Barnes & Noble to shutter Borders' website
Barnes & Noble plans to shutter Borders' website and redirect customers to its own website.
Barnes & Noble plans to close Borders.com.
The move comes after Barnes & Noble received approval from a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge earlier this week to acquire Ann Arbor-based Borders Group Inc.'s brand name and website for $13.9 million.
The decision to end Borders' website raises questions about the future of the Borders brand.
Barnes & Noble spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment. Rosalind Thompson, Borders' senior vice president for human resources, said in an email "we do not know what the plan is."
According to the website, Borders' online customers are already being redirected to BarnesandNoble.com for order fulfillment. After Oct. 14, they'll be redirected to BarnesandNoble.com for their entire shopping experience.
Barnes & Noble also said it's not accepting Borders gift cards, exchanges or loyalty cards. Barnes & Noble, which sells its own electronic books reader called the Nook, has also stopped Borders.com from accepting e-book orders.
When Borders filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February, online sales made up about 3 percent of the company's revenue.
Borders famously outsourced its web presence to online competitor Amazon.com in 2001 only to end the relationship in 2008 and create its own website. But analysts said the company's failure to capitalize on the web played a key role in its demise. Nonetheless, Borders.com gets millions of visitors a month.
Borders has closed all of its stores and laid off more than 10,000 workers as part of its liquidation. The company's downtown Ann Arbor store closed Sept. 12.
Contact AnnArbor.com's Nathan Bomey at (734) 623-2587 or nathanbomey@annarbor.com. You can also follow him on Twitter or subscribe to AnnArbor.com's newsletters.
Comments
SonnyDog09
Sat, Oct 1, 2011 : 11:10 a.m.
...and nothing of value was lost.
say it plain
Sat, Oct 1, 2011 : 4:27 a.m.
I just got in my email inbox a letter from the CEO of Barnes & Noble, William Lynch, lol, titled "Important Information Regarding your Borders Account".... He tells us how they're very sorry our Borders store has closed, they appreciate how important a bookstore is to our community, and as part of Borders ceasing operations, B & N has acquired Border's brand trademarks and their customer lists. He also lets us know that we are absolutely able to opt out of having them do anything with this information (which includes borders' records of our purchases I guess, sounds like from the letter) if we let them know by Oct 15th. Otherwise they'll keep our info, and use it in keeping with their privacy policy blah blah. They hope they can earn our business now that they've essentially bought our names and anything else Borders had left in their virtual world.
jns131
Sat, Oct 1, 2011 : 10:24 a.m.
Everytime I walk into a Barnes and Noble it is frantic and you cannot find anything. Plus, have you seen their prices? Borders was cheaper then they are. I plan to continue my boycott of Barnes and Noble. Amazon has better deals. I have opted out of anything Barnes and Noble.
Tom Joad
Fri, Sep 30, 2011 : 11:19 p.m.
Thank you for shopping Amazon
jns131
Sat, Oct 1, 2011 : 10:22 a.m.
Could not agree more. Boycott Barnes and Noble. They have lousy customer service.
craigjjs
Fri, Sep 30, 2011 : 7:03 p.m.
Interesting. I wonder if B&N spent $13.9 million just to prevent anyone else from using the Borders brand to compete with them. That seems to be a very high price just to erase a brand.
say it plain
Fri, Sep 30, 2011 : 11:05 p.m.
Seems like a bargain to me, really...what is that, a couple months salary for one of the ceo-types of any of these outfits?! To keep someone from buying the brand and the portal, to have that re-direct to their still-existent merchandise for sale, not a bad move I think!