Friday, January 7, 2011

the Borders chain - what impact will its demise have on publishers there?

The Borders chain in the US is in big trouble: well, that's been known for a while.  The main Reuters article is here.  We copy here a comment instead on their demise; the second paragraph is true of Whitcoulls in NZ.
.....

Borders will fail soon because they can hardly call themselves a worthy bookstore anymore.
As recently as 3-4 years ago, every time I went to a Borders store and bought a book, the receipt would have a new coupon on it for my next visit. Good coupons, too, like 30% of one item. They also used to send out weekly (or damn near weekly) coupons if you signed up with them online. But some point in the past 3-4 years they stopped doing this altogether. And taking away that discount, that incentive to keep me coming back week after week, has made me lose interest in shopping with them.

Not to mention the fact that their stores have become so pathetic that they are hardly “book”stores anymore. More like peddlers of unneeded accessories. The selection of books has dwindled substantially. They no longer sell much music. The stores keep getting more and more empty, more and more cluttered with beanie stuffed animals and gel pens, and has moved further and further away from what they did best: stock a great selection of back catalog books, as well as the newer releases.

No comments: