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Booksellers

Bricks & Mortar Blues | Borders Says Najafi Bids $215.1 Million for Stores and Debt – Businessweek

July 1, 2011 – 1:07 pm

When you add the payment and the liability assumption, Borders actually fetched an OFFER of just under $440 million and that’s not for the whole group. The store closure program combined with the stores Najafi does not wish to acquire means that there’s a bunch of stores not included in the purchase. I wonder where this will end price-wise, is anyone likely to trump that bid?

Borders Group Inc., the bankrupt bookstore chain, said a Najafi Cos. unit bid $215.1 million for its stores and would assume $220 million of liabilities to kick off an auction to test for higher bids.

The agreement is subject to bankruptcy-court approval, Borders said in a statement. Any stores that aren’t included in the sale to Najafi’s Direct Brands unit will be acquired by Hilco Merchant Resources LLC and Gordon Brothers Group LLC and closed, the statement said.

via Borders Says Najafi Bids $215.1 Million for Stores and Debt – Businessweek.

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Booksellers

Bricks & Mortar Blues | Whitcoulls, Borders sold to Norman family

May 26, 2011 – 10:16 am

With another chain headed for life in the arms of a wealthy suitor, you have to wonder if perhaps private (and dynastic) ownership is a good thing for bookshops.

I’ve been thinking about that for some time, thinking especially about the horrible pain that will have to be administered to bookstores and their workers if chains are to survive.

I’m not sure I know the answer yet:

The Norman family, owners of the Farmers department stores and a raft of Australasian jewellery stores, bought the 57 Whitcoulls and five Borders shops from administrator Ferrier Hodgson for a confidential sum.

David Norman told BusinessDay the company would almost certainly honour all existing vouchers and gift cards at full face value once the deal is complete.

He also confirmed that customers would not have to spend a similar amount to redeem their vouchers, which caused an enormous customer backlash shortly after the Whitcoulls, Borders and Bennetts bookstores were put into voluntary administration by their previous owners REDgroup Retail.

via Whitcoulls, Borders sold to Norman family | Stuff.co.nz.

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Booksellers

Bricks & Mortar Blues | As Borders Closes Bookshops, Rival Barnes & Noble Survives – TIME

March 8, 2011 – 4:00 pm

I wonder when most people will realise that B&N is literally killing itself to boost the ebook business. It’s a sensible decision and I’m sure the physical division will persist in a much reduced form for some time to come, but for all of that, B&N is killing itself to survive.

“Barnes & Noble is just a better-run bookstore. They have better locations, their stores are brighter and it’s better stocked,” says Bill Kavaler, a senior analyst at brokerage firm Oscar Gruss & Son. “And while there’s some discomfort with Barnes & Noble’s management, you can’t say they’re not trying to run a good book chain.”

But the question is how long Barnes & Noble can stay ahead of the gradual shift from print to digital. Barnes & Noble still has 705 bookstores in the U.S., and those locations are less profitable than they used to be, though that drop seems to be slowing. Worse, its online operation continues to lose money. Overall, Barnes & Noble’s profits in its most recent quarter, which ended in January, fell 25% from a year earlier to $60.6 million. In order to stem the losses, Barnes & Noble’s executives decided recently to stop paying stockholders a dividend and invest the money in its online and e-books division to boost growth.

via As Borders Closes Bookshops, Rival Barnes & Noble Survives – TIME.

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Booksellers

Bricks & Mortar Blues | The bookshop that lost the plot – Books – NZ Herald News

March 7, 2011 – 3:28 pm

An excellent piece on the collapse of REDgroup in Australia and New Zealand with New Zealand’s Whitcoulls as its primary focus. The Irish publishers (or indeed the Canadian, Austrian or any smaller market publisher with larger same-language neighbours) will find many of the notes ringing true.

Independent bookseller Hamish Wright says he understands the reasons for such moves, but laments that it sometimes means retailers are not able to respond to customer demand as quickly as they would like. Some New Zealand orders are now being given lower priority than those from Australia, he says, and some now take many days to arrive. In December in particular, delays can mean lost sales, he says. Or they may prompt customers to go online instead.

Independents insist their superior service and greater knowledge will continue to give them an edge over the chain stores. But with sales of e-readers slowly gathering momentum in New Zealand, and overseas sites such as Amazon and The Book Depository continuing to siphon off an unknown number of online sales, some believe that many bricks and mortar booksellers will struggle to remain viable.

Even Whitcoulls has been unable to match its competitors in online sales, despite the fact that it was one of the first to tackle what used to be called e-tailing with its aptly-titled FlyingPig website. More than a decade later, local websites such as Fishpond and MightyApe are believed to be well ahead of Whitcoulls in online sales.

via The bookshop that lost the plot – Books – NZ Herald News.

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Booksellers

Bricks & Mortar Blues | Brillig: The List

February 17, 2011 – 12:49 pm

The Brillig blog by literary agent Joshua Bilmes is very interesting and insightful when it comes to the Borders situation. The post today covering The List of Border’s stores closing is at once fascinating and depressing:

There is no one type of store that seems to have survived better than some other type. There are new concept stores from 2008 that are gone (Southbury, CT). There are stores in major urban locations (18th & L, DC). There are stores in weird rural locations (Colleyville, TX). There are Waldenbooks replacement stores (Southbury, Milford CT). There are stores in fancy downtowns (Los Gatos, CA). There are new stores and old stores. The problems at Borders weren’t limited to this thing or that thing, but to anything and everything.

There’s still no recognition that the company needs to use the strengthened cash position it could have coming out of this filing to strengthen its supply chain, speed replenishment, and update reordering and inventory systems to match B&N. The bankruptcy filing still lists things like “strengthen Borders Rewards Plus” and “start selling related non-book items” as the major focus areas of the turnaround plan. These things aren’t going to cut it, if they don’t deal with the supply chain.

via Brillig: The List.

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