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Forum - View topicNEWS: Elliott Advisors Buys Barnes & Noble Bookstore Chain for About US$683 Million
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Engineering Nerd
 Posts: 902 Location: Southern California |
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I am not sure if this is good news or not, but Barnes and Noble IS my favorite place to go in my past-time, sometimes I am even willing to pay more than online retailers to support the local bookstore, there are something you just cannot replace with online store.
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GeorgeC
Posts: 795 |
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People should realize --
B&N is the LAST big NATIONAL bookstore chain in the United States. It used to be that just about EVERY mall, even smaller strip malls, had a bookstore but those days are over. There are STILL small independent bookstores but they are fewer and farther between and lot of them are resellers/used bookstores as a large part of their business model. One of the used bookstores that IS a chain is Half-Price Books and they actually do decent sales in used manga BUT as far as carrying new manga, no, not much -- their specialty is selling used. Other than B&N, there is Books-A-Million but regionally they are NOT as widespread as B&N and I've never been as impressed by BAM's inventory the times I've visited one -- mainly in the South. When Borders closed for good, they took out not only the Borders Bookstore locations but also all the Waldenbooks locations in malls. Borders owned those stores. Prior to that, there was B.Dalton which also had locations in many malls, which came under ownership of B&N for at least a while, but B.Dalton has been gone for years. There were other bookstores in other cities that were local chains like Crown Bookstore but most of those are gone, too. People ought to consider -- do you REALLY want to do ALL your shopping online and NOT be able to preview what you're buying?!? |
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ItAintEazy
Posts: 103 |
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This is going to be Sears and Toys R' Us all over again. These vulture capitalists will cut B&N to the bone, load it up with debt, then liquidate what's left when the eventual bankruptcy happens. Just you watch.
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Blanchimont
 Posts: 3560 Location: Finland |
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Aside the occasional purchase at a store, then yes, yes I would. Digital preference because of severe lack of space, and of course the fact not everyone lives in a major urban area and have time or means to go on longer trips. And as for previews, let's be honest, there's enough 'previews' online to be found for most stuff, the nostalgia of flipping through a book in a store aside...
Squeezing an acquired company dry by forcing them to pay back inter-company loans at loan shark rates ...happens. |
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ZeetherKID77
 Posts: 982 |
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If this ends up killing B&N I seriously hope it's not another Borders where a manga publisher dies from it too. I don't want to see Seven Seas or Yen or even someone big like Viz die off because of awful vulture capitalists.
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ranran-001
Posts: 543 |
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I see B & N doing okay if not great, in cities where the population density is high. But I don't see a future for B & N at malls and shopping districts that can only be reached by car.
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meruru
Posts: 475 |
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LOL? Back in the nineties, people were alarmed that the "big, souless bookstores" like Barnes and Noble and Borders were killing all those independent bookstores which had "wholesomeness and character." How the tides have turned. |
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me_barron
Posts: 176 |
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Hardly ever say this but glad I live in Texas where we seem to have a Half Price Books on every corner.
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Morry
Posts: 756 |
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Considering most online stores provide a preview option for what you're reading, this just sounds like doomsaying. Let's be honest here. Barnes and Nobles is in this situation because they're in massive debt. That didn't happen by accident or because of "capitalist vultures". If they go under, it's because they haven't adapted to the market, just like when smaller mom-and-pop bookstores went under when they couldn't adapt to B&N stealing their competition. That might make those smaller bookstores see a resurgence and stock up on the most popular series with anything else having to be ordered and picked up on a case-by-case basis. |
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Sailor Sedna
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If Barnes and Noble ends up going out of business I'll be pissed, I hate this whole modern "just reading books on phones/computers/digital/online shopping" technology BS thing that's out there today, what's wrong with just reading regular books? Technology "improving our lives," my ass.
Plus it's the place where I get most manga/light novels and such nowadays, along with I assume a lot of other people. Where would we be able to get them if there's no way to preview them? |
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Blanchimont
Posts: 3560 Location: Finland |
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Apparently it does provide improvement and better convenience for some people myself included, as per my previous post above. And there's nothing wrong with reading paper books, just the selection of new material available on dead wood might get smaller going forwards but that's sort of inevitable... And people complaining about the next generation's tastes and manners go back to ancient Sumer 5000 years ago so nothing new under the sun  ...
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VORTIA
 SubscriberPosts: 943 |
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Anyone in the UK with recent experiences with Waterstones? Interested to here from someone with experience visiting/working at a book store already owned by Elliot.
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Kikoman589
 Posts: 46 |
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They're a normal bookstore with a wide selection of all kinds of books. Some of them don't even have manga/light novel sections but when they do, it's decent. It's usually only the first couple of volumes of a series, but they have a few kind of obscure series as well. The one B&N I went to in NYC had a bigger selection and in the UK, Forbidden Planet is more specialised in manga and light novels. |
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HoboSoup
Posts: 361 |
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Yeah with every technology advancement you have people that hate the new ways and only want the old. I don't get either extreme because here's the thing, I love reading physical print manga but thanks to the Internet I've been able to read manga that will never get licensed. The internet has allowed me to find so many great series that I would have never known about otherwise, series that I often then pick up in paper print if it's an option. |
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njprogfan
 Collector Extraordinaire Posts: 1217 Location: A River Named Toms |
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Yeah...internet, preview pages, series you would never see...blah, blah, blah. I get it. Instant gratification. I'm sorry, but there's nothing the internet and all it's obvious other positives can do that will replace the feel one gets when walking into a B & N. I don't mind saying, but I get a bit giddy at the sheer size of the place and all they hold. And when you walk in it may not be manga you're interested in buying that day, maybe it's a birthday gift for a loved one. Then you walk by the graphic novel section and spot something intriguing, thumb through it and discover the next great series/book, it makes all the difference. That's the reason why I love the place. You just never know what you'll find.
When I heard about this my heart sank. Crappy capitalism at it's worse. I will eat my Doc Marten's if they don't do a slow destroy. BTW, I wish there was an Indie bookstore by me. I'd pre-order books just to spread the wealth, but alas, there's nary a shop around where I live or work. UGH!!! |
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