# Barnes & Noble



## Remington Kane (Feb 19, 2011)

I literally live about a thousand yards from a two story Barnes & Noble. I could walk there anytime I want in less than three minutes. I have not been inside the place in over two years, despite the fact that I am a voracious reader. When Barnes & Noble began selling the Nook, I was perplexed. I likened it to McDonald's suddenly selling grills.
When your entire business model is based on selling paper books, then, becoming your own competition by offering ebooks, just seemed like an odd way to survive. Will they survive? Even if they are eventually forced to close all of their brick & mortar stores and just sell books through the Nook, will that be enough? Or is the Nook the modern equivalent of the Betamax.
By the way, I love paper books, particularly hardcovers, and I have spent countless hours browsing in bookstores and libraries in years past. In years past, before Amazon. On my first visit to Amazon over ten years ago, I found the complete backlist of the books of a long ago author, whose work I had spent the last fifteen years vainly searching for in used book stores. That made me an instant convert, and the ease of buying books on the Kindle has only increased my loyalty to Amazon. I see absolutely no way for the Mega Bookstore to survive. What do you think?


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## LadyHawk (Feb 7, 2012)

Yes the bookstore will survive but in digital form  


I was totally against e-books when they first came out, who knew they would explode the way they did.


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## Remington Kane (Feb 19, 2011)

I have a niece, who is also a writer and has been published traditionally, and she hates ereaders. Meanwhile, I gave my eighty-three-year-old father a Kindle for Christmas and he loves it. There will always be those people who only want paper books, I just think that soon, possibly very soon in the USA, that they will be a small minority.


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## PatrickWalts (Jul 22, 2011)

Every time I go in there the place is packed, so things aren't as dismal for them as you'd think it might be.  I really dislike being accosted by the Nook salesperson as soon as I walk in the door, though.  If you so much as glance in his direction he launches into his spiel about it and won't stop even after you tell him you already have one.  He wants you to get a newer one.


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## Sandpiper (Oct 28, 2008)

I miss Borders BIG TIME.

I have Kindles. Love 'em. But I bought plenty of coffee-table type books (books with graphics, fancy color print, etc., etc.) at Borders. Did I say -- I miss Borders BIG TIME.


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

I think the bookstore will survive, but not how we know it.  It'll likely go more the way of the post office and we'll see it integrated into other stores rather than entire stores devoted to them, at least in the chain store retail market.  I don't think we'll ever see small bookstores go away, and I really wouldn't want to.  I am all in favor of Barnes and Noble shutting down and giving them more of a fighting chance, though.  Barnes and Noble keeps doing too many things to irk me, the last was them petulantly refusing to carry Amazon published books, so I refuse to shop there now.  Close it down and drive the market that still refuses to shop online to the small privately owned bookstores and we might see a sort of book selling Renaissance.  Right now I bet chain bookstores sell more magazines and coffee than they do books, and that just doesn't seem to be in the spirit of what a bookstore should be.


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## Sean Patrick Fox (Dec 3, 2011)

I'm not sure why Barnes & Noble getting in on the electronic reader/book market is perplexing...

What would have been perplexing is if they hadn't. Then, some time down the road, they would be floundering with an outdated business model and a slow, painful death would have more than likely followed. By establishing themselves as big players in the new market, B&N are both hedging their bets in the event of a near-universal transition to ebooks, as well as adding a new revenue stream from a group of people who don't want to buy paper books anymore.


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## Guest (Feb 18, 2012)

Every time I go to BN it's packed, too.

Every penny spent is in the cafe.  People read books and magazines there, put them back on the shelf, and leave their mess behind.


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## Jorja Tabu (Feb 6, 2012)

Sandpiper said:


> I miss Borders BIG TIME.
> 
> I have Kindles. Love 'em. But I bought plenty of coffee-table type books (books with graphics, fancy color print, etc., etc.) at Borders. Did I say -- I miss Borders BIG TIME.


This.  When the Borders closed in my tiny town, there was no other way to get paper books (except, of course, the library--but due to budget cuts any new reads took months, thanks to waitlists).

Since then a really awesome used book store has popped up, and I am praying they stay open.


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## Sandpiper (Oct 28, 2008)

"My Borders" in Oak Brook, IL was _the_ or _one of the_ biggest Borders in the U.S. There's a B&N couple blocks away from former Borders. Don't care for it. Rarely go there. I was in Borders at least once a week. Very rarely left without a purchase.


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## MichelleR (Feb 21, 2009)

I think B&N coming out with the Nook was the smartest thing they'd done in years -- and I think it's one of the main reasons that B&N is still standing. They employees didn't seem to take it too seriously at first, not until they really saw it was a life raft.

Borders didn't even have its own reader -- it used the Kobo, which is a third party. 

Nearest B&N is 90 minutes from me, and when we're driving to Duluth or The Cities, I always try to stop in -- but sometimes the schedule doesn't allow. However, last week, I actually purchased a Nook. I figured that I should really be familiar with one, considering that eReaders are clearly an interest of mine. Also, perhaps there is some sentimentality over knowing that B&N is probably on borrowed time, and it used to be The Promise Land. 

Other than charging my Nook, and downloading a book, I haven't used it.


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## Vegas_Asian (Nov 2, 2008)

I admit I use go there tip user their WiFi when the college WiFi isoverload during finals and just as a coffee stop if the line its too long at Whole Foods next door

Sent from my HTC Inspire via Tapatalk


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## KateEllison (Jul 9, 2011)

I love to go into our local B&N and poke around, although I always feel a little illicit in there because I'm a devoted Kindle user (I have a regular Kindle 3G as well as a Fire).


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## Ty Johnston (Jun 19, 2009)

There's a B&N about 40 minutes from me. I'm in there a couple of times a month, at least. I like to read my Kindle in the cafe area and get dirty looks from the person working behind the Nook counter.  

But I do shop there fairly often, and I still purchase paper books.


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

I think their decision to sell ebooks was just a way to try to stay viable in a changing situation.  Borders made a mistake by not developing their own ereader like B&N did.


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## Jorja Tabu (Feb 6, 2012)

I was trying to think of why I liked Borders so much better than B&N, and I'm coming up short...  Was it the coffee, maybe?  I don't feel as welcome to just loiter around in a B&N.  And I liked the music in Borders better, for whatever reason.  Hmm.


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## Ursula_Bauer (Dec 12, 2010)

oliewankanobe said:


> Every time I go to BN it's packed, too.
> 
> Every penny spent is in the cafe. People read books and magazines there, put them back on the shelf, and leave their mess behind.


My husband stopped in there last night and came out with EXACTLY the same feedback. AND< he was empty handed because 2 of the genre paperbacks from new releases were not in stock and had to be special ordered. He assumed because more floor space is devoted to non book items. To which he decided why not just get them from Amazon then? And wondered - why does B&N do everything possible to discourage book buying? If you go there on a weekday morning people are asleep in all the big stuffed chairs. Yes. ASLEEP. Hard. Sometimes drooling. It's completely surreal.

Its sad because we are big book buyers. more and more its going digital or amazon preorders. And who wants to buy books with broken spines and stains? Or magazines that have torn pages or been pawed over? For all B&N complaints, they need to take a look at the stores and all they need to know is right there to explain low sales.


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## Mel Odious (Feb 29, 2012)

PatrickWalts said:


> I really dislike being accosted by the Nook salesperson as soon as I walk in the door, though. If you so much as glance in his direction he launches into his spiel about it and won't stop even after you tell him you already have one. He wants you to get a newer one.


The Nook hawker at the B&N I frequent has learned not to accost me, because every time she does I ask to hold a Nook, examine it and ask, "How do you get to the rest room on one of these things?"


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Mel Odious said:


> The Nook hawker at the B&N I frequent has learned not to accost me, because every time she does I ask to hold a Nook, examine it and ask, "How do you get to the rest room on one of these things?"


I wouldn't accost you again either if you said that to me....as I have no idea what that means.  She probably thinks you're an escapee from a loony bin. 

I just tell them I have 3 Kindles and an iPad. Which is probably depressing to them but true and polite. Every now and then one of them will actually ask me about the Kindle.

Betsy


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## Mel Odious (Feb 29, 2012)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I wouldn't accost you again either if you said that to me....as I have no idea what that means.  She probably thinks you're an escapee from a loony bin.
> 
> I just tell them I have 3 Kindles and an iPad. Which is probably depressing to them but true and polite. Every now and then one of them will actually ask me about the Kindle.
> 
> Betsy


http://www.hulu.com/watch/124868/saturday-night-live-barnes-and-noble


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## Ergodic Mage (Jan 23, 2012)

Jorja Tabu said:


> I was trying to think of why I liked Borders so much better than B&N, and I'm coming up short... Was it the coffee, maybe? I don't feel as welcome to just loiter around in a B&N. And I liked the music in Borders better, for whatever reason. Hmm.


I know this feeling! To me B&N is a place to purchase books, but Borders was a place to enjoy books.
Oh and the coffee was much better than Starbucks.


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## mom133d (aka Liz) (Nov 25, 2008)

Ursula_Bauer said:


> If you go there on a weekday morning people are asleep in all the big stuffed chairs. Yes. ASLEEP. Hard. Sometimes drooling. It's completely surreal.


Must be the folks who get kicked out of the library for sleeping.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I don't think I've ever been in a Borders. I been to the B&N here I think twice in 12 years. Its a pain in the you know what to get to in traffic. All I remember was lots of people packed in the coffee section and everywhere else. The book section was deserted, which suited me just fine as I don't like crowds. But everything was expensive and I couldn't really find what I needed. 

I remember going to Hastings a lot when I lived in Oklahoma. I don't ever hear anyone talk about them. Now I haven't seen one of those in 12 years so I just looked at their locations. 
They have like a gazillion stores in Texas, yet I live in the 3rd largest Texas city and there are not one. How strange is that.  . I guess they got run out by B&N. 

I don't know about any small bookstores. I don't like driving in bad traffic, so if they aren't anywhere near me, I wouldn't go there. 

Safe to say even before Kindle ebooks, my book purchases was done online. For used and new.


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## R. M. Reed (Nov 11, 2009)

Borders sold the Sony reader but did not profit from the Sony bookstore. That was a mistake. B&N at least has it's own ebook store. Time will tell if they can survive in the changing world of book sales.


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## nathanieltimothy (Mar 9, 2012)

thanks for such a nice information


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## Pavel Kravchenko (Mar 2, 2012)

Jorja Tabu said:


> I was trying to think of why I liked Borders so much better than B&N, and I'm coming up short... Was it the coffee, maybe? I don't feel as welcome to just loiter around in a B&N. And I liked the music in Borders better, for whatever reason. Hmm.


The opposite for me. I always bought my books in a Barnes and Noble store, and a couple of time I absolutely had to buy one and there was nothing but Borders around, it somehow made me feel weird and uncomfortable. I basically snatched my book off the shelf, paid and ran out of there 

Don't know what it was, either. The lighting? The color scheme? Something.

Anyway, I'll be sad if BN goes the way of Borders.


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## Mel Odious (Feb 29, 2012)

Pavel Kravchenko said:


> The opposite for me. I always bought my books in a Barnes and Noble store, and a couple of time I absolutely had to buy one and there was nothing but Borders around, it somehow made me feel weird and uncomfortable. I basically snatched my book off the shelf, paid and ran out of there
> 
> Don't know what it was, either. The lighting? The color scheme? Something.
> 
> Anyway, I'll be sad if BN goes the way of Borders.


Borders forgot it was a bookstore at some point. We shopped the close-out at Cleveland Tower Center last summer and walked out with only three books. There was otherwise an archaeological layer map to the store's downfall, highlighted by the checkout at the front where there was nary a book to be found. There were stuffed animals, novelty keychains, Harry Potter action figures ... the place looked like the prize counter at Chuck E. Cheeses. My son was able to pick up a deeply discounted pair of nuns on a chain which amused him greatly (Nun-Chucks).


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## Sandpiper (Oct 28, 2008)

Mel Odious said:


> Borders forgot it was a bookstore at some point.


Borders was always a bookstore to me.


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