Barnes & Noble Founder Wants to Take Retail Division Private

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Barnes & Noble Founder Wants to Take Retail Division Private

Posted by Unknown on Monday February 25, 2013 @01:10PM from the that's-one-way-to-die dept.

The times haven't been the kindest to B&N: retail sales are down and the Kindle is outselling the Nook. Joining Best Buy and Dell, B&N might be going private. From the article: "Barnes & Noble’s largest shareholder, Leonard Riggio, made an offer Monday to buy out the struggling company and take it private ... Essentially, it would split the company in two: one half would be Riggio’s private brick-and-mortar stores and related assets, the other the publicly-traded Nook and college bookstore management division."

131 comments

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Cherry picking by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-25 13:13 · Score: 0

Keep the Nook and college bookstore portion shit, and make public the brick and mortar portion. Then I might be interested in buying a few shares (OK, probably not even then).
1. Re:Cherry picking by davester666 · 2013-02-26 10:08 · Score: 1
  
  Really?
  B & M book stores are dying. Sure people browse and impulse buy, but pretty much everybody knows they can buy the same book cheaper on Amazon [the wonder of not trying to be profitable!].
  And this is Amazon's endgame [at least for book stores], to drive them out of business so they have no significant competition.
  
  --
  Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Blame the market bulls ... by oztiks · 2013-02-25 13:15 · Score: 5, Insightful

Public companies are getting abused on the stock market so bad being private means they can actually run the business properly without having to worry about squeezing to make every Q more profitable according to analyst projections and "expected" profits.
Apple should do the same but having 1bn outstanding shares at $400 a piece means even their whopping $130bn in the bank wont even save them from the onslaught.
1. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by peragrin · 2013-02-25 13:29 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  The trick is wall street MBA and EMBA's are basically stripping companies bare destroying assets for short term goals, and personal profits.
  Take Circuit city. The MBA's backed by wall street stripped the company to the bones, stole all the cash and pushed it into bankruptcy.
  After a bad year(2008) and falling stock prices circuit city management came up with a plan to cut expenses by $10,000,000 over the next 3 years. They fired the top 3,000 salesmen and hired 2,500 fresh salesmen in the summer of 2009. Wall street bounced the stock back up, and management paid themselves $5,000,000 in bonuses for that year.
  2009 ended with predicitably even lower sales.(firing your best salesmen does things like that).
  6 months later it was completely gone.
  Wall street supports and and encourages self destructive behavior. Wall street isn't about long term investing any more. It is about millisecond long trades taking up 75% of all trading volume.
  Seriously if wall street cut HFT for one day the volume would collapse.
  
  --
  i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
2. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by clarkkent09 · 2013-02-25 13:47 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  That only happens with companies that are failing anyway. Its in nobody's interest to destroy a thriving business, or at least one that is worth more alive than dead. What people fail to understand (hence Obama's ads about Romney at Bain) is that capitalism is as much about failure and loss as it is about success and profit, and that's a good thing.
  
  --
  Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
3. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by Nemyst · 2013-02-25 14:01 · Score: 2
  
  Yes. See Valve as an example of a company which has never had to bow to idiotic stock market investors, allowing them to make actually sound business decisions. Now every publicly traded gaming company, bar maybe Activision, wants to be in their shoes.
4. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by oztiks · 2013-02-25 14:02 · Score: 1
  
  Its in nobody's interest to destroy a thriving business, or at least one that is worth more alive than dead
  You've just explained where bubbles come from and the parent just explained what happens when a business' growth stabilizes and how those bubbles burst. It's a recipe for disaster either way you look at it.
  As I've always said "you cant push hot molasses up hill" though the market wishes it can and on the flip side you then have the short sells who profit from that so it's kobayashi maru for the company caught in the rift.
5. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-25 14:13 · Score: 0
  
  Circuit City sucked. They sucked in the 90's like they sucked in the 2000's. Sure, people made profit by pushing it this way or that but the company still sucked.
6. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by CncRobot · 2013-02-25 14:15 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Close. Its the SOX rules, amongst others, that are killing a lot of public companies. Where I work we had public bonds before SOX became law and after that the quickest we could we got rid of them so we don't have to follow those rules.
  Of course after the story of MF Global and Corzine, I'm not sure why they bothered to pass SOX if they won't enforce the law in a textbook example of someone breaking it.
7. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by alen · 2013-02-25 14:20 · Score: 1
  
  valve is a tiny company operating in a niche market
  but even they are looking to branch out into consoles and they have dealings with Sony for the playstation because tech changes and their business could be wiped out
  there are not enough people buying physical books to pay the overhead
8. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by ShanghaiBill · 2013-02-25 14:34 · Score: 1
  
  Its in nobody's interest to destroy a thriving business
  It is very much in the interest of securities litigation attorneys to destroy a thriving business. Avoiding shareholder class action lawsuits (where the shareholders sue themselves with the lawyers getting a cut) is a major reason for public companies to go private.
9. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by ahabswhale · 2013-02-25 14:37 · Score: 2
  
  But Apple doesn't give a shit about the stock market. It's why they have such a ridiculously low p/e in spite of how successful they are. It's the market's way of saying "You're a bad...Apple!!" It's one of the things I give kudos to Apple for...telling the fuckers on Wall Street to go fuck themselves.
  
  --
  Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
10. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-25 15:14 · Score: 0
  
  Public companies are getting abused on the stock market so bad being private means they can actually run the business properly without having to worry about squeezing to make every Q more profitable according to analyst projections and "expected" profits.
  Apple should do the same but having 1bn outstanding shares at $400 a piece means even their whopping $130bn in the bank wont even save them from the onslaught.
  Oh. My. God.
  Megafacepalm...
11. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by Mashiki · 2013-02-25 15:23 · Score: 1
  
  You've just explained where bubbles come from and the parent just explained what happens when a business' growth stabilizes and how those bubbles burst. It's a recipe for disaster either way you look at it.
  Well it doesn't help when the feds are pumping the market to make it look so happy and rosy either does it? If the feds weren't correcting, the market wouldn't be as bullish.
  
  --
  Om, nomnomnom...
12. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by trout007 · 2013-02-25 15:39 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  What else are you supposed to do with those Trillions of dollars the Fed loaned you at zero interest?
  
  --
  I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
13. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by TubeSteak · 2013-02-25 15:47 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  That only happens with companies that are failing anyway. Its in nobody's interest to destroy a thriving business, or at least one that is worth more alive than dead.
  [Citation Needed]
  More importantly, you are making assumptions about what is and isn't rational behavior from your perspective.
  From the perspective of a corporate raider:
  Mortgaging a healthy company to the hilt and then selling off its assets is wildly profitable.
  They don't want to run the company and earn a respectable return on investment.
  They are not in it for long term profits.
  They want X00% return on investment within a few years and they can get it.
  Different motives and different agendas leads to different 'rational' behaviors.
  Hence regulation to reign in the more destructive, yet completely rational, actors.
  There was even a /. story today which showed us that 'rational' behavior is not a universal constant
  
  --
  [Fuck Beta]
  o0t!
14. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by femtobyte · 2013-02-25 16:24 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  The catch is "worth more alive than dead" --- the investment class making the decisions only cares about the fraction of worth *to them,* not to the economy and all stakeholders as a whole. Thus a company that is doing perfectly well --- able to maintain high employee pay, solid pensions and benefits, and still turn a profit for the investors --- will get killed if it will funnel more money into the pockets of the rich (even if the total economic value to everyone is lost).
  For example: if a currently profitable company has a big pension fund saved up to pay out to retirees, corporate raiders will load the company up with debt, funneling all its money to "contractors" and "consultants" until they are "forced" to dip into the pension funds to keep the company afloat. When all the assets are gone, tell the workers and retirees "sorry, we're bankrupt!" before cruising away on your new yacht.
  Killing thriving companies is also useful for breaking unions --- one profitable, strongly unionized corporation in an industry will drive up wages and benefits even for non-union competitors (by competing for skilled workers). Thus, the investing class will want to drive the unionized company into the ground --- at least long enough to win major concessions, if not outright dissolution, from the workers. Then it's profit for everyone else at the top.
  Killing off a thriving corporation may also be cheaper/easier than integrating it through merger/acquisition when a bigger corporation wants to buy off a competitor to assume a more solid monopoly position.
  In all these cases, "worth" to the economy as a whole is destroyed if all stakeholders are counted (especially employees and customers) --- but so long as more money ends up in the pockets of the super-rich, it's a "win" for the decision-makers.
15. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by tlhIngan · 2013-02-25 17:59 · Score: 1
  
  That only happens with companies that are failing anyway. Its in nobody's interest to destroy a thriving business, or at least one that is worth more alive than dead.
  
  It happens to everyone. Wall Street hedge fund managers feel that they're immune to things like the economy - they want their 8/10/15+% ROI damn the recession. Hell, at a time when most people would be just happy to have their investments be stable (as opposed to disappear), they still want their share of the blood.
  Hell, Einhorn is trying to "unlock" the Apple's cash with a really convoluted scheme involving stock swaps and guaranteed dividends. So convoluted that the PR session he held to promote his idea that he had to explain his concept several times to various Wall Street bankers.
  If it was simple, he wouldn't need to explain a thing. Yes, Wall Street plays by different rules, economic depressions included.
16. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by oztiks · 2013-02-25 18:12 · Score: 0
  
  Yes and no (maybe?), yes Apple doesn't give a shit but it most certainly does not walk away from Wall St unscathed. The problem with AAPL (if you can call it a problem) is the amount of money it has ...
  AAPL has $130bn in the bank but it also has 1billion outstanding shares. So you do the math, if AAPL was to "buy" back it's shares the company could only afford $130 for each share (which are currently valued at $442).
  So, you have shit like this going on at the moment with AAPL
  http://www.technologyspectator.com.au/einhorn-scores-legal-victory-over-apple-cash-debate
  Which is a PERFECT example of how bulls screw the market. Instead of "investing" in a business and hoping that the rewards of that investment come from the fruits of the company's labour. The market is instead trying to manipulate and seize the financial and operational objectives of the companies they invest in and make them do what "they" want. Obviously they hold some sort of sense of entitlement here, I personally believe it's not fair but that's pretty much what's at play.
  What I think this is with Einhorn vs AAPL's is case of hungry eyes at play and sheer "want now, forget tomorrow" greed.
17. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-25 20:55 · Score: 1
  
  "...only happens with companies that are failing anyway. Its in nobody's interest to destroy a thriving business, or at least one that is worth more alive than dead."
  read this sorry story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mervyns
  ### excerpt from the wikipedia article referenced above ####
  Mervyns:
  By 1978 the company had grown to a chain of more than 50 stores in three states,[8] and Mervyn's was acquired by the Dayton Hudson Corporation (now Target Corporation). Mervyn's kept its separate identity as a Dayton Hudson subsidiary....
  In March 2004 Target Corporation announced that they planned to put the Mervyn's and Marshall Field's divisions up for sale to focus on Target stores. Target Corporation was approached by many buyers for both stores but many of the potential buyers only saw value in the real estate, Target refused to sell to the groups which only wanted to buy the property and said they would only look at deals that would not close the company and put the then 30,000 employees out of work. In July 2004, Target Corporation announced that Mervyn's had been sold to a group of investors that included private investment firm and turnaround specialist Sun Capital Partners, Inc, Cerberus Capital Management, and real estate investment company.
  - ... the new owners changed the structure of the company, dividing it into separate real estate and retail businesses. In essence, the Mervyn's real estate arm charged retailer Mervyn's huge rents for its department store space....
  In September 2008, Mervyn's sued the private equity firms involved in the leveraged buyout of the chain, alleging that the deal had stripped the retailer of its real estate assets, forcing it into bankruptcy. Mervyn's said in the suit that Cerberus Capital Management and its partners had used the increased rent to finance the buyout...
  . As of 2012 many of the former Mervyn's locations which were not taken over by Forever 21 or Kohls were taken over by Burlington Coat Factory and Hobby Lobby stores, but some are still vacant. As mentioned above many of the leases signed by these replacements are at a fraction of what Mervyn's was paying.
  ### end excerpt ####
  A solvent business was gutted, to the detriment of community, employees and it seems ultimately even the leveraged-buyers-out. Capitalism at its finest!
18. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by metlin · 2013-02-26 00:18 · Score: 1
  
  Look up Joseph Schumpeter and his take on "Creative Destruction". His book "Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy" talks about just that.
19. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by sesshomaru · 2013-02-26 00:28 · Score: 1
  
  What people fail to understand (hence Obama's ads about Romney at Bain) is that capitalism is as much about failure and loss as it is about success and profit, and that's a good thing.
  I don't know what capitalism is "about," but are you really going to try to argue this in an age when truly parasitic zombie banks are declared "too big too fail" and are kept alive by a flood of public money, even as they destroy everything else through leverage buyouts, bubbles and the other tools of the finance Visigoths?
  
  --
  "MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
20. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by sesshomaru · 2013-02-26 00:42 · Score: 1
  
  They'll enforce SOX against you if you don't have political connections.
  There's a reason my company had a former US president to speak at one of their recent shindigs, and it wasn't because they wanted to hear the man speak (even though he often comes out with unintentional comedy... he's the master of the spoonerism...)
  
  --
  "MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
21. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by mabhatter654 · 2013-02-26 00:54 · Score: 2
  
  But the alternate side is that the $130 Billion isn't Tim Cook's money., its stockholder's money. Apple did just fine for most of a decade on a mere 30-40 billion in cash. There is no "reasonable" way Apple can spend that much money. They would have to go YEARS without sales, or go on a crazy spree and buy Microsoft or Sony... Or some other small failing company, they'd have too much change from Yahoo... Apple shouldn't have that much cash because it makes them too easy for lawyers to shake down, or the government to fine.
  It's the Shareholder's money and maybe they want to spread it around... How much interest is Apple getting on that??
  The problem is unlocking the money that's intertwined in foreign accounts to get around the taxman. That's why the complex schemes.
  Microsoft spent half a decade pissing away its biggest profits on the CEO's poor management and "take over the world" projects before they started shelling out dividends. Microsoft just used the Shareholder's own money to cover their poor performance for 5 years... And stocks went down anyway.
  Considering Apple could easily pay out $10 per share, per year right now before STARTING to make a dent in their cash pile, that is $10 million a medium size institutional investors could use to bankroll NEW companies.... For effectively free. Every year.. Returns are WAY better doing that.
22. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-26 01:32 · Score: 0
  
  The truth of the matter is that it used to be a good thing being publicly traded- now the only realistic way to extract value out of publicly traded companies is to find a bigger bagholder to dump your shares on. Most aren't shareholders, they're sharesellers...and having things that way means that you all but have to choose to do stupid things in a medium to long term sense, just to look good for the sharesellers.
23. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by Svartalf · 2013-02-26 01:33 · Score: 1
  
  It happens because it works. If you put things back a bit more like they were shortly after the Great Depression was over with and make it more profitable (because of tax code changes it's not...) to dole out dividends and the like, such that it's less profitable to strip mine a company that's publicly traded, then you'd see a lot less of this.
  
  --
  I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
24. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-26 01:38 · Score: 0
  
  No, Circuit City was already doomed by the online market for electronic goods. Their large retail spaces had to be huge to hold all that variety of goods and be able to compete with specialty audio or computer stores, but the ability to review and order components online evaporated much of their electronics market. Frankly, they were already doomed.
  The high-frequency-trading, however, needs to go the heck away.
25. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-26 01:45 · Score: 1
  
  It happens to every company.
  Company's interests as they are
  Shareholders
  Board of Directors
  Senior Management
  Customers
  Angry bums on the street
  Employees
  Company's interests as they should be
  Customers
  Employees
  The rest will be taken care of by focusing on those 2 items.
26. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by dywolf · 2013-02-26 01:45 · Score: 1
  
  as broken as the mod system is...mod up just for the Star Trek reference. its so applicable to this stuff.
  two paths both make money, and both get you in trouble. either you plan long term and piss off the investors who have come to expect short term gains and have been trained to ignore long term, so they eventually fire you....or you make short term gains and run the company into the ground. no matter what, you lose.
  
  --
  The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
27. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by geminidomino · 2013-02-26 01:52 · Score: 2
  
  Not quite.
  
  ..or you make short term gains and run the company into the ground. no matter what, you lose.
  That's hardly considered "losing" among executive management.
28. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by oztiks · 2013-02-26 02:33 · Score: 2
  
  Small dispersions of money to shareholders shouldn't be an issue, though I'm sure AAPL does the dividend thing, more so it's the buy back of the shares which is what they are pitching and if your key asset is money you might have a problem. I.E you have $175bn in assets and $130bn of that is greenback. Lets look at loose figures here ... (no means perfect mind you)
  You have an annual revenue of $150bn and an asset base of $175bn the market cap is supposed to define the companies total worth stock volume x stock value = marketcap. Apple has a marketcap of $420 billion and $150+$175 is off by about $100bn, so lets consider the $100bn difference being calculated as expected growth, I.E what analysts say.
  So say you take their key asset "their cash" and you buy back shares, you do that expecting to drive the share value up right? Unfortunately with AAPL it may not be the case because you could get stuck over inflating the share price with nothing under it, causing the value of the shares to do quite the opposite. The concept of future trading (P/E ratio, etc) is based on 12 months of projected annual growth, AAPL is only growing the money, not the physical assets which are supposed to yield a higher ROI than what money would, I.E money generating assets.
  If Apple had an asset base that was of similar size or greater than it's cash, then no issues it only makes sense to buy back the shares, but it seems the market is hell bent on killing them so they can do it all over again.
  So if Apple loses to Einhorn it could establish a catastrophic legal precedent that could screw the AAPL stock.
  If AAPL holds on to the money without creating assets that could also screw AAPL stock but again to my bulls hatred, the market wants to control how the mountain is pushed over, that way the ones in the right place and right time can jump ship or short sell when the going is good.
  Maybe its my own personal feelings saying this but I think AAPL holding on to the cash is their way of showing who's got the upperhand.
29. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by Hatta · 2013-02-26 04:00 · Score: 1
  
  Its in nobody's interest to destroy a thriving business
  Are you deliberately ignorant, or just naive?
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
30. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-26 04:25 · Score: 0
  
  I just thought of a new use for drones.
31. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by Hadlock · 2013-02-26 04:48 · Score: 1
  
  They're a billion dollar distribution company, the largest distribution company in a market larger than, and growing faster than the motion picture market. With a near monopoly on the PC market, and expanding in to the console market.
  
  --
  moox. for a new generation.
32. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by mabhatter654 · 2013-02-26 06:09 · Score: 1
  
  The share price is inflated. Making the comparison of Apple to Exxon was a valid point, but it also shows Apple is sitting on WAY too much cash.
  First, if Apple is sitting on a full year's income, they have more cash than any BANK would consider reasonable... Without making any products, they should be making 10% interest on the CASH... Which is nearly a quarter of profits.
  Apple is a tiny company compared to Exxon. The majority of their employees are retail or support. Apple does comparatively little "blue sky" research hiring a narrow band of engineering talent compared to Exxon.
  Exxon's market cap is based on single digit profit margins and single digit growth... Apple makes "just profits". Apple is not demonstrating that giving them MORE money, they hire MORE engineers and make MORE product lines.
  In fact Apple does the opposite. They have very small 1000 teams that create a new product then quickly move to staffing the line at operations-only levels. Apple is fantastic at growing PROFITS but they are not growing "base" and in fact actively fight against it.
  Apple is making 30% profit off $150B of operations... They are SITTING on $150B and making less than "savings" off the money. Investors could take half that war chest and build ANOTHER Apple sized company in cash.... Then try for 30% margins on SALES.
  A better analogy is that Apple's parents paid fir them to to grow up and go to fancy college... Now the parents want Apple's spare money to set up another kid to do cool things. Apple is as PRODUCTIVE as they are ever going to get... Time for them to pay off mom n dad so some little sibs get a chance.
33. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by oztiks · 2013-02-26 15:34 · Score: 1
  
  A better analogy is that Apple's parents paid for them to to grow up and go to fancy college... Now the parents want Apple's spare money to set up another kid to do cool things. Apple is as PRODUCTIVE as they are ever going to get... Time for them to pay off mom n dad so some little sibs get a chance.
  I like this explanation but to insinuate investors being responsible parents is my qualm. We are talking about the same types of people that pit their hopes and dreams on FaceBook being the next big thing right?
  As AAPL though because AAPL has to look out for AAPL (not anybody else) they need to deflate without causing a bubble burst that loses investor confidence because if you have that it creates a bad situation for the tech industry in general.
  If I were AAPL I would do what you propose but I wouldn't do it by allowing investors do it, I'd do it myself and do it the way GOOG handles their acquisitions, you know small innovative businesses that can be commoditized into larger money making machines, an example is Urchin which is now Google Analytics, YouTube is another, perhaps the best is Android.
  I feel if they took that route they'd make plenty of friends their perception would be "I'm not evil" and they stick it to the parents and show them that they are wrong without losing their confidence in the same stroke. The problem is as you say, it's not Apple's way.
  If they did this and sooner rather than later, the sooner that band aid comes off and sooner these products can be "assimilated" into AAPL because it may pose as a bumpy ride (any acquisition does) but at least you'd have a company with a good track record looking toward the future.
  Back to FaceBook, they bought Instagram, which is total crap. Say AAPL bought Whereis or a decent Mapping company, AAPL bought a camera company and stuck iOS on it, there literally so many good ideas out there for AAPL which if they took to it would totally disrupt the tech industry in a way we'd have the birth of phone wars all over again.
34. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by helix2301 · 2013-02-27 06:43 · Score: 1
  
  I agree Dell is going private and I think in time we will see others go private. The companies are better ran when they are private and do not have to report there earnings which makes company revenue ideas secret giving privately run company the upper hand. Plus with private companies PR is better companies like Spotify do not get the bad press Pandora does because again they do not report the earning.
  
  --
  http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
35. Re:Blame the market bulls ... by redlemming · 2013-02-27 12:17 · Score: 1
  
  For example: if a currently profitable company has a big pension fund saved up to pay out to retirees, corporate raiders will load the company up with debt, funneling all its money to "contractors" and "consultants" until they are "forced" to dip into the pension funds to keep the company afloat. When all the assets are gone, tell the workers and retirees "sorry, we're bankrupt!" before cruising away on your new yacht.
  It is appropriate to treat this as criminal conduct. In a rational implementation of the Bill of Rights, the protection of money in a retirement fund should fall naturally under the 9th Amendment as a right retained by the people. Thus any form of plundering should be actionable as a matter of violating fundamental rights, superseding federal law when that law would otherwise permit plundering.
One way to make money by alen · 2013-02-25 13:20 · Score: 1

Find suckers to help you buy failing business model
Borrow cash and pay yourself dividends
?
Profit
Online ALL THE THINGS! by girlintraining · 2013-02-25 13:21 · Score: 2

It seems like the trend to buy and sell everyone online continues to gain steam. Many stores from Blockbuster to Best Buy, from computer resellers to water purification systems... it seems like if you can get away with not having to touch or interact with the product in person before making a buying decision, that's what people are doing. In droves. One of the few retail areas not significantly affected has been women's clothing. Men, being of somewhat more predictable shapes and sizes, can buy jeans and such online, but women have no such luck. Even here, however, basics like bras, tank tops, t-shirts, shoes, etc., are being displaced by online sales.
It does not surprise me that books are on the list of things people don't need to go to a bookstore to purchase -- most books are purchased based on the recommendation of friends, word of mouth, or reviewers (which, surprise -- print media is giving way to online media...). This is not a good time to be a retail book seller... Barnes and Noble will soon be displaced by Walmart and their ilk; Stores that only sell books won't be around for much longer if they're publicly traded... they'll just be broken up and sold off piece by piece, their valuable commercial real estate being repurposed and the stock thrown out in massive going out of business sales, or simply deposited in a dumpster.

--
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
1. Re:Online ALL THE THINGS! by Obfuscant · 2013-02-25 13:45 · Score: 1
  
  This is not a good time to be a retail book seller... Barnes and Noble will soon be displaced by Walmart and their ilk; Stores that only sell books won't be around for much longer if they're publicly traded...
  And yet, B&N closed their online store (Fictionwise), which was the one of the few places with DRM-free multiformat offerings.
2. Re:Online ALL THE THINGS! by Alwin+Henseler · 2013-02-25 14:11 · Score: 1
  
  it seems like if you can get away with not having to touch or interact with the product in person before making a buying decision, that's what people are doing.
  
  So true. If it's not possible already, you could hire a (physical) storage space online. Then buy goods online, and have them delivered to that storage space. So you're never bothered by all that junk you bought cluttering up your house.
  One day, you may loose the need to ever visit that storage space, or use the junk that's stacked up there. So why not buy virtual goods then, so you can save on shipping & storage? And not have the bother of getting rid of that stuff... And when all the goods are virtual, replace that physical storage with a virtual one.
  Hire virtual space online, buy virtual goods to store there, never actually touch all that junk... heaven?
  Oh wait... done.
  
  Men, being of somewhat more predictable shapes and sizes, can buy jeans and such online (..)
  
  Maybe I'm oldfashioned then... I wouldn't even consider buying jeans without first trying it on. Even if it were "buy online, try it on, sent it back if it doesn't fit, free shipping". Simply not my kind of shopping. For many other items: why not? Online shops cut a lot of the cost of brick & mortar, which is ultimately good for consumers. Just not for everything, or every occasion.
3. Re:Online ALL THE THINGS! by NevarMore · 2013-02-25 15:10 · Score: 2
  
  , basics like bras,
  You know nothing about womens undergarments and how complicated they are to fit and take off do you?
4. Re:Online ALL THE THINGS! by trout007 · 2013-02-25 15:42 · Score: 2
  
  Last time I was in B&N I saw a whole aisle marked "Teen Paranormal Romance". I pretty much knew it was over.
  
  --
  I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
5. Re:Online ALL THE THINGS! by DavidTC · 2013-02-25 17:40 · Score: 1
  
  Um, no. B&N's online store is the Nook store. It's right there in the article.
  Fictionwise's purchase by B&N was just part of the roll-out of the Nook so they'd have titles and licensing agreements in place. And they didn't 'close' Fictionwise as much as 'merge it into the Nook store'.
  
  --
  If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
6. Re:Online ALL THE THINGS! by DavidTC · 2013-02-25 17:47 · Score: 0
  
  Hell, he doesn't appear to know anything about men's clothing, either. Who the hell buys jeans without trying them on? Men's pants' sizes are _less_ fucked up than women's (Which, from what I hear, are completely random from brand to brand.), but it doesn't mean jeans can be bought sight unseen, unless you've tried that exact size in the same brand.
  Socks, yes. Underwear, yes. (In fact, you have to as you can't try those one.) Shirts, yes. Pants and shoes? Uh, no.
  
  --
  If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
7. Re:Online ALL THE THINGS! by DavidTC · 2013-02-25 18:05 · Score: 2
  
  By 'it', do you mean Barnes and Noble? In which case I would suggest you're exactly backwards. If there actually I a genre that is selling, that's great for B&N.
  If by 'it' you mean 'society', then yes. Yes it is.
  I am the last person to judge people for the sort of fiction they enjoy. Especially fantasy. (I was a flipping Buffy fan. And a Harry Potter fan.)
  But, honest to God, half those books are total crap. That genre is the...the...the new 1920 pulp sci-fi. Except with more sexism and crappier characterization and dumber story-telling.
  And putting _more_ sexism in a book now than back then in 1920-1930s quite a trick. Especially when most of the damn writers are themselves female. Just...wow.
  And unlike pulp sci-fi, this isn't some sort of new genre attempting to figure out what it wants. The romance genre already exists! The fantasy genre already exists! Both of them know how to aim at teenagers! There are plenty of 'teen paranormal romances' that long predate this slush that were pretty good.
  But then goddamn Twilight came along and proved that anyone will buy any piece of crap. And thus pieces of crap were dutifully produced. (Or, rather, _shelved_. Crap books have always been produced.)
  But I'm glad they ended up on their own shelve. All too often they end up cluttering 'urban fantasy' or just fantasy in general. (Hell, last time I was at B&N, they had sci-fi and fantasy together. Seriously?)
  
  --
  If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
8. Re:Online ALL THE THINGS! by TheLink · 2013-02-25 19:15 · Score: 1
  
  It's porn for girls. Porn sells.
  --
  
  Too many replies beneath your current threshold
9. Re:Online ALL THE THINGS! by EmagGeek · 2013-02-26 00:03 · Score: 2
  
  They should just call it the "Vampires and Intense FEELINGS" category. Or maybe "Angsty Confused Female Surrounded by Scary Man-Critters."
10. Re:Online ALL THE THINGS! by sesshomaru · 2013-02-26 00:39 · Score: 1
  
  Everyone is broke, which turns everyone into a bargain hunter which means that stores that aren't designed to do bargains (but have other goals like convenience or quality) are priced out of the market.
  It's part of the Western readjustment, as we move into a new dark age of low compensation and diminished expectations.
  On the plus side, things might improve when we are finally conquered by the East. (Probably not though.)
  
  --
  "MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
11. Re:Online ALL THE THINGS! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-26 00:56 · Score: 0
  
  You say that as someone who hasn't had a hard time getting their fictionwise library migrated to Nook.
12. Re:Online ALL THE THINGS! by Kilo+Kilo · 2013-02-26 02:02 · Score: 1
  
  They carved this out of the ever decreasing Sci-Fi / Fantasy section. I tolerate the mixing of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, but this shit is unacceptable.
13. Re:Online ALL THE THINGS! by ChrisMaple · 2013-02-26 07:18 · Score: 1
  
  Walmart only stocks best-sellers; a typical Walmart has only a few hundred titles. Walmart and Target, etc. are not the future of books. Wide selection brick and mortar bookstores are tied to the future of paper books, whatever that may be.
  
  --
  Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
14. Re:Online ALL THE THINGS! by DavidTC · 2013-02-27 10:16 · Score: 1
  
  I didn't say they did it _well_.
  I just pointed out that B&N did not close 'their' online store, which was a completely silly assertions to make in a story that specifically talks about their online store! Obfuscant saying 'And yet, B&N closed their online store (Fictionwise)' was just completely nonsensical comment.
  B&N closed the online store they bought for scraps, _their_ online store is just fine.
  
  --
  If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Is it really news for nerds or stuff that matters? by jest3r · 2013-02-25 13:23 · Score: 0

Is this really news for nerds or stuff that matters?
Sure we all read books but why is this interesting?
I don't understand by Eskarel · 2013-02-25 13:24 · Score: 1

So he wants to split the company into two divisions, one of which probably will fail and the other of which certainly will fail. I guess that makes some sense, but the bit he wants to make private and own himself is the bit which certainly will fail?
The Nook doesn't have a huge shot at beating the kindle, even if they went and enabled their store on everyone's device, but it does have a shot, however remote, at being at least sort of profitable. Brick and Mortar book stores on the other hand are pretty well doomed unless they can offer some sort of specialization and/or excellent customer service which is pretty much the antithesis of the chain book store mind set.
1. Re:I don't understand by Daetrin · 2013-02-25 14:04 · Score: 2
  
  It's not just that, but the Nook and the brick and mortar stores have at least _some_ synergy together. The one thing Amazon doesn't have is a physical storefront where you can go browse books. I will on occasion go to B&N, browse through the shelves until i find a book i like, and then buy the ebook on my Nook if the price isn't too bad. There are definitely ways that B&N could work on encouraging that relationship.
  
  They could add a cheap camera to the Nook tablet (at least i don't think it has one already?) so you could scan the barcode of a book and have it take you straight to that page on the B&N site so you could purchase it right away without having to do a search. Maybe they could start stocking "preview" versions of books, a thin thing with the first 20 or so pages of a book so you could sample it and then scan the barcode if you liked it. That would let them pack a lot of books into limited shelf space and maybe eliminate the problem where you find something that looks interesting, but it turns out to be the third book in the series and they don't have the first two in the store.
  
  But if you split the two companies then you've got a brick & mortar store that's going to struggle alone in the same market that Borders failed in, and an online store and ebook device that will be going up against Amazon and the Kindle alone with no clear competitive advantage. (Aside from geeks like me who like _slightly_ less DRM and companies that haven't gone insane with patenting everything that moves.)
  
  --
  This Space Intentionally Left Blank
2. Re:I don't understand by fast+turtle · 2013-02-25 14:41 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Nobody caught this but what I see is he's simply doing a land grab. All of the real property (stores and such) is worth quite a bit of money and he wants it all for pennies on the dollar. If he's successful, those physical locations can then be sold off for 10-100x what he paid out to take the company private. Very nice profit for him.
  
  --
  Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
3. Re:I don't understand by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-25 14:54 · Score: 0
  
  So in 10 years or so the big box book stores will be gone, and all we will have are small boutique local bookshops. Just like what happened with record stores. I could live with that.
4. Re:I don't understand by Eskarel · 2013-02-25 15:50 · Score: 1
  
  I thought about that, but that presumes that the vast majority of B&N stores are on land actually owned by B&N, not 100% sure of that.
5. Re:I don't understand by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-25 21:26 · Score: 0
  
  Perhaps those owners know something the general public doesn't... like perhaps there will be a sudden and unexpected literacy revival where everyone will start reading physical paper books again?
  Hmm... perhaps.
  They must be thinking something! They wouldn't be doing this if they thought they'd fail... It's like buying into blockbuster video... it seems crazy it might ever take off... but... those folks aren't crazy (except like foxes).
6. Re:I don't understand by Trepidity · 2013-02-25 21:26 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  That's actually the only reason we got some of my elderly relatives a Nook rather than a Kindle. Their eyesight isn't very good, and ebook readers are a nice way of reading reading books with zoomable text, with much better selection than traditionally available in large-print dead-tree books. But they aren't very skilled with technology either, so feel much more comfortable having a local store they can go to to buy the books, where someone loads them onto the device, rather than having to DIY it over the internet.
  If the Nooks don't continue to be connected to the brick-and-mortar stores, it loses that advantage. Perhaps it's too niche to matter, though. Alternately, perhaps they'll keep up some kind of cross-service agreement even if the company is split.
  
  --
  10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
7. Re:I don't understand by afidel · 2013-02-26 18:14 · Score: 1
  
  They are, they have 689 stores and they're top 5 landlords (the big retail REITS) hold fewer than 100 of those properties, unless BN is very atypical and has some huge percentage of their stores owned by regional REITS they own most of their locations. I know that realestate is one of the big aces that Sears and Pennies both have, since there's been basically zero new development since 2007 in commercial realestate if the economy ever really recovers there's going to be a LOT of redevelopment of old property that's already zoned for large commercial spaces.
  
  --
  There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
B&N Also need to get "with the times" by inflex · 2013-02-25 13:39 · Score: 5, Interesting

If B&N want to improve their chances of success in the online/eBook market, they really need to sort out their PubIt side of matters. Currently unless you're in the US, or have gone through the extensive red-tape to obtain a US business cred, you are not permitted to get on board with directly publishing via PubIt. Conversely, Amazon and Kobo both allow international publishers to work directly through them.
While small publishers outside of the "Big 6" don't contribute a lot financially, as individuals there are however many many thousands of us, and a lot of our potential readers do have Nook units.
TLDR; B&N (PubIt) needs to be open for international publishers.
1. Re:B&N Also need to get "with the times" by dido · 2013-02-25 13:58 · Score: 2
  
  That's only half of it. They don't even seem to be open for international customers. As much as I'd like to get ebooks from B&N, the Nook app isn't even available outside of the US, whereas the Kindle app is. I downloaded the Nook app while I was in the US when I bought an Android tablet, intending to try to use it when I got home. Well, it never worked properly then, and uninstalling it and then trying to reinstall showed that the Nook app vanished from Google Play. And so I installed the Kindle app and now Amazon gets my money instead. Nicely played.
  
  --
  Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
2. Re:B&N Also need to get "with the times" by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-25 20:47 · Score: 1
  
  So it's come to this: a five-line post requires a TLDR. I weep for the humanity.
3. Re:B&N Also need to get "with the times" by alexgieg · 2013-02-26 01:46 · Score: 1
  
  They don't even seem to be open for international customers.
  It's much worse than that. If they weren't open to them it'd be bad enough, but they're actually actively against them. I've been a customer of eReader and Fictionwise, two early ebook sellers, for almost a decade. At some point Fictionwise purchased eReader, so those two sources became one. Then B&N purchased Fictionwise and let it in Limbo for years, until recently they decided to shut it down for good. The good news, if you happened to be an US customer: you got your library moved to B&N! All the while losing the bajillion file formats Fictionwise offered! The bad news, if you happened to not be an US customer: your library is now gone! Hope you made a backup during the time they offered you to! Yay!
  At this point I'm so pissed with B&N that even if they decide in future to start supporting non-US customers I'll refuse doing business with them, period. For me, it'll be Amazon all the way, specially because they've (finally) opened their Kindle store in Brazil so that I can get local support for the ereader (I continue to prefer the US Kindle store for ebooks though: many more titles, and more interesting ones at that).
  
  --
  Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
4. Re:B&N Also need to get "with the times" by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-26 04:13 · Score: 0
  
  It's available in the UK now: http://uk.nook.com/nook-mobile-apps
5. Re:B&N Also need to get "with the times" by AK+Marc · 2013-02-26 09:48 · Score: 1
  
  That's because content owners are broken. The old model is sell based on market. The problem is the Internet is a market, but they think they can segment the Internet by country and get paid 200 times for one work. But as soon as something is online in one place, it's available everywhere. Even "locked down" sites like Amazon, where Amazon US will not, under any circumstances, ship to NZ, despite wording in ToS and on product pages directly contradicting that finding ("this product is available for international shipping" - no , it's not). I'm not sure if that's NZ only because of Amazon Au, but I got a mail-forwarder in the US and have my things shipped to the US and forwarded on, so one of the tightest protection companies still can't prevent shipping outside the US.
  
  The result is that the content owners should go global for online rights. Let Netlfix and Hulu go global, and you'll see a much bigger increase in online sales than you ever thought possible. IP address restrictions just create a market in proxies.
  
  --
  Learn to love Alaska
Re:Is it really news for nerds or stuff that matte by timeOday · 2013-02-25 13:45 · Score: 5, Interesting

B&N is a company that valiantly strived to make the transition from bricks-and-mortar to the Internet, just as we are constantly chiding outmoded companies like Kodak for failing to do (or the RIAA for actively fighting, when it comes to music). By releasing the Nook line of e-readers, B&N took a leap into leading the transition of print publication away from paper. I for one bought a Nook for my daughter a couple years ago, and she reads on it all the time. Yet still they are gradually falling by the wayside, like all the other big booksellers that pre-date the Internet. For all we blame top management for failing to make the transition, re-inventing a running company seems to be all but impossible.
I'm not sure if that segment of retail can survive by damn_registrars · 2013-02-25 13:55 · Score: 1

Some segments of brick and mortar retail (consumer electronics in particular) can survive if they evolve appropriately. Bookstores, however, might just not be a segment that can. With consumer electronics a retailer would be smart to focus on actually understanding what items consumers need immediately (ie, waiting for shipping would be a really big deal) and carry those. However with bookstores there isn't that much available for "need to have it" - especially when you consider digital distribution. Unless a large portion of B&N's brick and mortar business comes from titles that are not on the bestseller lists (which you can generally pick up at your favorite discount retailer), they don't have a lot to run with.

--
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Costco by Anubis350 · 2013-02-25 14:02 · Score: 1

I wish that were true, but I remember reading recently that the founder of Costco has been heavily resisting any urges to follow his competitors and slash staff salaries (my god, Costco employees are all paid a living wage, the horror!) and benefits (they all have comprehensive health insurance, the horror!), raise his maximum profit margins on goods (charging more means more money... until the customers leave!), and generally all the other stuff that destroys companies. HE's being urged to do this by Wall St. types who want to see massive short term profits *now* and damn the future

--
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
1. Re:Costco by Lifyre · 2013-02-25 14:21 · Score: 1
  
  Not everyone running the company has enough power to do this unfortunately and many that would try would be removed by the board.
  
  --
  I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
2. Re:Costco by DavidTC · 2013-02-25 17:34 · Score: 2
  
  That's because Costco pays fucking dividends so people who own the stock make a share of the profits.
  Ah, investing money in a company to make a cut of the actual profits of the company, an insanely novel idea of corporate ownership that might just catch on one of these days. (It is the 1300s, right? I think my computer's clock is wrong.)
  
  --
  If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
3. Re:Costco by slew · 2013-02-25 18:55 · Score: 2
  
  FYI, The founder of Costco (Jim Sinegal) retired as CEO in January 2012. Although he remains on the board of directors, the reigns have been passed to another insider Craig Jelinek...
  Lest you think Costco is all about bucking Wall Street, you should know that they borrowed (yes borrowed) $3.5Billion (with a 'B') to pay out a special dividend to shareholders ahead of the tax increase that is scheduled to take place this year. This typical short term Wall Street manuever no doubt just transfered almost a billion or so from the US treasury to Costco shareholders (and probably didn't do much to help the employees or customers who as taxpayers will be forced to help fund this manuever).
4. Re:Costco by dywolf · 2013-02-26 01:50 · Score: 1
  
  unless they borrowed it from the treasury, tax payers dont pay for it.
  plus there's that whole thing about having to pay back whatever you borrow.
  
  --
  The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
5. Re:Costco by ChrisMaple · 2013-02-26 06:44 · Score: 1
  
  As a rule of thumb, successful companies either pay a dividend or grow rapidly, not both. Young companies reason that the best use of their money is to expand their business, as the growth should increase the value of the company more than a dividend would help the shareholders. When the company can no longer figure out ways to grow and has paid off all its debt and has a sufficient supply of cash to weather downturns and disasters, there's no place for the money to go but dividends. This is entirely reasonable and proper.
  
  --
  Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
6. Re:Costco by FatLittleMonkey · 2013-02-26 08:01 · Score: 1
  
  He's retired recently, and the company has already started down the orthodox path. Managers who believed in Sinegal's philosophy will resist for awhile, but they'll be pushed aside by those who thrive under Wall Street rules. Give it three years and they'll will be indistinguishable from Walmart.
  
  --
  Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
7. Re:Costco by slew · 2013-02-27 08:08 · Score: 1
  
  unless they borrowed it from the treasury, tax payers dont pay for it.
  plus there's that whole thing about having to pay back whatever you borrow.
  Since this manuver reduces the effective tax rate of the gross earnings***, the net result is that the US treasury gets less tax revenue for the same amount of gross earnings. Since the US government doesn't seem to be able to reduce spending, it must borrow more money than if it had gotten the tax revenues which costs the US tax payers.
  Net result: US tax payers pay for the tax reduction received by the Costco shareholders.
  *** basically, by borrowing the money (at a currently very low interest rate), Costco converts the taxable date of future revenue to TY2012. Although the shareholder pays this tax now, this was done to take advantage of a lower rate due to "bush" taxcuts. If that revenue was recognized in TY2013 or later it would would be part of the valuation of the company/stock and/or part of a future dividend would be subject to a higher future tax rate....
Expect a much smaller B&N by erice · 2013-02-25 14:05 · Score: 4, Interesting

One of the news bits omitted from TFAs but included in the BBC article is this:
The firm plans to shut a third of its stores by the end of the year.
and

Barnes & Noble was originally a New York bookstore, which Mr Riggio bought out the branding rights to in the 1970s, before building out a successful US-wide chain.
Keeping a giant money losing company going would seem to be hopeless. I would expect that Riggio would reduce B&N's presence to only a few stores that he is sure can survive. Essentially save the company he started by sacrificing the behemoth that it has become.
1. Re:Expect a much smaller B&N by Kenja · 2013-02-25 14:27 · Score: 1
  
  Last time I was in one, they had just about made the transition to being a Starbucks knock off.
  
  --
  
  "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
2. Re:Expect a much smaller B&N by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-25 15:17 · Score: 0
  
  A couple years ago I heard about B&N installing machines to manufacture a paperback book of your choosing in 15 minutes. But I've never seen one in action, and I've been in a fair number of their stores.
  That kind of thing would be interesting, and could help with the disadvantage vis a vis Amazon of carrying inventory in each store. Maybe that's one thing Riggio has in mind.
3. Re:Expect a much smaller B&N by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-25 18:42 · Score: 0
  
  Actually it would be structure to shift assets to the private business and liabilities to the public. Then you dissolve the private business, rake in your gains, and walk away.
4. Re:Expect a much smaller B&N by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-26 03:48 · Score: 0
  
  Why would they be a knock off? B&N's partnership with Starbucks is well-established. I guess all brick and mortar stores are just gradually transforming into Starbuck's?
5. Re:Expect a much smaller B&N by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-26 03:52 · Score: 0
  
  You're thinking of the Cappucino machine. They have one of those at McNally Jackson (another bookstore in NYC). The machine itself costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $150k, so no, you're probably not going to see one in your average B&N anytime in the near future, although the company that makes them has some sort of partnership with Kodak that is supposed to make them more widespread. We'll see.
Valve may have been a tiny company before... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-25 14:37 · Score: 1

But they're manuevering themselves into a potentially pivotal company in the online market. EA is selling games through them. Zenimax is selling games through them. I'm sure there are other publishers people who can find who are as well. And that's before including the independents, their 'console' plans, and the shift towards everybody having a steam account as one of their 'new' social networking accounts.
And I say all of this as someone on the outside of steam as well as all the current DRM encumbered games for the past 3-5 years now.
Sure Valve may become irrelevant in a couple years, but then again like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc before them, they targeted the right market at the right time and have made themselves a leader in it. Not only that but they've managed to make it profitable and pervasive enough to take money from their competitors for access to it.
That to me says something.
A lot of interesting pieces out there... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-25 14:41 · Score: 0

Barnes and Noble: only remaining major bricks and mortar competitor to Amazon in US, well-liked by customers
Nook: technically outstanding tablet/e-reader
WebOS: good open source mobile OS
US Newspapers: need to migrate most of their business from print to mobile (tablet/e-reader) over the next 5-8 years
Local by RedHackTea · 2013-02-25 14:42 · Score: 1

Turn it into a supplier. Let local bookstores name the stores what they want, run it as they want, and use B&N as the book supplier. Keep the B&N website and nook. Also make the nook more attractive to local bookstore owners like kobo. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/books/small-bookstores-say-theyre-thriving-even-without-big-hits.html?_r=0

--
The G
1. Re:Local by only_human · 2013-02-25 17:25 · Score: 2
  
  But they are thinking about transitioning away from building Nooks too:
  Barnes & Noble Weighs Its E-Reader Investment
Most depressing experience in a while! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-25 14:56 · Score: 0

Last week I went into the B&N on 18th and 5th in NYC and it had to be one of the most depressing feelings I have experienced in a while. The entire computer section is just a couple of shelves, significantly smaller than the philosophy section, and the textbook section feels like a college book store where everything is organized by courses for the New School. Down the block the B&N by Union Square the Nook corner takes a good chunk of first floor space, and didn't make it all the way to the top, bu last I heard it was converted into a Toys R Us.
a sad day for civilization when bookstores are gone.
1. Re:Most depressing experience in a while! by retchdog · 2013-02-25 16:23 · Score: 1
  
  Solution: walk east one block and south six blocks.
  Anyway, the computer section being smaller than the philosophy section not only makes sense, but is pleasant. An entire floor of MCSE study guides and "Learn Javascript in Two Days!" gives one the vertigo. The mathematics and science section, now that's important.
  
  --
  "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
2. Re:Most depressing experience in a while! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-26 00:23 · Score: 0
  
  All they have left in their Computer book section are things like Macs for Dummies, Ipads for dummies, and Windows 8 books.
  When I saw that, I actually wondered if I had found the childrens computer books section. Alas that was all of the computer books.
3. Re:Most depressing experience in a while! by retchdog · 2013-02-26 06:10 · Score: 1
  
  I've never seen that many decent computer books in a B&N. My breakdown:
  Computer books: 75%-90% drek.
  Philosophy: 60-80% drek. a lot of deepak chopra crap, but usually some decent books.
  Math/science: 20%-80% drek. occasionally, a B&N will have a solid selection of real science books and classics (even some Dovers, which are very low-margin relative to other stock).
  And then there was the one time i bought Knuth v.1-3 in a discard bin for $6 each. I guess they were replacing them with ``for Dummies" books.
  
  --
  "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
4. Re:Most depressing experience in a while! by ChrisMaple · 2013-02-26 07:31 · Score: 1
  
  Walk 23 blocks north. I don't know how good the assortment of computer books at the New York Public Library is, but it does have a lot of books.
  
  --
  Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Horse shit by DogDude · 2013-02-25 15:45 · Score: 2

Horse shit. It's not just "MBA"s and such making these decisions. It's everybody. Every Joe Blow who buys a stock or a mutual fund is interested in one thing: return. Let's not pretend that average people investing for their retirement are interested in making less money for the sake of, say, treating employees well or making ethical business decisions. The problem is the whole system of public companies in the US. Corporations have all of the rights of actual people, with none of the liabilities, and the owners of said public companies (every stock/fund holder) are completely and entirely divorced from anything the company does other than earn profit.

--
I don't respond to AC's.
1. Re:Horse shit by sesshomaru · 2013-02-26 00:33 · Score: 1
  
  I used to be an investor (before I met a girl) it was important to me as a small investor that companies I invested in focused on the big picture, and I would ruthlessly dump stocks that I thought weren't in it for the long term.
  See, it's the big guys,and only the big guys, who profit from juiced stocks... everybody else involved gets totally screwed, and that includes the small investors and the people with 401ks.
  If you enjoy getting screwed, by all means try to play in the big boys pool, but you'd be better off going to Vegas and betting everything on "7."
  
  --
  "MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
2. Re:Horse shit by Legion303 · 2013-02-26 01:18 · Score: 1
  
  " It's not just "MBA"s and such making these decisions. It's everybody. Every Joe Blow who buys a stock or a mutual fund is interested in one thing: return."
  Joe "I have one share" Blow gets to make strategic business decisions now? Huh.
3. Re:Horse shit by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-26 05:32 · Score: 0
  
  Every Joe Blow who buys a stock or a mutual fund is interested in one thing: return.
  No shit. peragrin never said otherwise. What they did say is that people are making the mistake of focusing on short-term gains instead of long-term gains. Now, would you like to explain how it is more profitable to Joe Blow to focus on the short-term rather than the long-term?
  
  Let's not pretend that average people investing for their retirement are interested in making less money for the sake of, say, treating employees well or making ethical business decisions.
  Oh, I see, you weren't looking to explain that at all, You were just trying to shoe-horn in your ethics debate.
  
  While I agree that things such as treating employees like crap and making unethical business decisions are things that need addressing, I fail to see how it is relevant to the discussion at hand.
4. Re:Horse shit by DogDude · 2013-02-26 07:33 · Score: 1
  
  Joe "I have one share" Blow gets to make strategic business decisions now? Huh.
  
  By purchasing that one share, Joe Blow becomes an owner of the company. Literally. To bring it to it's logical conclusion, is it moral for Joe Blow to buy one share of Al Qaeda, Inc?
  
  --
  I don't respond to AC's.
5. Re:Horse shit by Legion303 · 2013-02-26 19:19 · Score: 1
  
  You didn't answer the question.
The end of retail by Animats · 2013-02-25 16:13 · Score: 1

First they came for the record stores, and I said nothing because I didn't go to record stores. Then they came for the video rental stores, and I said nothing because I didn't own a video rental store. Then they came for the bookstores, and I said nothing because it was hopeless.
Re:Books I tell you! by FatdogHaiku · 2013-02-25 16:17 · Score: 1

There's a future in books! Pulpy, inky, papery books!
Right after the EMP...

--
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
When they came for... by ThomasBHardy · 2013-02-25 16:17 · Score: 2

When the music industry switched to digital distribution, I was quiet for I wanted to download music.

When the games industry switched to digital distribution, I was quiet for I wanted to download games.

When the book industry switched to digital distribution, I despaired for I did not want digital books.

Not having grown up consuming book content on computers, but playing games and music on them, many of us are caught in the absurdity of supporting digital in many forms and rejecting it in others. Those younger than us will have fewer qualms as they learn to consume all content digitally.

I guess I'll just go ahead an complete my transition to grumpy old man with a hearty "You kids get off my lawn!"

--
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
1. Re:When they came for... by Wildfire+Darkstar · 2013-02-25 17:02 · Score: 2
  
  It's not digital books that are hurting Barnes and Noble (and previously killed competitor Borders). E-books are a successful sidebar, and will very likely continue to grow. But the biggest threat to brick and mortar stores like B&N are online retailers like Amazon, and not even their Kindle offerings.
  That bothers me more than anything else, really. I'm fine with digital books, movies, whatever. I've spent too many hours packing and sorting my dead tree book collection, not to mention finding places to put it all, to mythologize the format itself. But the best books I've ever read, I've found as a result of browsing the aisles at places like Barnes and Noble, and, before them, local retailers. That's an experience Amazon hasn't managed to duplicate, and they're considerably better at trying to do so that 90% of their online peers.
  
  --
  Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
2. Re:When they came for... by sesshomaru · 2013-02-26 00:50 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, but I have a choice. Well, three choices actually:
  1. Go to Barnes and Noble, browse and buy books. Paying a premium. (Oh, and never seeming to find the exact book I want when I go looking for something specific.)
  2. Go to the Library and read for free, but have to deal with all the maple syrup stains on the books.
  3. Buy cheap books for as low as I can get them (too low, really to keep a bricks and mortar retailer in operation) and not run out of books to read because I can actually afford them.
  Frankly, it would make more sense, to assuage my guilt at the death of premium book retail, to just go into B&N every so often and hand the cashier some money. "Here, I know you guys are struggling."
  But that would be silly...
  
  --
  "MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
3. Re:When they came for... by dywolf · 2013-02-26 02:09 · Score: 1
  
  another threat was this stupid notion of trying to be everything....everything other than a bookstore.
  Border. prime example. and B&N falls into this too.
  When I go to these places I dont care about:
  -the massive fancy furniture
  -sitting there reading without buying
  -while drinking a latte
  -and using the WIFI
  -the piles and piles of non-book product (DVD, VHS, etc)
  When I go to a bookstore I want to get ... books. As shocking as that is.
  Borders forgot that. And B&N too.
  Waldenbooks was always where I went, for years. Til Borders bought them out, and then shut them down. And Waldenbooks was successful and still making money, that whole time.
  Because they did one thing, they did it well, and they did just that thing: sell books.
  No coffee stand with 2-3 coffee barristas (even at minimum wage, that's ~100k a year spent on 3 employees, and nowhere near making back that money on more sales). No public wifi for people to sit and use without buying. No fancy expensive furniture. Just lots of books. And if they didnt have it, they can order it, or tell you if the other store across town had it (even most small cities have more than 1 mall). Borders and B&N frequently cant do that because in many small cities/towns there IS NO other store, there's just the one. And by sitting in a mall rahter than having their own private giant box, Walden saved money.
  So what did Borders do when they started having trouble? They shut down Waldenbooks of course! Not the giant boxes that cost them lots of money, no. Not the coffee counter no one cared about, no. Did it work? Of course not. Within another two years Borders was gone.
  B&N is going to go the same way if they continue to ignore the books. And just stocking whatever the current bestsellers are isnt enough. Walk into B&N and ask for a book that's even maybe 6 months old, or slightly obscure (not on a BS list), and they look at you like you're an alien lifeform. Whereas Walden and other stores would look up the ISBN, order it (sometimes even from Amazon, whatever it took to get it), and call you when it came in. I got copies of even out of print books by authors I like that way, such as nearly all of Craig Thomas's work (author of Firefox and Winterhawk, two my favorites)
  
  --
  The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
4. Re:When they came for... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-26 04:04 · Score: 0
  
  Selling "only" books is competing directly with Amazon, on their strengths. If that's your business plan, you're sunk before you start.
5. Re:When they came for... by Common+Joe · 2013-02-27 01:24 · Score: 1
  
  I propose a solution for keeping the brick and morter stores alive: Since everything is going online and digital, let the brick and morters be digital too. I'd be happy if I could pay a dollar per hour to flip through any book I want and go to any page I want. I know that isn't practical online (otherwise you could just download the entire book and never pay for it), but brick and morter would allow me to search through and scan books to see how good they are before I buy it. (I'd use their computers that I cannot take home with me.) Do the same thing with CDs. So what if I read the whole book or listen to the whole CD? They've got their money from the $1 / hour. If I like the book and want a copy, then I can make the purchase right there from them.
  I suppose that would only work in a society interested in reading. It would be nice for book clubs too if they could meet there. Local authors could be advertised. "Book signings" could still be arranged.
6. Re:When they came for... by dywolf · 2013-02-27 03:25 · Score: 1
  
  you didnt even read the whole thing did you?
  waldenbooks survived for years in the era of amazon. it was only shutdown not because of its own problems but because Borders, who had previously bought them out, was having problems and they decided to focus on the boutique store rather than the "just books" store. and it didnt work, as i said.
  similar stores still continue to focus on just books, successfully, but they tend to be small affairs cause Borders and B&N did their damned to buy out or force out all small time competition.
  
  --
  The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
A Solution Emerges by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-25 16:21 · Score: 0

B&N has indeed been depressed for far too long. Enough is enough.
Without going into accounting details ... I will vote Yes To The Motion Before The Board.
Happy Trails.
Founder? by colinrichardday · 2013-02-25 17:17 · Score: 1

Barnes and Noble dates back to 1917. How old is this guy?
Re:Is it really news for nerds or stuff that matte by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-25 17:22 · Score: 0

The nook is a scam, You were burned buying it. Riggio most likely notes that, and wants out of it. As far as I am concerned they can take the Nook Division and cram up the ass of who ever dreamed it up.
Interest rates are too low. by Animats · 2013-02-25 18:03 · Score: 3, Insightful

What fuels "going private" are two things - low interest rates, and that interest paid by companies is deductible. "Going private" really means "leveraged buyout".
Companies can pay for their capital through dividends to stockholders through stock buybacks which push up the stock price (or compensate for dilution through stock options), or by paying interest. Only the first is taxable.
Tax policy and "quantitative easing" (i.e. central banks lending money at very low rates) fuel leveraged buyouts. Without those factors, "going private" would be a very rare event.
1. Re:Interest rates are too low. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-25 23:58 · Score: 0
  
  You forgot the immense regulatory burden that rests upon the shoulders of a publicly traded company. Going private saves a company millions per year in regulatory overhead.
  Another huge plus for going private is getting retail investors' hands off of your company. Retail investors are idiots, and introduce huge volatility and uncertainty because they seldom make informed decisions, and often make poor decisions based on tiny slivers of news that make it into the mainstream media.
  They also collectively control a huge number of shares - way more than corporate officers ever could hope to. Most companies are ~75% institutional, meaning that 75% of their shares are held by retail investors in their online brokerage accounts, where there is no safety check for buying and selling, and no intermediate step through a broker where there is an opportunity for the broker to say "hey wait a minute, that's a terrible idea."
  There's no effing way I would take my company public, and I've been urged to on more than one occasion. Fortunately I own a huge majority of the shares and rule with an iron fist.
2. Re:Interest rates are too low. by ChrisMaple · 2013-02-26 07:51 · Score: 1
  
  "Institutional Investor" is a company that actually owns the stock itself, usually a mutual fund or an insurance company. It's not the same thing as the stocks owned by an individual in a brokerage account, even if held in the broker's name. The brokerage can't buy or sell your stocks without your permission (although it can (alas) "lend" your stocks to short-sellers under certain conditions.)
  
  --
  Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Good riddance. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-25 18:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

The last three times I was in a B&N, I couldn't find the book I was looking for. Oh, they could order it, of course. The hell is the point of that? I can order it, through my Magical Intertubes.
It's not just bookstores, however: I've been disappointed in every category of store you can think of; failing to find the products I seek.
There's little sense in wasting time, gas and aggravation. The savings in all three more than make up for the slight delay and cost of shipping.
subject by Legion303 · 2013-02-26 00:30 · Score: 1

Barnes and Noble sold my one-off email address to spammers. If they're really that hard up for money then maybe...no, wait, fuck them.
I'd like to see B&N stores slashdotted by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-26 00:36 · Score: 0

Can we get a slashdot effect on Barnes and Noble? Could we all storm the doors and buy a book this week? I seriously don't want this company to go under. My household already has 4 nooks, but I'll go buy a physical book this week. Two in fact, one for my wife.
1. Re:I'd like to see B&N stores slashdotted by neminem · 2013-02-26 04:39 · Score: 1
  
  No, screw you.
  How about you go support your -local- brick-and-mortar bookstore instead? Don't have one cause the megastores drove them all out of business? Then screw you twice.
  Barnes and Nobles deserves to die to Amazon, same way Borders did.
B&N trains customers not to go to their stores by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-26 01:09 · Score: 0

B&N has less inventory in their stores than they used to. I am sick of going to a store and not finding a book. If I do find a book in a store, it's full cover price. Even with their discount card's 10% off, it's cheaper on their own bn.com site which has books usually much cheaper than stores - 30%, 40%, 50% off. And B&N has their store inventory online, so you can see "out of stock" and not have to go to the store, so they don't get incidental purchases like magazines if you never actually go. Some day, the business book written about B&N's demise will be called "Out Of Stock" and explain all this in great detail.
Oh... and ... let me rant ... As a developer whose app triggered platform bugs on the Nook, I hope it dies a horrible, flaming death. My app was automatically rejected every time I submitted a new version because I triggered the platform bug. I had to open a support ticket every time and explain the bug again to get it approved. Everything bad about B&N's awful customer service is like 10x with the Nook developer program.
Dying Business Model is Dying ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-26 05:19 · Score: 0

I needed a book on C#/.Net ... so I surfed to Amazon and BN ... both where about $26 ... reasonable enough. I drove down to B&N local store, they had a copy on the shelf for $50. I told them their website had it for $26 and change ... with free shipping!. They would not match the price.
I offered a $10 "convenience" charge as was willing to give them $36 for the book .... right then and there. Answer? Sorry, we can't do that.
My response? Sorry, that's so offensive your not getting my money at all. I had the book the next day, from Amazon for just over $31 dollars (overnight shipping, tax included).
That's a dead / dying business model. Convenience charges have to be more in line since it's no longer that "inconvenient" to order online anymore. I gave B&N a chance at my business and they basically said: Your Monies are not Wanted Here.
Re:Is it really news for nerds or stuff that matte by femtobyte · 2013-02-26 05:21 · Score: 2

Paying as much or more for ephemeral e-books than physical hardcover editions is a scam, no matter whose e-reader you use. But I love my Nook --- it's a perfect platform carrying around a load of free books (from, e.g., Project Gutenberg, or my own reference compilations) to read on long trips. Battery life is great, screen quality is nice (better than the lowest grades of pulp paperbacks, though with room for improvement compared to a quality printing). I've got the silly WiFi "store" turned off, since I never intend to fork over extortion fees for overpriced, DRM'd novels.
Re:Is it really news for nerds or stuff that matte by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-26 12:58 · Score: 0

I've also got a Nook Simple Touch (and nook app on a non-BN tablet) and find it's a great, versatile e-reader. Is it perfect? No. Is it a very usable device for reading and reference? Yes. Since EPUB files are everywhere and easy to load onto the Nook, especially with the memory card, it's my go-to when I'm travelling and want to carry a laptop (Mac Air) and books. One Nook weighs a LOT less than a bunch of physical books.....and it's got a great battery life.
OOG SAD by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-27 12:11 · Score: 0

OOG SAD DOUCHBAGS NO SMASH OPEN SOURCE CDS! .. no really oog sad douchebags no smash open source cds