Borders Books Files Ch 11 and closes 30% of US stores

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GeorgeC

Borders Books Files Ch 11 and closes 30% of US stores

Post by GeorgeC » February 16th, 2011, 1:40 pm

http://www.bordersreorganization.com/pd ... _10614.pdf

Above is a link to the court document filed by Borders for Ch 11 protection and reorganization. Check out the PDF to see if your area is affected.... A lot of us will be.

The list may also include some of the remaining Waldenbooks stores as well. I know, for instance, that Chicago never had more than two Borders locations but had many Waldenbooks scattered through town.

A lot of people who still buy books and videos at Borders will be affected. In my neck of the woods, BOTH local stores are being closed due to lower sales.

This isn't unexpected. Borders has been in trouble for the better part of a decade at least.

This is the beginning of the end for the large, brick-and-mortar bookstore chains in the US. Barnes & Noble probably isn't too far behind. These stores are victims of their own aggressive tactics and bloated sizes. Putting in coffee stores so customers could read unpaid-for books and magazines probably wasn't a great idea, either. This essentially turned Borders and Barnes & Nobles into large for-profit libraries on large, expensive leases.

The salvation for books is ultimately in the palm of the Internet and smaller local bookstores (if many are left) as well as used bookstores.

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Post by Macaluso » March 5th, 2011, 9:26 pm

I think more and more people buying Kindles and iPads are going to further add to Borders and B&N losting customers.

Not a bad thing of course. Whatever keeps people reading is a good thing.

Plus I've got that 200 dollar Far Side collection so what more books do I even need

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Post by Randall » March 6th, 2011, 12:14 pm

Sad, but true. Online booksellers and digital books are killing B&M stores. I try to throw some sales at my fantastic local bookstore (McNally Robinson), since I love browsing their massive two stories and they have a great cafe; but at the same time I can't often justify passing up the 30-50% savings I can get from Amazon--- especially when the books I like often retail for 50-80 dollars. On the other hand, if I was always paying full retail price, I'd buy much fewer books, so online sales likely help publishers a bunch. Still, it's not good to see retailers go under.

And as a consumer, there's nothing greater than coming across a cool book on the shelf you never would have thought of searching for online.

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Post by Ben » March 6th, 2011, 4:30 pm

It's the same over here with the HMV chain, which is losing to online stores. Brick and mortar locations are closing all the time, and that's pushing their prices up. They just can't compete with what things can go for online, and even HMV's online business isn't making much due to having to compete with the likes of Amazon, etc.

Like Rand, I love perusing through physical stock to see what's out, what's new, but it just doesn't make sense to pick up a box set at price X in a store when it's a third less online, or even as low as half if I order from the States after the dollar/pound conversion.

Though I hate to see the stores closing, it simply means I can pick up more stuff for the same budget by searching out the best deals. In many ways, the stores only have themselves to blame: they've been in business for many, many years (HMV since the 1920s) and should have had the acumen to pick up the internet ball and run with it before the likes of Amazon could even establish themselves.

But Amazon (and several others) have obviously come along not only with terrific stock but great customer service in their new world way of providing consumers with what they want. You can't beat it, really, but unfortunately neither can the older established chains...

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Re: Borders Books Files Ch 11 and closes 30% of US stores

Post by GeorgeC » March 6th, 2011, 7:07 pm

Economic circumstances and my own feeling that I have TOO much crap have forced me to borrow a lot more books from the library and increase my own standards for book-buying.

(At this point, I could easily live without at least a third of the books and would like to get rid of the comics. It's insane for me to dump either of the collections without at least trying to get a few hundred dollars from some parts of them first....)

I've basically given up buying any fiction or historical works in favor of only art books and the graphic novels/comic reprints that I really like. Thank goodness my neighborhood has a very good metro-library system!

I've seen what's been happening to Borders for years. The decline's been going on for a good decade while management has fluttered in the wind wondering how to reverse the decline. Borders owes a good quarter billion dollars or more to the likes of Diamond Distribution for unpaid manga and graphic novels... Borders just hasn't caught a break and the way the stores are structured would not have allowed them to get through the situation without some closing. It's just a ton of store space that isn't paying for itself.

Many, many Waldenbooks -- a fixture of malls across the US -- were closed just a few years ago. Guess who owns the Waldenbooks chain? Borders!

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Post by Randall » March 6th, 2011, 7:51 pm

The books I actually buy now are mostly classic comic strip and comic book reprints. (I can't ever see going totally digital on these, especially stuff like the enormous Prince Valiant and Popeye volumes.) And some newer comics stuff, but I'm getting pretty selective. Once I have an iPad, I'll be even more selective about what I bring home. Right now, I'll still buy print books on sale for cheap, but Kindle versions are no more than the remainder books are.

More than ever, I ask myself, "Where the heck will I put this if I buy it?" I try to thin stuff out a couple of times a year, and still the collection grows.

So, I guess I can't interest you in buying my old comics, George? ;)

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » March 6th, 2011, 10:35 pm

Uhhhh.... No.

I'm trying to get motivated to sell MY collection! LOL

Seriously, the only comic stuff I buy now are reprint series and trades.

I generally check out the trades that are available at the local library to see if I like the books. I pass on at least 85% of what I read as "not good enough to buy."

Great way to preview things and save money!

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Post by GeorgeC » April 16th, 2011, 1:57 pm

http://www.toonzone.net/news/articles/3 ... th-america

Casualty of the "Borders wars."

Not surprising to see that the company that was once leader of manga publishing in the US fold. Like ADV, they overspeculated, licensed and published way too much, and got locked into a distributor that contributed to their own destruction.

Not the quickest crash-and-burn -- the company lasted over 10 years(!) -- but it's a symbol of overspeculating on fads.

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