So, you're the new CEO of Barnes and Noble......

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

Borders went bust. The Nook is failing. Everyone seems to be going to Amazon. The previous CEO was just fired the other day.

What's your strategy for keeping the company afloat? Is there anything that can be done to remain a vital business that can eventually expand in the future?

[Logan]

Enjoy my high salary while I have it, because it's not going to last long?

I really wouldn't know where to begin. Literally everything they do, Amazon does better with much less overhead I'm assuming.

My best guess, without knowing the company from the inside, would be to try to leverage the Nook technology/partnership with Android into something greater than what it is now.

[MacroGuru]

Nook is dead, they announced that the last qtr if I remember correctly.

So in essence to me B&N doesn't not have much longer to live.

[Butter]

Transition to more of a coffee shop, new media hangout instead of a straight-up bookstore? Smaller stores that drives traffic to your online store for e-books? Exclusive paper books available 1 month before the e-book availability date? Extremely low prices that will undercut e-books?

[Coffee Warlord]

Sad, because the Nook itself, if you root it and build a real android OS onto it, is a solid device.

[Doug5984]

The only thing they can do better than Amazon is offer a "buying experience" a lot of people still enjoy going walk around the store shopping for a book- or thats what I hear at least...

Do they do book buy backs? Sell used books? I'd look into trying to get a foot in that door- have to give people a value somewhere. If I ever want to buy a hard copy of a book I'll always order used on Amazon. Trade in values, bonus for books purchased there... something, anything. I don't know.

I'm starting to like the idea of simply enjoying my salary before it gos completely under. Maybe invest in a beach house somewhere

[Qwikshot]

Consolidate, slash some jobs, find some publishers willing to only release their books to you for the first few months (same electronically)...people love instant purchases, but they need a better promo gimic when you get to the store--to many choices...they gotta do what netflix and genius do, if you like this book, you'll love this.

They need to make the book, music, movie purchase better than what Amazon does.

[molson]

I don't know how much business they do but the smaller downtown bookstores here are packed all the time with events - writing groups, author Q&As and signings, even live music. It's not something that could sustain a bigger company, but any reinvention has to go in that direction, and that would only work in certain kinds of cities.

[Draft Dodger]

hire Pumpy as the spokesmodel

[QuikSand]

Go now and put deep, deep discounts on your board games, collectible card games, lego architecture sets, children's books, toys, and the like.

(worth a shot, anyone actually taking this gig might be sufficiently misguided into reading this thread)

[Thomkal]

As a former employee of B&N and my favorite job to date, there's probably not much that can be done to save it at this point. There are now so many other ways to get books without having to walk into a brick and mortar store-so many places like Walmart where you can get the latest books cheaper that its pretty inevitable they are going to have to close a lot of stores to survive. When I worked there, I got a full 40 hours and benefits, now at that same store, I don't think anyone gets anywhere close to 40 hours. If Books a Million went out of business they might be able to survive as the last big chain bookstore out there.

I think Butter probably has the best strategy of those mentioned so far-stop concentrating on books so much-make it more of a new media "event" style place-books, comic books, movies, TV shows, video games, computer and internet games-try to appeal to the younger generation who are increasingly stepping away from the appeal of having an actual book in their hands. They would likely need to close stores in a lot of smaller places, and keep the ones in the big cities/media centers. Maybe even change the name to something more "catchy" as nobody knows the story behind the business name at this point.

Nook needs to be resurrected, or some other reader created for those "gadget first" users.

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

Actually one of my first thoughts was that Barnes and Noble should get rid of their movie/music section. I can't remember the last time I bought a DVD or CD because their prices tend to be much, much higher than the competition. Also, it seems streaming is the wave of the future so I don't know if selling hard copies of movies, or video games is a viable plan for the future.

I think the idea mentioned earlier about selling used books and following the gamestop model of encouraging people to trade in books so they can turn around and make a higher profit on selling used books makes a lot of sense.

[Butter]

Yeah, but you end up with a lot of dead inventory that way. Plus, you have to spend a lot of capital to get that up and running. Best Buy has tried to do it with used games, not sure it's working all that well for them.

[DaddyTorgo]

I didn't think Nook was dead - guess it's good I didn't buy one the other day and went with a Kobo!

[JPhillips]

Pull back to marijuana legal states and add dispensaries.

[johneh]

Sell adult videos and toys. Add strippers. Hire a hot all female staff.

[cougarfreak]

Merge with 1/2 price books? Start doing the used book thing? Start selling/developing textbooks specific to Ereaders?

[BillJasper]

They have to figure out how to lower the prices on pretty much everything in their stores. An eight dollar paperback costs $5.50 at Wal-Mart.

[spleen1015]

Is Nook going away a reality or just speculation by some 'expert'?

[Buccaneer]

I love the buying experience of b&n but rarely go there because I hate to go someplace to shop that is not close to me.

[Alan T]

My daughter loves going to Barnes and Noble and reading with my wife or I. My wife likes how they have Starbucks inside and uses it as an excuse for getting coffee... I enjoy sitting there and reading while my wife goes shopping....

That said, I own a kindle so don't remember the last book for myself that I bought there. We get kids books there for my daughter but that is about it. Because of the device I own and how easy it is for me to get the content I want, it is a problem for B&N to win my business.

I am pretty sure that I am not alone here, so for B&N to survive, they have to figure out some way to combat that, and I don't really have a good answer for that. In some ways this is like how OS2/Warp died. Even if it had a superior product to Microsoft, everything that anyone wanted to buy was on Microsoft, and there was no way to compete with that.

The Nook was probably the right approach for them, they just did not execute it as well as amazon did.

[cody8200]

Slash jobs and stores and slash prices. Every book you sell gets the digital and paper version. Partner or purchase Audible so you can add the spoken version of the book as an add-on. Make the stores smaller and more of a boutique. Offer free shipping on online orders over $25. Exclusive author deals and work with publishers to sign popular indie authors that self publish. Basically double down on books and kill off everything else they sell besides the coffee places.

[digamma]

Children's books. And old people books. Nothing in between.

[sterlingice]

I'm not in the retail business so someone correct me if I'm wrong. How many buyers are there out there for box store sized stores? Are there many expanding into that marketplace right now? The reduce stores and reduce store size suggestions have to be brutally expensive, right? And they expanded in the 90s so these were more desirable locations back then but now are more "established" but not the trendy hot new areas you want to be.

SI

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Is Nook going away a reality or just speculation by some 'expert'?

Originally Posted by press release

The company is looking for a partner to make Nook color tablets under a "co-branding" agreement. It will continue to make black and white Nook e-readers and will still sell the tablets in its stores, she said.

They want to stop making the color Nook "tablets" themselves basically.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by Butter_of_69

Transition to more of a coffee shop, new media hangout instead of a straight-up bookstore?

I'm thinking something like this. And considering I also think you can't just "make store smaller" you have to do something with it -- maybe essentially an arcade? Let kids come in and rent some time using a console and a game at an hourly rate, and if they want to buy the game, hey, it's right there. Keep just enough books around to fool parents into thinking they're taking their kids to a bookstore, and you've still got enough space for a quiet area where people can sit and have coffee.

[BillJasper]

I guess the question they have to ask themselves is this: why do people want to go to their stores when everything they sell can be bought more cheaply/easily elsewhere?

I go to Wal-Mart/Kroger four times a month easily. The only time I go to a Barnes and Noble when I go to the theater and only when my wife wants a cup of coffee before or after the movie.

[Julio Riddols]

I'd ally with Amazon and tell them they can use our stores as "local store delivery" spots and warehouses to store their overflow or backstock. I would then remodel the stores so that half the space can be dedicated to that while maintaining some of the brick and mortar aspects of a book store. We'd rename the company to something like Barnes and Noble featuring Amazon or something. Then it would probably fail, but I'd have a whale of a time trying to make it work.

[Izulde]

I'd also dump the movies and music section. It used to be that they were a decent place to get foreign movies you couldn't get anyplace else, but Netflix/Hulu killed that, and as someone else mentioned, their prices are too high.

As for the rest of it, there's still value in the brick and mortar bookstore buying experience - however, I don't know if it can succeed on a national chain level anymore. What I think is far more likely is that the BMBS will transition to small, locally owned businesses dealing in the used book market, with a few newer titles.

[Logan]

I had been operating under the assumption that music/movies were just a space filler from overgrowth of stores and not selling enough books.

[Young Drachma]

Make the stores smaller, for starters. Cutting physical inventory will probably help. Alternatively just dominating the space for physical books would be best. Some people still just prefer to do that. So if you can find a way to do that and maybe if you really want to think outside of the box, create some kind of network of independent bookstores and with their distribution model they can get things shipped pretty fast...might be a way to essentially create a kind of monopoly without really doing that.

Turn books into the new Starbucks and see if they can't keep the model going. I think there are still large swaths of people who prefer to buy their books at a bookstore. Books aren't like music and even people who own Kindles and stuff are still often book buyers.

Not quite as DOA on the industry as others here.

[Young Drachma]

Take a page from the airlines and essentially retool their large empty areas when you remove inventory into study-type places where people buy a membership and then lease the space to a real full-fledged Starbucks and/or Panera where people can come in and interact. Sort of like Walmart does with McDonalds and having arcades and stuff.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

Turn books into the new Starbucks and see if they can't keep the model going. I think there are still large swaths of people who prefer to buy their books at a bookstore. Books aren't like music and even people who own Kindles and stuff are still often book buyers.

I don't read anywhere near as much as I'd like to anymore, but I'd say that I like to browse for books at a bookstore, not buy them. I work a block away from a large B&N (46th and Madison for NYC people) and I like to duck in there after grabbing lunch and look around for a few minutes. If I see something I like, I'm pulling up Amazon on my phone and buying it significantly cheaper there in much less time than it would take me to go to the register. I'll have it in two days, even if I'm not paying for expedited shipping, which is probably before I'd start reading it anyway.

And within a year or so, if I were to do this early enough in the day, with how Amazon is moving, it might be waiting for me when I get home.

You have to do things REALLY WELL to justify paying so much more money for items. And is a book something that would ever meet that description for people? I doubt it.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

Take a page from the airlines and essentially retool their large empty areas when you remove inventory into study-type places where people buy a membership and then lease the space to a real full-fledged Starbucks and/or Panera where people can come in and interact. Sort of like Walmart does with McDonalds and having arcades and stuff.

It would be a small help at first, but all it takes is a disruption to the retail industry and you're doubly fucked. A bookstore's business model to save itself can't be to become a landlord.

[Scoobz0202]

Originally Posted by Logan

I don't read anywhere near as much as I'd like to anymore, but I'd say that I like to browse for books at a bookstore, not buy them. I work a block away from a large B&N (46th and Madison for NYC people) and I like to duck in there after grabbing lunch and look around for a few minutes. If I see something I like, I'm pulling up Amazon on my phone and buying it significantly cheaper there in much less time than it would take me to go to the register. I'll have it in two days, even if I'm not paying for expedited shipping, which is probably before I'd start reading it anyway.

And within a year or so, if I were to do this early enough in the day, with how Amazon is moving, it might be waiting for me when I get home.

You have to do things REALLY WELL to justify paying so much more money for items. And is a book something that would ever meet that description for people? I doubt it.

That's pretty much how I am. I fucking love bookstores. I really want them to succeed. I'm just not in the financial situation to spend extra dollars when I can save elsewhere. There is a really nice Books and Co. nearish to me and I stopped in there for the first time. Picked up numerous paperback books that were marked at $15+. I could save $30+ just buying five or so books from Amazon. I would love to support these businesses, but god damn.

I do really enjoy going to Half Priced Books, though. Its further away but when in the area I always like to pick up an armful.

[ISiddiqui]

It may have to try to get the "small bookstore" vibe. Train the employees up on books, or hire more book readers to work there. Do more recommendations of books. Start taking in some used books. Hold more author events, especially for smaller local releases. Start hosting events like poetry readings or book clubs.

[sterlingice]

What should a paperback cost?

SI

[Logan]

I can't believe it took until my fifth post in this thread to figure out the solution:

Serve beer.

[Butter]

Originally Posted by Scoobz0202

There is a really nice Books and Co. nearish to me and I stopped in there for the first time.

I assume this is the one at The Greene? It is a really nice store, but it also seems very empty a lot when I go in there, which is usually to eat at the frozen yogurt place.

[cartman]

PING: shkspr

[Qwikshot]

Originally Posted by Logan

I can't believe it took until my fifth post in this thread to figure out the solution:

Serve beer.

BRILLIANT!!!

[Solecismic]

Tough one, since I want independent book reviews before buying a book, and I find bookstores far too inconvenient for that purpose.

e-Readers may be the future. I'm a late adopter for this technology, considering how much I read. I still like to hold a book in my hands, but improvements in weight and "ink quality" on the readers may make this a silly luxury five years from now.

So I think B&N is already obsolete. Purchasing $3.00 coffee when I can brew it at home quite cheaply is no value to me. I'd just sell it off for parts at this point. Focusing on e-Readers seems too much like trying to be Blockbuster five years ago - putting off the inevitable. It had a nice run.

In general, our economy is paying a huge price for off-shoring most of our manufacturing industry. Of course, trying to reverse that would be like declaring war on most of the Asian world.

[Crapshoot]

Originally Posted by Logan

I don't read anywhere near as much as I'd like to anymore, but I'd say that I like to browse for books at a bookstore, not buy them. I work a block away from a large B&N (46th and Madison for NYC people) and I like to duck in there after grabbing lunch and look around for a few minutes. If I see something I like, I'm pulling up Amazon on my phone and buying it significantly cheaper there in much less time than it would take me to go to the register. I'll have it in two days, even if I'm not paying for expedited shipping, which is probably before I'd start reading it anyway.

And within a year or so, if I were to do this early enough in the day, with how Amazon is moving, it might be waiting for me when I get home.

You have to do things REALLY WELL to justify paying so much more money for items. And is a book something that would ever meet that description for people? I doubt it.

That's sad I guess. I feel a sense of obligation to buy those books at the store if I discover them - I buy some at Amazon, some at my local bookstore, but I fully recognize the latter as me purposely paying extra for the privilege of having the bookstore around (and I recognize not everyone feels that way).

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Sad, because the Nook itself, if you root it and build a real android OS onto it, is a solid device.

I really liked my nook color that was rooted. Of course now tablets cost as much as that did.

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by LastWhiteSoxFanStanding

Borders went bust. The Nook is failing. Everyone seems to be going to Amazon. The previous CEO was just fired the other day.

What's your strategy for keeping the company afloat? Is there anything that can be done to remain a vital business that can eventually expand in the future?

Keep the Starbucks, turn the rest of it into a national chain of bounce houses.

[Shkspr]

Originally Posted by cartman

PING: shkspr

Yeah, yeah, yeah, trying to save my own bacon over here.

EDIT: I had a tl;dr response about halfway typed up, but I probably need to save that analysis for, you know, my bosses. Highlights, though:

Take the company private. It's the only way to implement core changes without worrying about short-term investor concerns. You had your shot at the long term with the Nook: you blew it.

Find a better product mix. Quiksand is 2/3 right in that board, toy, card, accessories need to enjoy focus, and some sort of discount is appropriate to build the lines, but maybe not so much on the "deep, deep" parts. If your 40% margin items are declining, maybe you can build up further promotion on your 60% items.

Ally with Google or Apple, if you want to play on the internet. At this point, rebranding the Google Book Store as B&N and leveraging the open garden app system is about the only weak spot the Kindles have at this point. That said, it's a big weak point.

Resist the temptation to severely cut labor percentage, cut selection, or cut internal distribution. There will need to be adjustments, but those are your three major service bulwarks against Amazon. The sole thing that will keep your business alive the longest is the ability to find books and put them in people's hands using skills more abstract than SEO. Cut any of those any further than your traffic warrants, and it will actually CAUSE a downturn in traffic. Death spiral.

The beer idea is closer to viable than you think, Logan. The company I work for had long involved arguments at the executive/director level about trying a wine bar instead of a coffee shop in one experimental store.

-----

Also, you guys are in New York. Hire somebody to hack in and erase all the kindles out there, firebomb datacenters, and whack Amazon leadership. What, like there isn't a single capo left?

[Dutch]

Associate with a Hooka Lounge.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Shkspr

Take the company private. It's the only way to implement core changes without worrying about short-term investor concerns.

From what I saw earlier today, that seems to be the plan. The longtime founder/Pres who basically won this power struggle has an offer on the table to buy the "retail assets" of the company. Not sure I understand what distinction that's making but that's how it read.

[cuervo72]

Wine and Oprah book clubs meetings!

[Suicane75]

Move every store they have to Saskatchewan and rebrand them as Barnes & Noble Classic Books.