First, Borders was always a great place to go browse… but i didn’t often buy things, so I’m partially to blame for their downfall. It’s a shame though. We have two Borders near us, which was probably oversaturation on their part (although one started as a Waldenbooks); both will be folding up soon.
Second, MBA’s aren’t always good for companies. TIME ran a piece a couple of weeks ago about how the MBA Finance types are killing companies by focusing on profit, not product. Speaking as a Finance type with an MBA, I have to say that I agree… to a point. A healthy, symbiotic relationship between bean counters and product people must exist for any company to thrive. A company MUST be product and customer driven, or it fails to innovate and attract new business. However, left to their own devices, product people tend to over-optimize a product, and would never make any money were it not for someone smacking them in the back of the head and saying, “We’ve got to make some money to stay in business.”
Third, I do try to patronize local, small bookstores. We bought the last 4 Harry Potter novels by pre-order through them. The problem is, beyond the current NYT Bestsellers, most of what he has are classics and some oddball stuff. No mass market stuff, no special interest sections (transportation, history). I know, the carrying cost of that inventory must be enormous, so what can I expect in a town of 7500.
And finally, if the growth of e-books and on-line reading is encouraging more people to read books (rather than blogs and forums), then that’s a good thing.
So this is your marketing strategy to encourage customers to shop at the independents? First ask them to try you out and then turn around and insult them for being cheapskates and putting people out of work? Yikes.
Fortunately, he left out the biggest cheapskates of all, those who haunt public libraries to get our fill of the written word without having to pay anything.
As cheapskates go, I’m pretty high up in the hierarchy. I don’t know how many gardeners are out of work because there are those of us who do our own lawns and gardens, but I would imagine it’s quite a few. Then there are those of us who absolutely won’t call a plumber until we’re absolutely positive that the job is beyond our own skills. Painters curse the wife and myself because we do our own painting. My wife just refinished a pair of dressers, probably putting someone out of work. We rarely eat out, thus killing the job market for a considerable number of food service people.
The only thing that prevents us from being evil incarnate is that we don’t grow our own food.
As a family member of and a worker for a small, independant bookstore owner, might I recommend that people try looking for one near them? There’s still a lot of us around…for now…
Anyways, a special shout out to all browsing cheapskates and not to mention all the Kindle and Nook readers for putting 10,000+ people out of work. Congratulations! (not that I’m bitter or anything…) Double sigh.
Paul A. Cutler III
So this is your marketing strategy to encourage customers to shop at the independents? First ask them to try you out and then turn around and insult them for being cheapskates and putting people out of work? Yikes.
Fortunately, he left out the biggest cheapskates of all, those who haunt public libraries to get our fill of the written word without having to pay anything.
As cheapskates go, I’m pretty high up in the hierarchy. I don’t know how many gardeners are out of work because there are those of us who do our own lawns and gardens, but I would imagine it’s quite a few. Then there are those of us who absolutely won’t call a plumber until we’re absolutely positive that the job is beyond our own skills. Painters curse the wife and myself because we do our own painting. My wife just refinished a pair of dressers, probably putting someone out of work. We rarely eat out, thus killing the job market for a considerable number of food service people.
The only thing that prevents us from being evil incarnate is that we don’t grow our own food.
I’m one of those who haunt the public library and my former library in Liverpool NY was an excellent one with both MR and RMC magazines for me to read, as well as a great selection of books and movies etc. I paid property taxes for many years btw which were very high 5% so I did pay for that service and used it. I"ve since moved to Northern VA and the public library in Centreville is NOTHING in comparison. A tiny selection of magazines, hardly any movies, etc. sigh
As cheap skates go, I’m cheap because I have to be to survive, not because I’m evil or tight fisted, Some peole talk like many have pockets full of money to patronize LHS and subsidize that way of life as well as many other “worthy” causes. Well, I was taught by my depression era parents to try to live within my means, and right now I’m barely breaking even, and just paying for the basics like food, auto expenses, phone, rent etc, and an occasional model train. We even use the churches clothing ministry because the cost of living is so high and income is limited. Yep, cheap skate is necessary as a way of life for many of us.
Back on topic,
I’m sad to see the former way of life passing away and books and magazines falling out of use. We seem to be quickly approaching an ear like show in Star Trek the Next Generation where Capt Piccard cherished his occasional hard copy books, because reading electronic books had been the standard way for many years. I guess Boarders closing is a sign of the times. I wonder when MR magazine will finally go electronic or worse?
J. Rob, what has this got to do with any government?[#offtopic]
It is about a book store chain going under and getting some railroad books at a close out price. No government conspiracy no matter what you wish to believe.
J. Rob, what has this got to do with any government?[#offtopic]
It is about a book store chain going under and getting some railroad books at a close our price. No government conspiracy no matter what you wish to believe.
MAbruce,
My post was in reference to cheapskate skinflint Borders customers, not my own customers. Specifically, I am talking about those “customers” (and I use that term loosely) who read entire books without paying for them. What would you call them? I don’t have any of these types of customers because when I have someone in the store that’s trying to read a whole book (a very, very rare happenstance, BTW), I go over after 30 minutes or so and ask them as politely as you please, “Hi! Can I help you find anything?” And I smile nice, too…but my gaze might drift down to the open book in their hand and I might cringe if they’ve broken the spine. Around 99% of the time, they get the hint and either buy the book or put it back on the shelf. We are a bookstore, not a library.
For clarity, I’m not talking about the browsing shopper, or people who can’t find anything to read after hours of looking, or even the people who come into a store and loudly proclaim to their children in tow that, “We aren’t buying anything here so don’t even ask me!” (my smart-aleck internal voice usually asks why did they bother to come in at all?)
Seriously, would any other business encourage this sort of freeloading behavior? Even those that have extremely liberal return policies like Radio Shack does not actively encourage people to rip them off. For example, many metal detectors are sold on Fridays and returned on Mondays with sand in the cracks yet reported as non-functional…yet work fine in the store. How many times will they allow that to happen, week after week? And at the very least Radio Shack can play with the money for the weekend while the metal detector is out on the beach. But at Borders, these “customers” don’t even do that. They literally pay nothing while probably damaging the merchandise. If I’m a “bad guy” for calling them out for that, then so be it.
Barnes and Noble encourages the very behavior about which you are complaining. In fact, if you have a Nook and bring it into the store you can read any book in their e-book library for 30 minutes for free. If you don’t buy it you can return another day and read it for another 30 minutes, etc.
If you buy an e-book and have a friend who also has a Nook, you can even lend many of their books to that person for 14 days.
Because of the 40% off sale on magazines, a lot of that merchandise went fast. Saturday was very busy. The transportation section for railway books of any kind were hard to find. Their collection of CD’s or DVD’s were a mixed up mess. Sales may last about a month?
Some sites may be reborn managed by Barnes & Noble or Books a Million. It may not matter if most books come via Amazon or Ebay.