Will Barnes and Noble end up like Blockbuster? Bloggers are connecting the dots between the two

It's official: Blockbuster filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier today. I mentioned Blockbuster few weeks ago with regards to Barnes & Noble as I thought B&N should learn couple of lessons from the failure of Blockbuster (as well as from Tower Records before it).

Of course many on this day connected the dots between the two and not in a positive way for B&N. Michael Wolf asked on GigaOm Tech News 'Will All Brick & Mortar Media Sink Like Blockbuster?' and wondered if this is a sign for other brick and mortar retailers:

But are Blockbuster’s troubles a sign that all large brick and mortar retailers of content — be it music, movies and yes, even books — are eventually doomed? If you look back, signs point to yes.

Although he was more optimistic about B&N ("Barnes & Noble appears to be trying to forge a digital strategy much faster "), his conclusion was still somewhat pessimistic:

Still, I expect Barnes & Noble to see significant challenges in coming years, particularly since Amazon will likely dominate e-book sales, at least in the near term. As with Blockbuster, the combination of a nimble digital rival and costly brick and mortar real-estate weighing down the actual product ties a retailer down. And we all know that what happens when you when you tie a brick to something: it sinks.

Green Street Advisors analyst Cedrik Lachance was also pessimistic. He told Reuters the following:

The future of retailers of books appears to be going the direction of DVDs, video retailers or the music industry. It appears that books will follow in that direction but it will be more slowly.

The connection between Blockbuster and B&N wasn't the only lit one made today. Apparently there are some who also see here lessons to be learned for the whole publishing industry. Mike Cane, in his post 'Blockbuster's Lesson for Print Publishing', wrote:

Hey, print publishing! Do you really think you’re providing everything people want to read in eBook format? Does Harry Potter ring a bell? What about those backlist titles Andrew Wylie moved into eBooks without waiting for any of you? What about all those backlist and even current titles that readers have scanned and uploaded and are distributing for free?

What do you think? will B&N end up like Blockbuster or B&N is a different case? And what should book publishers take from it? Is there really here a lesson for them? We'll be happy to hear your thoughts!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting sustainable reading!

Axis of Structural Decline - Tower Records, Blockbuster and now Barnes & Noble?

"First Tower Records, then Blockbuster, now this [Barnes & Noble].”

This is a quote of Dora Schulman, a shoe saleswoman who referred to the upcoming closing of B&N store at 66th Street and Broadway in Manhattan.

Ms. Schulman, who was quoted in a New York Times article about the store's closing, was talking about the stores on her route that were closing, but unintentionally she also created what we can describe as Axis of Structural Decline.

Tower Records filed for bankruptcy in 2004. On December 22, 2006, the last Tower Records store in New York City was closed down. Why? NPR tried to explain in a report in 2009:

"Folks would say, 'Well, wasn't this all about Napster?' And I'm like, 'Not so much as the fact that I think Tower just sort of lost relevancy,' " Crupnick [Russ Crupnick, who analyzes music retail for a firm called NPD] says. Big-box stores undercut Tower in pricing CDs. Baby Boomers stopped buying new music. Young people stopped caring about liner notes and owning a physical product. And Crupnick says that, by the late 1990s, Tower Records was no longer a music lover's mecca. It was just a higher-end Sam Goody. "They became very ordinary, in terms of their expansion plans," Crupnick says. "And arguably, as they went to about 90 stores, they lost that whole idea of being special."

Blockbuster, as was reported by Wired.com is planning to file bankruptcy:

"Just as video stores once failed to compete with Blockbuster’s larger inventory, the retail chain now can’t compete with Amazon, Netflix, on-demand cable-satellite, and other means of delivering video entertainment that don’t involve going to a store".

So is Barnes & Noble about to fail just like Tower Records and Blockbuster Video did? Well, B&N definitely suffer from the same illnesses: they slowly lose their relevancy and their added value for customer, they face fierce competition, they have trouble to adopt to the new reality of growing online sales and e-book dominance. Still, unlike Tower Records and Blockbuster they're not out of business and they are still in a position where they can influence the way their future will look like.

Right now it doesn't seem like they have a plan, so if nothing happens don't be surprised if instead the old Axis of Evil, we'll have the new Axis of Structural Decline.

My suggestion to B&N? Here's what we think should become of of B&N brick and mortar bookstores to help them become again an asset for the company - http://ecolibris.blogspot.com/2010/05/is-there-future-for-barnes-noble-and.html

More articles on the future of bookstores can be found at http://www.ecolibris.net/bookstores_future.asp /bookstores_future.asp

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting sustainable reading!