, New York)
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I used to go to a Borders in Seattle in the mid-nineties. Beautiful store, books galore. But how can they compete with Amazon, where you can buy the same books online for less, much less if you buy used?
It couldn't just be that they're going out of business because they can't compete in the market, huh?
Barnes and Noble has the market pinned on college textbooks. Almost every bookstore in a university is owned by B&N. I don't think Borders stood a chance against that kind of cornering. Shame, because I like Borders more than Barnes and Noble. Better coffee, better selection, cheaper prices.
Bookstores are a funny thing. I remember when the big names in bookstores (Walden, Crown, etc). closed. Some blamed the newfangled thing called Amazon. Then they came back in vogue with both Borders and a Barnes and Noble popping up everywhere. Now, the cycle is down again.
I think we will see more of this during the recession. At some level, nice hardcover books are a luxury. You can always go to the library. My wife reads three times as many books as, me, and buy 1/20th as many. She always has a full library bag.
It will be interesting to hear the post-mortem. Bad business decisions? Too much niche overlap with Barnes and Noble? Amazon? All of the above.
Appliances? No recession there. My washer and dryer just bit the dust. I'll be pirating the savings to replace them. aarrrgggg!
Borders lost my business after several times trying to find a book on my own using the pre-arranged topic categories....only to find that the book I was looking for was off in some far off completely irrelevant category of books on the other side of the store. That's after I had to track down an associate to look it up in the system to find it.
I've never had that problem at Barnes & Noble. Their categories and cataloging make much more sense.
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