Barnes and Noble is planning to close over 200 stores in the next decade, about one third of their existing stores.
But they're, like, totally committed to brick and mortars, whatever makes you think different?
As someone else pointed out, this is the "best case" scenario. In other words, they is what they PLAN on doing. Why would they announce closing MORE stores than they plan?
As I mentioned, I'm not in the business of cheering the demise of others. Not so much that I care about Barnes and Noble, but a lot of people work there and they don't deserve to lose their jobs.
Still, I don't understand this business model of doing your very best to make yourself obsolete.
In the early 1990's, 85% of my sales were sports cards. But sooner than most shops, I realized that cards had nowhere to go but down, so I started to exit the business. I couldn't just stop, that would have been disastrous. I had to keep up a certain level of support throughout the decline, as I looked for things to replace cards.
But I'll always remember the vast sense of relief I got in the late 1990's when I finally spontaneously and genuinely responded to a customer's complaint by saying, "I'm not a card shop. I'm a shop that carries cards."
However, I was still in business, I just switched what I was selling.
In B & N's case, they are simply taking out the stores....
So how's that work?
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2 comments:
I stopped as a card collector about the same time because I began seeing this peak...the reaching of the summit with gimmicks and that ever elusive rare find that I knew it just couldn't stabilize and keep up. It simply plateaued. And I've seen the same thing with B&N and a lot of these stores. The sad thing to me is not so much the businesses closing. The execs will all have exit strategies because that is how execs operate. It is the people that work for them and have worked in places like Best Buy, Staples, and the like who will be out of jobs. This false sense of prosperity falsely bolstered our economy and the ones that will pay for it is John and Sally Normalguy who are making minimum wage and can't find other work.
hey dunc.....in the early 90's a lot of those sports cards sales were to me and steve! Brian
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