Barnes & Noble heading the way of Bordersaurus

Industry experts are predicting that Barnes and Noble will be gone by the New Year - B&N has been closing about 20 stores per year since 2012 and has said it will continue to do so for the next several years. But its financial position is bleak. This follows a period of growth where the store moved into areas where private bookshops thrived, but where put out of business by the aggressive pricing of big chains like Barnes & Noble and Borders. Well now the digital revolution has done the same for the big book stores.

According to Focus Magazine there are five reasons why Barnes and Noble are failing and these are:

First, Amazon makes it so easy to buy books.
Second, publishers thrashed B&N by selling best-sellers at deep discounts in non-traditional outlets such as supermarkets, Wal-Mart and Costco, thus removing a key source of revenue for the chain.
Third, the woefully underfunded Nook is competing with Amazon’s Kindle, which is like bringing a knife to a gunfight.
Fourth, the antiquated model of printing books on spec, putting them on trucks, and crossing your fingers that they’ll sell doesn’t work in the internet print-on-demand era.
And fifth, book buyers want decent customer service. At B&N these days, the only way to find a sales clerk is to attempt to shoplift.

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