Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

The Borders that I went to (infrequently) is closing; St. Paul University Av. But there's a nicer surviving one about 15 minutes north of there (Roseville) that will do in a pinch. The fact is that Borders is mostly a non-starter for me, DVD prices just not that compelling.

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

They are not closing Borders #1, the original, and flagship store. The store closing in Ann Arbor is the one at the Arborland Mall.

My point about Austin is that it's a vibrant, youth-oriented city, with intellectual types, and lots of creative-type people. It the kind of place you'd expect a CD/movie/book store with a coffee bar to do well. Bookstores can be social hubs as well as a place to make a quick retail transaction, although it seems the counter-culture spirit favors smaller, independent shops instead of national chains. Nothing wrong with that.

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

But these are not the people to actually SPEND money. These are the types of people that grab 20-40 books or magazines, sit down in the cafe, or an out of the way corner (sometimes not so out of the way) read through them, take notes, spill coffee on them, get food all over them, basically use Borders as a library, then walk out without a)returning any of these items to where they found them or even to an employee and b)buying anything other than a $3 drink.

I've lost count of how many people I helped get books, only to find the pile left on the floor an hour later, obviously read through (spines broken, pages torn) but none were taken to be bought.

I even read an article about 2 weeks ago where the journalist interviewed someone walking out of a Borders. Her quote basically was that she was really, really sad that the store would go out of business because where else would she be able to sit down and read her magazine in the cafe without having to buy it? To me, that kind of sums up the Borders' customer.

And honestly, I'm the first one to say that Borders encouraged this behavior. There's a reason they went into bankruptcy.

I see people complaining about prices...but honestly, in my opinion most of the BOOKS were fairly priced. Borders didn't set most of those prices, the publishers did. When you find things cheaper, companies are taking a loss to get people in the store and hoping that people buy more to cover that loss. Borders main sellers (which the main headquarters frequently forgot) were books. I'm a huge book buyer. Honestly, most books were about the same price no matter where you shopped. Even with Amazon, if you figured in shipping, the books were the same price. Most people also forget that buying items in store are more expensive because it DOES include shipping to that store, plus paying an employee to unpack it, place it on the shelf and then help customers find it there.

Online stores don't have to have that much hands on with an item and can cut costs there.

But Borders never had lower prices on their dvds, keeping to the MSRP. I would never buy new releases because they were super expensive. But until they cut their multimedia inventory, older titles were very competitively priced and in store. Most places around here, once a title went past a certain price, refused to carry older titles.

Am I surprised that Borders went into bankruptcy? No, only that it didn't happen sooner. Employees have seen the writing on the wall for years that this company was going downhill and yes, taking customer service with it. The company missed the boat several times and each time it put them behind their main competitor(s) leading them up to this point. The company also trained their customers that they didn't have to buy anything; they could read it right in store and if they wanted something, just wait a couple days and there would be a great coupon, so why buy more than one thing at once? Just wait and you'd get it cheaper than what the company bought it for. And that is no way to make money.

Okay, I think I'm done. lol. Even though I've not worked for them for over a year, I'm obviously still more affected than I thought.

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

Uh, no. At Amazon, you can buy $25 worth of book and not pay shipping. The big thing for me is tax. Tax here is 8.25%. That's $8.25 extra for every $100 in product according to my expert math. Amazon also sells the books for 30-50% off in most cases. Prices are not even close. If price is the only factor, Borders can't even argue.

People go to B&M bookstores to browse titles physically and find new items to read they would not have thought of. I'm guessing their downfall was customer service. I read that there were 27 employees per store in Austin losing jobs. That seems really low to run a 40,000 sq ft store 7 days a week. There could only be 10-12 employees (or less) working at any one time to cover 2 shifts and give 2 days off. 2-3 in the cafe... 3-4 at the register... so 3-4 people covering that area? Working in customer service, that just doesn't sound like enough.

Those few people also have to worry about stocking, cleaning up, and last on the list customer service... covering 10,000sq ft each. That's a big area. I can't tell you how many times I had to go from the top level (media) to the bottom level to find an employee to get a DVD/Blu-ray. People get annoyed at that. Especially old people who have $$$.

Not true. Up until about 2002-2003... Borders had very good prices on all their DVD media. Routinely beating normal prices at Best Buy in that time. I shopped there more than anywhere back in the day. Then one day it all came a'crashing down! :)

I think the real conundrum in any argument is Barnes & Noble. They stock just about the same items at the same prices... but thrive. Borders just make a lot of bad business decisions (Borders Rewards PLUS? Trying to ignore e-readers? High rent situations?)

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

The situation might be different now with the company filing bankruptcy.

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

But if you're only looking for one book, you have to pay shipping. Amazon is hoping you'll spend more to get the free shipping to cover it. Just like Borders threw out those coupons, hoping people would buy more than one item to cover the coupon. Though, you do save sales tax at Amazon. I'll give you that one!

I definitely agree with you about customer service. Borders cut hours and cut hours until there was no one left on the floor to answer questions or check people out. That was their first solution in trying to save money.

I guess I didn't buy that many DVDs from Borders back then. Most of the time I have, they were really expensive. But they were the place to go to for me when I was looking for something unusual or old.

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

well it was total pandamonium at the Friendship Heights store - "everything must go" - I think I was in line for a good 40 minutes, at least. A friend found some books, all I found that I had to have was the latest issue of Rue Morge (40% off) - decided to forego the Pixar Treasures book since there are better prices online and 20% off $60 MSRP isn't really a good deal anyway.

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

So how long until we actually see these locations shuttered?

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

Missing Daily/Weekly Sales Goals + Customers Not Buying Anything/Spending a lot less = Cut hours for Store X to run on

How can you have more employees in the store when you aren't making the money at the store level to pay for any hours?

I quit my position as an Operations Manager at Borders 9 months ago. Of the 2.5 years I worked there, the last 1.5 was run on a Skeleton Staff. Stores were constantly behind because in the blink of an eye, most overstaffed Borders stores where now running on next to nothing after Peak Hours had ended. Borders also made the mistake at the store level for allowing way too many Full-Time Employees. They were pretty much gobbling up all the hours you could split to younger Part-Timers, who were able to do so much more.

I am glad I left and went back to my old job. At the same time it's hellish trying to describe to anyone curious about Borders' inner workings, how terrible things had gotten (first hand) in the last 1.5 years.

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

Stories report end of April. Easter is April 24, and I would guess that as good a date as any.A thread in the DVD Bargain part of the forum is discussing this topic as well. One post was about the recent Princeton,NJ store closing this past Dec. into Jan. Granted,this was before the official bankruptcy announcement,but at the end, tons of "clearance" $9.99 titles blue stickered to $3.99 made up a lot of the space as real stock dwindled. In the meantime,prices of real merchandise never went below 40% and whole sections disappeared overnight, to be sent back to distribution.Hard to say with so many stores closing at once if that pattern continues,but there is logic to it.

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

Don't think I can agree, since I still see a chance of them getting hit down the road with bankruptcy, due to sites like Amazon surging for regular book and e-book sales. I think there's a chance that they may not file till 2012 or 2013, but I think it's only a question of when, not if B&N will file for bankruptcy. I will say that I don't believe their filing will happen this year, but who knows?

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

Borders in wappingers falls near me is going down. Amazing, as it's only 5 years old. That gives me another sale to go to.

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

I've never been in a Borders, but if they closed Barnes & Noble, THEN there'd be a problem.

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

Yeah, a lot of stuff is closing near me. This borders store as well as 3 blockbuster stores. Hope borders has good deals, as I am a rewards member.

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

I think that the bookstore model may not be around much longer.

The problem I see is that these stores are huge, and you have a handful of bestselling books that subsidize the rest of the store. Books, as far as I know, aren't particularly high profit items and most of the time these places sell bestsellers at 20-40% off, which has to cut into their margins. They'r operating these 10,000 square foot stores where 20% of the retail space accounts for 80% of your business.

I've never been one to jump onto the digital bandwagon (In the future you will download all of your music, books, and movies!) but now I almost see it as an inevitability, as physical media doesn't seem to be sustainable for much longer. We're seeing fewer and fewer chains that actually carry these things. Borders is closing stores, Ultimate Electronics and Circuit City recently went under, the big box stores killed the shopping mall book/music stores ten years ago, independent book and music stores are rarer now than they were fifteen years ago, and places like Wal-Mart have drastically cut their selection. Why keep pressing CDs and DVDs and printing books when there is nowhere to sell them?

Going to bookstores, video stores, and music stores is an experience that I'm truly sad to see go away.

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

I can't quite agree. There will always be people who like to hold books in their hands, read music lyrics & film essay booklets. Niche companies like Criterion & their buyers will ensure the survival of physical media.

As for independent book & music stores... speaking for the metro-Phoenix sprawl area, the stores surviving are "home grown" local stores like Zia Records & Bookmans that have expanded to multiple locations in AZ. "Indie chains" so to speak. Zia Records is the best place in the Valley to buy new cult/niche DVDs, and they've even had great periodic sales on DVDs released by Mondo Macabro, Synapse, Blue Underground, etc. Even Criterions; their Criterion stock is better than Barnes & Noble.

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

Your post reminds me I need to say something I've been meaning to say here. The 10% discount that you get on Borders Rewards Plus is accepted for the store closing sales, plus gift cards as well. I'm not sure about coupons, but I recall seeing signs at all the closing stores I've been to so far that Borders Bucks are not being accepted at all. (wonder if that's the type of coupon you're talking about)

The only differences I've noticed with this round of store closures(versus this past Christmas, when only the Chicago flagship store on Michigan Ave. did a closing sale between Nov. 2010 and Jan. 2011), is that EVERYTHING is being discounted in the stores, including magazines, e-books, and calenders(which were NOT discounted at all during the Michigan Ave. store closing sale). Plus the in-store cafes are totally closed for business, unlike the case on Michigan Ave., when they interestingly kept it open till the very last day. Go figure!

Great post, and I can't disagree with you one bit. I feel it is inevitable that the way we know bookstores, and other forms of retailing(i.e. electronic sales) will eventually change, and there will be far fewer stores. FYE is barely hanging on as it is, and I find it amazing that they still somehow survive anymore. As it is, they are in extremely few malls anymore, have completely closed in all the malls closest to where I live, and the only location within the city of Chicago is the ex-Coconuts location just off of Wabash, and something like 2 blocks south of Harold Washington College.

I've said it before on another thread here, but even chains like B&N will have to scale back eventually, if not file for bankruptcy. They already have been doing that on a small scale, by closing all remaining B. Dalton(B&N's mall equivalent of Waldenbooks/Borders Express) stores 1-2 years ago, and've started to close a limited number of B&N locations, such as the Diversey/Clark/Broadway location(and now future site of Trader Joe's). I do wonder how other electronic/retail chains may end up being affected down the road that I'm aware of, such as Hastings, Best Buy, HH Gregg, etc.

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

"There will always"? No, there won't. Maybe in this current generation, but the younger generations (and those to come) growing up with mostly digital entertainment will not care about holding paper booklets.

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

There will always be people who will like to watch VHS tapes and listen to 8tracks.

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

The mall these days is just apparel. Soon there will be nothing but clothes and jewlery stores. I wonder if we are seeing the start of the demise of the mall.

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

At least we wouldn't have to worry about any more remakes of Dawn of the Dead.

Though they could set a similar story in a Costco. Idiocracy may be the most prophetic film ever made.

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

That's what people said when vinyl was replaced by cassette tapes.

Ironically, their "younger generations" have made vinyl fashionable again.

And "there will always" is a figure of speech. If I must make every single point literally, I'll precede every post with "Before the earth is scorched by an expanding sun or the human race has met extinction in some other way, and "generations" no longer exist..."

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

Local news just discovered clearance sales aren't so good after all.

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/201...idation-sales/

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

Had some time to kill downtown the other night and went in to Borders for the first time in years. Pretty weird. New coffee/snacks kiosk, Kobo display, probably a fifth of the main floor dedicated to bags and doodads, CDs/DVDs about a third of the space they used to have, and so much empty space it felt like a ghost town. I'm sure it's busier during the day especially downtown, but it felt eerie.

Time article on why B&N is doing better than Borders, mostly crediting the Nook:

http://www.time.com/time/business/ar...057760,00.html

Re: Borders closing 200 stores
 

I'm not sure how they thought they could afford retail space in the Domain to begin with.