Cabernet

Thu, Jan 13, 2011 : 9:52 p.m.

I am a big reader and have been buying books at Borders because 1) I liked the free Readers Rewards program and 2) I could pre-order books by my favorite authors a half year in advance and pay as they shipped to me with free shipping since I would buy in bulk during a sale. Many books publish on the same day, but each book would ship separately. No wonder they are losing money! After I read the books, I mail them to my Mom in California to read using the USPS media rate. I decided I could save money with an eReader with lending capability, so I had to go with the B&N Nook. It was a tough decision to give up on Borders, and I am not all that happy with B&N. Their web site is not as friendly for shopping, their pre-order books do not extend for 6 months into the future, and their discount club has an annual fee. I would really like to see a Borders x B&N merger with the Nook technology and Border's web site convenience & pre-ordering benefit. Not being terribly tech savvy, I want a brick & mortar location where I can get ereader support. I still believe their is a role for a big book store, just not 2 chains competing head-to-head with stiff competition from web businesses & discount retail.

clownfish

Thu, Jan 13, 2011 : 10:13 a.m.

So, if we are not going to buy "real books", we are going to do all of our shopping on-line and we do not want to pay for goods made in America because silly Americans want to make living wages...where are the jobs going to come from? The service industry? I think not. From what I know, UMFAN has it spot on, bad management, flitting from one business plan to the next, top managers taking huge salaries to make bad decisions then fleeing with wonderful severance packages. Too much building too fast with no thought to the future of the industry. It's sad and I feel for the employees.

amazonwarrior

Wed, Jan 12, 2011 : 11:58 p.m.

Andy, I buy "real" books and so do a lot of other people I know, and when we have finished reading them, we donate them to different organizations/charities. There's nothing better than spending a cold, snowy weekend reading a "real page turner"!

Soothslayer

Wed, Jan 12, 2011 : 5:48 p.m.

Seriously who buys traditional "books" anymore? Be environmentally responsible, save trees, shipping and retail energy and get an ebook reader already. You'll also save time and money and enjoy tons of other valuable features (annotations, reference dictionary, external resource links, etc).

amazonwarrior

Wed, Jan 12, 2011 : 2:19 p.m.

Looks like the down hill slide is picking up speed. I'll be surprised if Borders makes it through the summer.

UofM_Fan

Wed, Jan 12, 2011 : 2:13 p.m.

I can only speak to what I've witnessed over the decade that I worked there I saw the revolving door of upper management bring in people that made decisions based not on what was best for the company, but what was best for them. I worked in IT. We had a director that openly expressed distaste for the vendor that we were using for a major business critical system. He directed us to pursue a multi-year project to replace that vendor with another one that he, "understood and felt more comfortable with." We wasted years and untold millions to do nothing more than replace apples with pears. Fast forward a couple years and another director wasnt a Microsoft fan, so he instructed us to plan on the removal of all Windows servers and workstations in all 900+ Waldenbooks and replace them with Linux computers. Never mind that nobody had any experience with Linux, he wanted it because thats what he worked with at his prior job. One CEO bought a luxury condo in Florida and wanted to be able to work from there. So, the IT department had to send a small staff of employees down to Florida for 2 weeks to set up this CEOs top of the line computer system (purchased and supplied by IT), complete with state of the art high-speed connectivity (back in the days before cable modems and DSL). Year after year there has been a revolving door in upper management. Someone comes in, stops all the work to restructure their little kingdom to pursue projects that they prefer. Then, when they run against enough executives theyre pushed out and the process starts all over. Yes, Borders has made its share of business fumbles. They ignored the web sellers (and openly criticized them as being doomed to failure) and then botched the job trying to play catch up. Nobody is going to read books on an ereader. Now theyve botched the job yet again trying to catch up. Time and time again critical business decisions were made based not on what was good for the company, but what best fit the decision maker. Personal profit was put before company growth. Corruption and greed took priority over growth and stability.

Macabre Sunset

Wed, Jan 12, 2011 : 1:48 p.m.

All true, KJMClark. Borders is in a business that no longer fits the model it created. I wouldn't buy stock in B&N, either. One positive about these developments is that it re-opens the niche for small-footprint local used/new bookstores where a proprietor can develop a relationship with local readers.

KJMClark

Wed, Jan 12, 2011 : 1:03 p.m.

Someone else said greed and corruption a while back. I'd love to hear why people say that. I'm sure there's some of that, but I'd attribute this to other reasons: 1) Overbuilding during the housing boom, 2) Excessive debt from that overbuilding, 3) The big-box model is failing due to competition from Amazon/internet and cheaper retailers like Wal-mart, 4) Print books are slowly giving way to electronic books, 5) The economy continues to stratify between the astoundingly rich and the rest of us, and the rest of us were hit fairly hard in the downturn and aren't as interested in buying paper books, 6) The brick and mortar big-box retail model is suffering as high gas prices rob people of disposable income and make them less interested in driving around. Barnes and Noble isn't doing all that well either, and I keep hearing rumors that Best Buy didn't have a great Christmas.

UofM_Fan

Wed, Jan 12, 2011 : 12:03 p.m.

This is it. Borders only had 4 distribution centers as it was. They had large ones in California and Tennessee, these were there main DCs for the nation. They had a small distro center in Ohio and Pennsilvania, but those two couldn't possibly fill the void left by closing Tennessee. Unless, of course they're preparing to shut things down, or planning on scaling back (closing stores as part of bankrupcy) to the point were they don't need the warehouse capacity of both DCs. I think that 2011 will be the last year the Borders is in business. Publishers are refusing to ship books to them, they're closing the distribution center for the eastern US, many of the executives have resigned this month and there are not nearly enough people left employed at HQ to turn things around. This is what years of greed and corruption leads to.