Comments on: Death of the big box—and an e-book angle http://www.teleread.org/2008/12/02/death-of-the-big-box-and-an-e-book-angle/ News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:01:59 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Rich Adin http://www.teleread.org/2008/12/02/death-of-the-big-box-and-an-e-book-angle/comment-page-1/#comment-975322 Rich Adin Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:12:49 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/12/02/death-of-the-big-box-and-an-e-book-angle/#comment-975322 I agree that big box retailing is on the decline for lots of reasons. But in the book industry, at least as far as Barnes & Noble concerned, I think the problem is self inflicted and B&N could yet turn itself around (yes it is currently profitable and doing marginally OK, but if you eliminate B&N.com, it's physical stores are not doing all that well). B&N's first problem is that it competes with itself. Why is the same book significantly less expensive online than in the store? The pricing needs to be closer. For example, I just ordered at B&N.com the forthcoming Lincoln biography by Burlingame for a total price of less than $60. The best price the local B&N store would give me was $100 with my membership card. The second shot in the foot for B&N is the lack of ebooks, which is the fastest growing segment of the market. B&N should be offering both online and in its stores ebooks in various formats, including ePub. B&N doesn't need to create a reading device, it needs to sell to the available reading devices. If it wants to sell devices, it should hook up with a company like Sony rather than follow Amazon's path. In fact, if I were a few years younger, I'd think about opening a physical bookstore that carried minimal physical inventory and made all of that inventory plus more available in ebook form at a significant discount. I'd encourage patrons to use the physical books as a way to see if they are interested in the book and then download the ebook version. Of course, I would also offer the print versions for sale but even there I would try to do as much as possible via POD. My point being that I would try to control inventory, which is a major expense. The third step B&N needs to take is to make online purchases returnable/exchangeable at the local physical store as well as to B&N.com. This would encourage local store traffic. With simple steps that require a minimum of foresight, B&N could successfully compete against Amazon with the combination of physical and online stores. I just wonder, however, how imaginative B&N and other retailers are. I agree that big box retailing is on the decline for lots of reasons. But in the book industry, at least as far as Barnes & Noble concerned, I think the problem is self inflicted and B&N could yet turn itself around (yes it is currently profitable and doing marginally OK, but if you eliminate B&N.com, it’s physical stores are not doing all that well). B&N’s first problem is that it competes with itself. Why is the same book significantly less expensive online than in the store? The pricing needs to be closer. For example, I just ordered at B&N.com the forthcoming Lincoln biography by Burlingame for a total price of less than $60. The best price the local B&N store would give me was $100 with my membership card.

The second shot in the foot for B&N is the lack of ebooks, which is the fastest growing segment of the market. B&N should be offering both online and in its stores ebooks in various formats, including ePub. B&N doesn’t need to create a reading device, it needs to sell to the available reading devices. If it wants to sell devices, it should hook up with a company like Sony rather than follow Amazon’s path. In fact, if I were a few years younger, I’d think about opening a physical bookstore that carried minimal physical inventory and made all of that inventory plus more available in ebook form at a significant discount. I’d encourage patrons to use the physical books as a way to see if they are interested in the book and then download the ebook version. Of course, I would also offer the print versions for sale but even there I would try to do as much as possible via POD. My point being that I would try to control inventory, which is a major expense.

The third step B&N needs to take is to make online purchases returnable/exchangeable at the local physical store as well as to B&N.com. This would encourage local store traffic.

With simple steps that require a minimum of foresight, B&N could successfully compete against Amazon with the combination of physical and online stores. I just wonder, however, how imaginative B&N and other retailers are.

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