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‘Is Borders the next Circuit City?’ Or could the right e-book strategy help save it?
November 17, 2009 | 6:59 am
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By David Rothman
Borders is up against such challenges as plummeting revenue, a price war, e-book competition and high debt, says Alyce Lomax, writing for The Motley Fool financial site.
Employee morale may also be sagging.
“I used to come in early and stay late,” a Fool commenter quotes a Border site for employees, “because I loved Borders and wanted it to succeed. Now I’m ashamed to work here.”
As a reader and shopper, and perhaps a writer or publisher, too, what do you think of Borders? Is there any way that e-book tech could help save the company? Or do you think it’s hopeless because Amazon and B&N are so much stronger in the E area?
Related: Will independents outlast the big bookstore chains? by Peter Beren, who writes the SF Publishing Examiner blog.
Image: Flagship store in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Technorati Tags: Borders,Borders Group
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Comments:
First, it’s relatively early in the ebook industry and Borders can easily get into the ebook retailing business within months. They would have a hard time catching up to Amazon but then so will B&N—first-mover advantage goes a long way in young industries.
Second, there are and will be a lot of ebook reader gadgets sold by vendors not affiliated to Amazon or B&N; Borders can (and should) be working up deals to carry *all* of them. Sony, Astak, Pocketbook 360, Bookeen. And eagerly seek out and feature any new alternative reader devices that hit the market, there will be dozens coming and there is money to be made selling the hardware, maybe enough to (short-term) offset declining print book revenue. Set up a premium quality reading room with demo units and let people try them the way they let them check out books. After all B&N (and Amazon) are both in the house brand business, Borders can be the knowledgeable brand-agnostic B&N reader retailer.
Third, they can drink the Adobe Kool-Aid and setup an ebook store using the Adobe DRM being adopted by the ABA (anything but Amazon) crowd and compete with all the other Adobe driven online ebook retailers.
Fourth, they can also work out deals to go with an alternative ecosystem, maybe partnering with Apple (dangerous), Microsoft (LIT format isn’t quite dead yet), or Google to sell ebooks.
It’ll take guts and vision to do any or all of those things (or something even cleverer) but the alternative is to go down the Blockbuster road to irrelevance and a death spiral.
As long as they don’t panic there is still time to be fashionably late to the party.
Maybe Borders could bypass ebooks altogether, and install an espresso book-printing station in all their larger shops? Move in on Kinko’s with self-publishers? Print out calendars for groups, books of people’s children’s ‘first novels and stories’ and that sort of thing?
Ebooks, or a lack thereof, aren’t really the problem for Borders right now. The chain is getting squeezed between big box retailers like Walmart, Target and Costco, that are deeply discounting the 100 or so best-sellers and online sites of B&N and Amazon that have a much greater selection. I think it’s the lack of a successful online strategy for many years that’s much more responsible for the pressures they now face.
I agree with Aaron above that the problems Borders faces now are a lack of a successful online strategy. They really haven’t changed much inside their stores over the years. At my local Borders they removed the customer service desk, so it’s even harder to find help.
I agree the problem isn’t with ebooks….although it might be in 5 years. Been to a Border’s lately? Found anyone there that knows anything about books? The worst part is checking out. One person at the register and a long line waiting to check out. 20 minutes to check out at a book store is ridiculous–why go back? They’ve lost touch with their customers. To succeed without an ereader, they need to focus on outstanding customer service.