Following close on the heels of their recent shady pronouncement that they will be carrying less inventory and altering their display strategy to display more books face-out Borders announced today that they are hiring two Wall Street heavyweights to “explore strategic alternatives, including a sale of all or part of the company”. They have also accepted a cash helping from the hedge fund Pershing Capital Advisors (at 12% interest).
PersonaNonData has a look at the numbers.
The Millions has the face-out issued covered here and here and offers the soundest advice for finding that “strategic alternative.” By acknowledging that books are a ‘knowledge product’ and not a ‘commodity product’ then and only then can the right approach to successful bookselling be created. As Max says “it’s crazy to try to sell books as a commodity product because, (and this is just a guess) out of all the retail categories out there, bookstores by far offer the widest array of products, and therefore would require the most guidance and the best systems to help customers find what they are looking for.”
Books have special needs and until the chain retailers attend to these special needs they will continue to falter.
Borders Press Release.