Borders is dead. Long live Borders.Follow

That was sort of one facet of what I was thinking of, if it could be done.

ETA: Uh, except the heroin part, of course...

Edited, Jul 20th 2011 1:34pm by Belkira

I can't see how you'd turn a profit without dealing drugs.

Yeah, I just got a "Going out of Business" email from them. Will probably head there this afternoon for some looting of my own.

All of them. The homeless aren't picky eaters.


ALSO: Love the sig.

So you ate driftwood without the aid of a spoon? I'm not really following you, here.

I got annoyed at Borders for having local bands and singers in the cafe. We're in a music town, sure, but when I go to the bookstore I don't want to listen to anything more than the elevator music on the radio, and some of the touring musicians were frankly not that good.

I will need to call the store nearest to me and see if they are still open. I didn't hear about this until now and I have a gift card that I'd like to use.

This basically. Borders just made really poor decisions. They were too diversified IMO, trying to sell tons of different things instead of focusing on just books. I've always gone to Barnes and Noble mainly because there's one about 3 blocks from my house. I remember the first time I walked into a Borders (a couple years ago I think), I just remember it feeling "odd". There was this *huge* interior space, poorly laid out, with a hard concrete floor, with a coffee stand in one area, a big reading area, whole sections for different things (only maybe a quarter of the store actually had anything to do with books), and the whole store maybe had 5 customers in it. It smelled like a warehouse and felt like a ghost town. I remember thinking then "how the hell do they stay in business?". Well, now I know.


In contrast, the B&N near my place has comfy carpet in the whole place, is maybe 50' on a side, and is always packed. I've never been in there when there wasn't 20+ people in the store. It feels much more welcoming and comfortable. Dunno, B&N just always felt more like what I think a book store should feel like. Borders? Not so much.

I have always preferred Barnes & Noble. The one in Cool Springs is just more welcoming. It's quieter, more comfortable. The Borders seems like a Target or Wal-mart.

My local B&N isn't bad. The aisles are a bit narrow, but there is plenty of seating near the starbucks and magazine section.

Yeah, our Borders had this entire random gift wrapping section. It never really worked. I don't go to a bookstore to buy wrapping paper.

Our Barnes & Noble is much smaller than our Borders was, but the layout is much better. They have a corner slot, so two walls are fully glassed, and in the back corner is their cafe, on a raised platform with tons of wooden chairs that get uncomfortable after about thirty minutes(I call these the NQ chairs.) There are also a handful of really nice stuffed leather sofas that I think of as the HQ chairs - getting a claim on one of those is difficult.

If you're designing a department store, sure.

I think the issue with Borders was that, once they were suffering from competition, they asked "What else can we sell besides books?" rather than "How can we sell more books?" Like others said, they got into selling gift wrap and scrapbooking supplies and educational toys/games and free-trade toffee and Build-A-Bear sets and whatever other crap other the sun that I don't go to bookstores to find. This made the bookstore bit less attractive and it grew smaller and more cluttered. But I never thought "Man, I want to go to Borders for scrapbooking stamps" either... I just stopped going there for books.

I guess I missed the point I was trying to make. I was under the impression that when they opened they weren't trying to be a book store, but a place the sold books, music, and other stuff. This would by why they asked themselves the wrong question. I agree they did try to be too diversified, and like I said in my op, diversification doesn't necessarily work in a book store itself.