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Nook Failure, Lack of Foot Traffic Could Spell Doom For Barnes & Noble

Posted by Soulskill on from the dead-tree-viewing-gallery dept.

tripleevenfall sends in a story at Yahoo Finance forecasting the end of Barnes & Noble. Quoting: "The last nationwide book retailer may be writing its final chapter. Barnes & Noble's latest quarterly results show a 7.4% drop in revenues and a $122 million loss for the fourth-quarter of its fiscal year. B&N's disastrous focus on making Nook e-Readers is weighing heavily on the chain's operations. A 17% drop in Nook revenues and stunning $475 million loss for the device division in 2013 are hobbling the company's ability to keep its stores afloat. B&N appears to be cannibalizing itself with branded tablets and cross-platform e-reader applications, which render the stores increasingly irrelevant."

2 of 330 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I go into the bookstore by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 5, Informative

    On my way to the Starbucks in the back

    It's not a Starbucks. It's the Barnes & Noble Cafe featuring Starbucks coffee.

    And next time, I'm probably going to stop at the front and pick up one of those Nook HD+ 9" tablets they now have on fire sale for $150 while they still have them. It now has Google Play and all the apps available there without rooting it, and I can't see why it won't still be a decent tablet even if B&N goes completely under.

    --
    "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
    --- Jerry Garcia
  2. Re:Are people reading fewer paper books? by geek · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes people are reading paper books a LOT less. Every person I know has a Kindle or an iPad or like me and my wife, Nexus 7's. Paper books are great, don't get me wrong but when my mother in law even has an iPad for reading you know the death of paper books is on the horizon.

    I was a bitter clinger to paper books. I graduated with an English degree and love literature. Too me paper books were sacred. Now I can't stand the thought of dealing with a paper book, storing it, watching it yellow on my shelf or having to fight with the binding while trying to read and holding the cover back. My Nexus 7 is the perfect experience. I can get books from multiple retailers on a single device while sitting in bed. I have Google Books, Kindle, Nook, Kobo and many others on my device and I shop around for prices.

    Couple this with Calibre and I can manage my library any way I see fit, convert between formats and store them locally or in the cloud as I see fit.