The numbers are brutal. Hardly anyone bought anything in the month of October. According to the ICSC-Goldman Sachs index, retailers had their weakest October performance since the index's inception in 1969! If this trend keeps up through the holiday season it is safe to say that January will become National Bankruptcy Month.How the economic meltdown will ultimately play out in the book world remains to be seen, but early indicators are pointing to a significant shakeout.In a memo to his employees last week Barnes and Noble Chairman Leonard Riggio said "Never in all of the years I've been in business...
Costco the Bookseller
The current issue of Costco's in-house magazine The Costco Connection features a look at their highly successful book department.The Costco book buyers call it "The Table" - the two rows of real estate within Costco where the 200 or so hand-picked titles reside. And it is from the success of "The Table" that Costco has become one of the top five booksellers in the country.Jeff Rogart, HarperCollins vice-president of sales, says of the Costco book team:“This team knows what they are doing...Despite the limited selection of books [compared to industrial-size bookstores], Costco is consistently one of our top retailers for...
Barnes and Noble Gets Social
Barnes & Noble has launched "My B&N". It is the latest feature in their every expanding arsenal of online offerings.With "My B&N" users can now "create their literary identity, connect and share insights with other readers, discover and rate new products, and keep up to date on events in their local Barnes & Noble store on BN.com" says Tom Burke, executive vice president of e-commerce for Barnes & Noble.com.This pure social networking play solidifies the rise and importance of book social networking in the book world and will likely have an impact on the other players in the space.Publisher's Weekly...
AbeAzon. Amazon’s Acquisition of AbeBooks : The Day After
or Godzilla buys Frankenstein. Throngs still waiting for Superman.It will be a long time before the dust settles on this seismic event but here are some initial thoughts on the acquisition.First - How much did it cost?The folks over at TechVibes venture a guess that Amazon paid between $90-$120 million. Since Boris Wertz, former COO of AbeBooks, is on the Board of Directors of both TechVibes and AbeBooks, I'm going to believe the number is somewhere in that ballpark.Winners:AbebooksHits a home run. They have been steadily building their offerings through there own acquisitions preparing themselves for a potential buyout. Many...
Barnes & Noble Not Giving Up on Rare and Out-of- Print Books
When Barnes & Noble decided to close their Chelsea store in New York City many thought that the small rare- and out-of-print-book department that was housed at that location for the last 8 years would disappear too.Instead the company decided to not only relocate the department to a larger store on Broadway and 66th Street but is also "spending a significant sum on the department, installing custom display cases with locked glass doors" and moving it to a more prominent location on the second floor of the store.Although they are claiming that there are no plans to "replicate the effort...