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>But B&Ns are typically located as drive-up "out of town" shopping. Somewhere you need to go to intentionally. They need to be in malls. Malls are dying in the

>But B&Ns are typically located as drive-up "out of town" shopping. Somewhere you need to go to intentionally. They need to be in malls. Malls are dying in the US, though. The only malls that remain successful these days feature more upscale products in affluent areas that people want to see in person before purchasing. For everything else, shoppers seem to prefer your outlet style strip malls where there's less crowding and inconvenience. Or if they can wait a day or two, just order it online.

tjr 11y ago
A couple of B&N shops around here are in malls. I have no idea if that's better for sales or not, but they seem overall just as dreadful as the non-mall B&N locations. I greatly enjoy books, and bookstores, and have shelves of books in my home. I guess I'm not the kind of customer B&N wants.
lmm 11y ago
> The only malls that remain successful these days feature more upscale products in affluent areas that people want to see in person before purchasing. If physical bookstores are to have any hope of surviving then books need to be exactly that kind of product.
- fluxquanta 11y ago
  Agreed, but that becomes even more difficult with shifting trends in how people spend their free time. I'm disgusted by the number of people I know who actually boast about how few books they've read.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > If physical bookstores are to have any hope of surviving then books need to be exactly that kind of product. Physical books are exactly that kind of product, but there are precious few malls that meet that description, and the rents are very high. And the communities where they exist also tend to be communities where B&N has stores (though not always in the malls, though sometimes on the same lot and sharing foot traffic). I'd be very surprised if there's any real evidence that there is a profit opportunity for B&N being missed by tieing itself more to malls, there or anywhere else.
nilkn 11y ago
Are they? Anecdotally, I'm in St. Louis and Houston regularly and every mall I know of in both cities has always been busy every time I've been to it in the past five years. The more upscale malls in Houston are actually so busy that I can't bear to go more than once or twice a year, and I'll usually take Uber when I do because parking is so congested and difficult. Granted, these are both relatively large cities, so perhaps that's a factor here. Also, I've seen B&N stores in malls before.
- fluxquanta 11y ago
  >Are they? They are. See for example this article[0] from earlier this year and the HN comments[1] from about a month ago. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/business/the-economics-and-nostalgia-of-dead-malls.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/business/the-economics-and... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10597487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10597487
  - ghaff 11y ago
    As the linked article says, it does vary with higher-end malls tending to be in better shape. This matches my personal experience. One local mall that counts a Penney's and a Sears among its primary anchors doesn't seem to be in great shape. But if I go into Boston, something like Copley Place seems to do just fine. The shopping malls across the border in NH also seem to be regularly packed but that's something of a special situation because of sales tax.
- jonknee 11y ago
  Yes. They have stopped building malls. http://www.businessinsider.com/shopping-malls-are-going-extinct-2014-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/shopping-malls-are-going-exti...
- angersock 11y ago
  The Galleria is basically there to serve out-of-town oil money and the rich folks in West U, Upper Kirby, Rice, and whatnot areas, I would say. EDIT: On the plus side, we still have some good book stores, like Brown Technical Book Shop (http://www.browntechnical.org/ http://www.browntechnical.org/). :)
prostoalex 11y ago
From this article http://www.wsj.com/articles/shrinking-u-s-shopping-malls-get-makeovers-1448361001 http://www.wsj.com/articles/shrinking-u-s-shopping-malls-get... it seems that the industry consensus is that malls are "overbuilt", not necessarily dying as in long-term trend. So we're seeing a correction, not necessarily a long-term slump. > outlet style strip malls where there's less crowding and inconvenience "Dying" problem and "crowding" problem seem to be mutually exclusive in a Yogi Berra kind of way.
CM30 11y ago
In the UK, malls are one of the places that Waterstones has done so well in. They're also the type of place that WH Smith seems to be (somewhat) surviving in, despite an incredibly poor reputation. Maybe Barnes and Noble could do well over here. I mean, they can't really be any worse than Smith's in terms of quality, can they? I think they could do decently well in say, Lakeside or Bluewater.

tjr 11y ago

A couple of B&N shops around here are in malls. I have no idea if that's better for sales or not, but they seem overall just as dreadful as the non-mall B&N locations. I greatly enjoy books, and bookstores, and have shelves of books in my home. I guess I'm not the kind of customer B&N wants.

lmm 11y ago

> The only malls that remain successful these days feature more upscale products in affluent areas that people want to see in person before purchasing. If physical bookstores are to have any hope of surviving then books need to be exactly that kind of product.

fluxquanta 11y ago
Agreed, but that becomes even more difficult with shifting trends in how people spend their free time. I'm disgusted by the number of people I know who actually boast about how few books they've read.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> If physical bookstores are to have any hope of surviving then books need to be exactly that kind of product. Physical books are exactly that kind of product, but there are precious few malls that meet that description, and the rents are very high. And the communities where they exist also tend to be communities where B&N has stores (though not always in the malls, though sometimes on the same lot and sharing foot traffic). I'd be very surprised if there's any real evidence that there is a profit opportunity for B&N being missed by tieing itself more to malls, there or anywhere else.

nilkn 11y ago

Are they? Anecdotally, I'm in St. Louis and Houston regularly and every mall I know of in both cities has always been busy every time I've been to it in the past five years. The more upscale malls in Houston are actually so busy that I can't bear to go more than once or twice a year, and I'll usually take Uber when I do because parking is so congested and difficult. Granted, these are both relatively large cities, so perhaps that's a factor here. Also, I've seen B&N stores in malls before.

fluxquanta 11y ago
>Are they? They are. See for example this article[0] from earlier this year and the HN comments[1] from about a month ago. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/business/the-economics-and-nostalgia-of-dead-malls.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/business/the-economics-and... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10597487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10597487
- ghaff 11y ago
  As the linked article says, it does vary with higher-end malls tending to be in better shape. This matches my personal experience. One local mall that counts a Penney's and a Sears among its primary anchors doesn't seem to be in great shape. But if I go into Boston, something like Copley Place seems to do just fine. The shopping malls across the border in NH also seem to be regularly packed but that's something of a special situation because of sales tax.
jonknee 11y ago
Yes. They have stopped building malls. http://www.businessinsider.com/shopping-malls-are-going-extinct-2014-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/shopping-malls-are-going-exti...
angersock 11y ago
The Galleria is basically there to serve out-of-town oil money and the rich folks in West U, Upper Kirby, Rice, and whatnot areas, I would say. EDIT: On the plus side, we still have some good book stores, like Brown Technical Book Shop (http://www.browntechnical.org/ http://www.browntechnical.org/). :)

prostoalex 11y ago

From this article http://www.wsj.com/articles/shrinking-u-s-shopping-malls-get-makeovers-1448361001 http://www.wsj.com/articles/shrinking-u-s-shopping-malls-get... it seems that the industry consensus is that malls are "overbuilt", not necessarily dying as in long-term trend. So we're seeing a correction, not necessarily a long-term slump. > outlet style strip malls where there's less crowding and inconvenience "Dying" problem and "crowding" problem seem to be mutually exclusive in a Yogi Berra kind of way.

CM30 11y ago

In the UK, malls are one of the places that Waterstones has done so well in. They're also the type of place that WH Smith seems to be (somewhat) surviving in, despite an incredibly poor reputation. Maybe Barnes and Noble could do well over here. I mean, they can't really be any worse than Smith's in terms of quality, can they? I think they could do decently well in say, Lakeside or Bluewater.