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Forum - View topicNEWS: Borders, Barnes & Noble Report Weak Holiday Sales
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Asrialys
 Posts: 1164 |
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Well, about $30 came from me
 And bought over $120 in manga at my closing Borders Express for less than $50. Not quite happy about that though...
I don't know what Barnes does since I don't shop there, but I wonder how much Borders loses from the many coupons they have, especially for Borders Rewards members. |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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Everyone in my family just did online shopping on Amazon. So much easier than the hassle of driving and avoiding the huge farking crowd.
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Vinnems
Posts: 32 |
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I pretty much buy everything I possibly can from Amazon. Stores just can't match the prices, no tax (a big reason why I buy online), and they have everything! It's hard to compete against that. Plus, hiring a bunch of jerks to work the store is just another reason to not go out shopping. |
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dragonrider_cody
Posts: 2541 |
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I have to pay sales tax at Amazon, so there really isn't any savings for me, unless I order enough to get free shipping. But it's getting increasingly easy to find lower prices than Amazon, so I don't shop there as much as I once did.
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FeralKat
Posts: 402 |
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Do tell! I have yet to find a website that can compete (for regular books, not manga or anime...). 
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everapril
 Posts: 112 |
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Let me tell you a story about my friend: The Synaptic Self by Joseph LeDoux. The same, single copy has been sitting on a shelf at the local Barnes & Noble since I moved here, almost four years ago. The copy itself is yellowed, the content now seven years old - which is a long time for a neuroscience book. Every time I go to this B&N I bring this book up to the service counter and ask "Is this book still $17?" (the list price) and even when I pry (and I have pried) they confirm this price.
I can get the book from Amazon, new, for $10 (and free shipping,) and used for half that. But it's not like I even want to read it that bad: I have hundreds of dollars worth of neuro textbooks that are more up-to-date and in-depth than this book. The point is: I want to buy that book. I would pay them real, American currency for it. I just refuse to spend quite so much on it. Every time I walk out of there, that was a potential sale. The Synaptic Self remains on the shelf (the one that's to the right of the entrance against the wall of the children's section) becoming more obsolete, taking up space that B&N could have filled with a Dan Brown book and recouped whatever they'd have lost by cutting me a deal. This is just one reason brick & mortar bookstores are failing. |
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dragonrider_cody
Posts: 2541 |
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Well to be honest, I was referring more to manga and DVD prices than regular books. Their prices on other books are quite good, but their anime and manga prices are a bit on the high side, or at least no cheaper than you can get at B&M. But when I go to buy books, I usually go heavily armed with Borders coupons. Plus, I've gotten one too many bent, damaged, or cut books from Amazon. I sort of prefer to actually hold the book in my hand before buying. |
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fuuma_monou
 Posts: 1848 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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Yeah. I was checking prices on Gunbuster: TRSI has a much lower price, while Amazon sticks to SRP. Was also checking to see that it was still in-print (so I can order it locally) since TRSI's listing counted how many units they had left in stock (which I usually only see them do on OOP items). |
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Nebs
 Posts: 386 Location: University of Illinois |
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I see a lot of people mentioning Amazon on here. I used to do almost all my shopping there too, until I discovered Buy.com. I suggest you check it out if you haven't yet, most of their stuff is even cheaper than Amazon.
& obviously Nook is helping boost B&N's sales. If I had extra money lying around I'd so be getting that. If only they had manga available for it. |
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Jarmel
Posts: 280 Location: NYC |
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Ebook readers are the final nail in the coffin.
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Jaymie
Posts: 915 |
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Book stores are becoming more and more obsolete by the day. The fact that they constantly refuse to charge anything less than retail price means than many heavy book buyers are forced to shop online to get better sales.
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Keonyn
 Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
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I wouldn't say eBook readers are a nail in the coffin. To be honest, the B&N stores I shop at are always busy every time I'm there. Yeah, I can go online and get a book from Amazon and save a bit, but often times the savings aren't that much with books, particularly when you factor in the wait, and not being able to hold the copy in your hands to verify its condition. A lot of people who buy books aren't just buying a copy to read, but something to keep on their shelf, so condition matters.
Plus, I can't really check a book out and come across new books as easily online. Yeah, Amazon has their recommendations based on browsing and order history, but that is frankly worthless in my opinion. No, nothing yet beats just browsing through the local bookstore when on the prowl for something new and interesting. You are exposed to far more when checking out those shelves, and you can take a seat and read a few chapters to see if it'd be worth the trouble. If it's a reference or art book or something like that, it's also valuable to be able to look through it and see all it offers so you know if it's worthwhile or not. So yeah, if I know exactly what I want, I can save a few bucks on Amazon or Buy. Generally though, that's not why I go to book stores, so Amazon and Buy are still of no use to me in that regard. So no, they're not more and more obsolete, and it actually has seemed apparent to me that the pricing gap isn't as pronounced as it used to be. |
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Sailor S
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I agree with this. I know I can get my manga cheaper if I go to TRSI or Deep Discount (which also has regular books for whomever was asking, although since I rarely if ever use Amazon I don't know if they're cheaper. Free shipping though) but I still like to go to my Borders and look for them there. The problem I'm having is that increasingly Borders isn't stocking the manga I read, and based on the comments of reducing costs, I'd have to imagine that that will entail less selection except for the major titles like Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach. There's always plenty of those in stock, but typically I'm lucky if they order one copy of some lesser titles that I'm reading. Haven't been able to find a single copy of Yakitate Japan in there for over a year, so I've been going exclusively online with that one for example. I guess I don't know whether this is a problem of the manga industry, because even online sites seem to have trouble getting stock of some titles, or if this is just Borders cutting back on titles that aren't showing the profits they want. Either way, it's a drastic change from the heyday of the manga market. |
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mike.motaku
 Posts: 160 Location: Indiana |
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Here's the deal: Most bookstores (heck, most businesses) are actually in business to make a profit. And selling something for a penny over or under what they paid for it won't keep the lights on or the staff paid. The reason B & N and Borders (which is widely expected to close this year) got in trouble was they started treating the bestsellers like loss leaders, low-priced product to entice customers into spending more. They discovered and will freely admit that this strategy backfired on them. Customers only bought the discounted items. Now WalMart, Target, and Amazon are doing the same thing. Amazon, for example, only offers free shipping on purchases over a certain amount -forcing- customers to spend more to get a "discount" The problem they're running into is it's really butchering their profit margin. The bath they took on Harry Potter alone was astounding. They were essentially giving them away -and- paying the shipping. That attitude is not even remotely sustainable on a smaller scale and disastrous on a larger one. And news flash: Online sales -are- subject to sales tax. People are supposed to report it on their taxes. Legislation is coming that will actually allow online businesses to charge sales taxes for the locality where the order originated, because the criminal class in the US is pretty much the entire population of the country. You want to know why the economy sucks? Entire generations of people raised to believe they deserve everything they want for free. I had a roommate who worked for Musicland. It was a bad weekend for them if they took in less than $60,000 in sales or over $150,000 a day at Christmas week. Then Napster came along, and music was suddenly "free" because anyone should be able to decide when a musician or group has made enough money. Yeah, let me come to your job and tell your boss you've been paid enough and see how you react. The domino effect of Musicland closing combined with the ever-increasing "free" meme? Companies who sold them stock lost millions of dollars in potential profit. Geneon? Gone. ADV? Fractured. Smaller companies could not sustain the hit. Thousands of people unemployed and no longer able to add to the overall economy. And suddenly it's no longer cost-effective to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars dubbing anime. Ta-da! Can I come to your job and tell you what you should be charging for the goods or services you supply? No. But for some reason people demand it at the retail level. Mom-and-Pop stores where the owner is on widow's benefits & social security are expected to offer the exact same discounts as a multi-million dollar international corporation? What world do you live on? |
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DerekTheRed
 Posts: 3544 Location: ::Points to hand:: |
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Do you live somewhere where you don't have to report internet purchases on your taxes, or do you just choose not to report them? |
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