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Barnes and Noble did some dumb things as this article points out, but they are NOWHERE near what the CEO of Sears is doing. That is corporate malpractice, gross

Barnes and Noble did some dumb things as this article points out, but they are NOWHERE near what the CEO of Sears is doing. That is corporate malpractice, gross negligence, and perhaps high treason all rolled into one. Literally look up anything online for “Sears CEO is terrible” and you will get links from NY Times, WaPo, etc. Also with BN, I mean they were going up against one of the biggest most powerful companies in human history. Their survival so far is impressive at least, and they did try with the Nook, but Amazon was always a software company so BN has a difficult and late challenge. If anything, the best strategy for now with BN is to increase cash-flow, cut expenses, etc and wait for the legal and cultural environment to turn against some of the tech companies. Personally I don’t think Amazon has done that much wrong, but I imagine they will suffer some collateral damage from the move against first, Facebook, followed by second Google. Although Google is smart and already broke themselves up years ago to avoid just this fate, Facebook is still in denial......

justonepost 9y ago
It's pretty unlikely either Amazon or Google will face much headwind as they fulfill necessary roles. Facebook isn't necessary from what I can see (though I personally like it and use it) and contributes to known social ills. Zuck is redirecting a lot of effort into community organizing which I think is a necessary role, though meetup already has that space and isn't really that big of a company. I think he's going to find out that it doesn't pay as well as feeding general narcissism does.
aorloff 9y ago
For any company that can, increasing cash flow is a great way to proceed assuming you don't muck around with the balance sheet. Unfortunately, I don't see a way for BN to really do that, the sun set on their business a long, long time ago. Sure they could morph into some kind of WeWork/Starbucks thing, but its not like that's an open playing field begging for competition either.
- barsonme 9y ago
  For the record, I do like that idea. I recently started working remote, and while I like my office it's nice to go to a coffee shop and get out of the house for a while. But, the WiFi usually sucks and it can be too noisy. A quiet place with decent WiFi and coffee would be superb. I don't know what books other professions need, but it'd be pretty neat to go and checkout TAOCP (or something) and do some work for a while. Like a library meets coffee shop meets BYOD internet cafe, or something. Idk.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    The stores of the French chain Fnac - which sells mainly books, movies and consumer digital equipment - often have coffeeshops inside, where you can sit with a book if you buy something. And during working hours, they're usually quiet enough. I'm not sure if they have wifi, but I've seen people studying there.
  - kalleboo 9y ago
    That sounds like the city library where I'm from. The view is also pretty nice: https://c1.staticflickr.com/6/5338/9521653521_94e44e88ef_b.jpg https://c1.staticflickr.com/6/5338/9521653521_94e44e88ef_b.j...
    - bunderbunder 9y ago
      The downside of somewhere like a library is that you really can't take a phone call from there. I'd pay some money for an environment that's as pleasant as my library, but that also has phone booths.
nerdponx 9y ago
At the end of the article the author makes it very clear what she thinks is happening: they are deliberately scuttling the company and attempting to wring it dry in the process.
mattmanser 9y ago
For context, in the UK our Barnes & Noble equivalent was turned around and now is increasing sales: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/18/waterstones-annual-profits-jump-80-percent-books-sale https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/18/waterstones-an... Note that they have decreased staff numbers, but increased efficiency. For example my local store had 2 people on the main till at Xmas[1] but the wait was short as they were turning them over very fast. I walked in 2 days before Xmas and was out within 10 minutes. Also, at the bottom of the article, they say they're opening new stores, 5 last year, 15 more planned this year. [1] Another poster said they'd walked out of a B&N store with 50 people in a queue and 2 servers at Xmas.
tzs 9y ago
> [...] and wait for the legal and cultural environment to turn against some of the tech companies. Personally I don’t think Amazon has done that much wrong, but I imagine they will suffer some collateral damage from the move against first, Facebook, followed by second Google It may be too late. Even if Amazon stopped selling books, people have gotten used to buying their books online. They will just switch to AbeBooks.com, Biblio.com, Thriftbooks.com [1], or others. [1] I had never actually heard of Thriftbooks before today. I found them when I looked up a book on Barnes & Noble's website, and on the bottom of the page at B&N they had Google ads for other place selling the book, and Thriftbooks was one of them (and they were cheaper than B&N). B&N sure did not get their money's worth for the $1.4 million they paid their CMO in 2017.
mgkimsal 9y ago
The Sears situation is just sad. I'm not sure why shareholders are putting up with it, except... most probably have just accepted the narrative that sears is dead, and are OK with the sell off and ... yeah, treason isn't a bad word. But... selling off assets you control to another company you also control would seem like... oh.. what's the term? Conflict of interest? I don't understand in the slightest why this has been allowed to go on. I can't imagine if, say, Target's CEO started cutting store budgets, then closing and selling the bad performing stores and real estate to another company the CEO owned, and then made a profit repurposing those stores to other companies. It's truly bizarre.
- jandrese 9y ago
  I figure the board must be getting their pockets lined as the CEO guts the company as fast as possible. It's going to be sad but completely predictable when Sears goes under.
- madengr 9y ago
  Sears was/is a total mess. Went there to buy something (before they closed the local store) and it took 10 minutes to checkout, with the clerk fumbling between the iPad, a CRT register, and credit card scanner. What a cluster F.
jroseattle 9y ago
With all due respect, this is only a strategy to prolong eventual death. Counting on survival by hoping there's a backlash against Amazon is folly. B&N needs leadership to offer product and services that can compete, period. Need to cutback? Sure. But where's the business plan? That's call this what it is -- poor execution by leadership.

justonepost 9y ago

It's pretty unlikely either Amazon or Google will face much headwind as they fulfill necessary roles. Facebook isn't necessary from what I can see (though I personally like it and use it) and contributes to known social ills. Zuck is redirecting a lot of effort into community organizing which I think is a necessary role, though meetup already has that space and isn't really that big of a company. I think he's going to find out that it doesn't pay as well as feeding general narcissism does.

aorloff 9y ago

For any company that can, increasing cash flow is a great way to proceed assuming you don't muck around with the balance sheet. Unfortunately, I don't see a way for BN to really do that, the sun set on their business a long, long time ago. Sure they could morph into some kind of WeWork/Starbucks thing, but its not like that's an open playing field begging for competition either.

barsonme 9y ago
For the record, I do like that idea. I recently started working remote, and while I like my office it's nice to go to a coffee shop and get out of the house for a while. But, the WiFi usually sucks and it can be too noisy. A quiet place with decent WiFi and coffee would be superb. I don't know what books other professions need, but it'd be pretty neat to go and checkout TAOCP (or something) and do some work for a while. Like a library meets coffee shop meets BYOD internet cafe, or something. Idk.
- icebraining 9y ago
  The stores of the French chain Fnac - which sells mainly books, movies and consumer digital equipment - often have coffeeshops inside, where you can sit with a book if you buy something. And during working hours, they're usually quiet enough. I'm not sure if they have wifi, but I've seen people studying there.
- kalleboo 9y ago
  That sounds like the city library where I'm from. The view is also pretty nice: https://c1.staticflickr.com/6/5338/9521653521_94e44e88ef_b.jpg https://c1.staticflickr.com/6/5338/9521653521_94e44e88ef_b.j...
  - bunderbunder 9y ago
    The downside of somewhere like a library is that you really can't take a phone call from there. I'd pay some money for an environment that's as pleasant as my library, but that also has phone booths.

nerdponx 9y ago

At the end of the article the author makes it very clear what she thinks is happening: they are deliberately scuttling the company and attempting to wring it dry in the process.

mattmanser 9y ago

For context, in the UK our Barnes & Noble equivalent was turned around and now is increasing sales: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/18/waterstones-annual-profits-jump-80-percent-books-sale https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/18/waterstones-an... Note that they have decreased staff numbers, but increased efficiency. For example my local store had 2 people on the main till at Xmas[1] but the wait was short as they were turning them over very fast. I walked in 2 days before Xmas and was out within 10 minutes. Also, at the bottom of the article, they say they're opening new stores, 5 last year, 15 more planned this year. [1] Another poster said they'd walked out of a B&N store with 50 people in a queue and 2 servers at Xmas.

tzs 9y ago

> [...] and wait for the legal and cultural environment to turn against some of the tech companies. Personally I don’t think Amazon has done that much wrong, but I imagine they will suffer some collateral damage from the move against first, Facebook, followed by second Google It may be too late. Even if Amazon stopped selling books, people have gotten used to buying their books online. They will just switch to AbeBooks.com, Biblio.com, Thriftbooks.com [1], or others. [1] I had never actually heard of Thriftbooks before today. I found them when I looked up a book on Barnes & Noble's website, and on the bottom of the page at B&N they had Google ads for other place selling the book, and Thriftbooks was one of them (and they were cheaper than B&N). B&N sure did not get their money's worth for the $1.4 million they paid their CMO in 2017.

mgkimsal 9y ago

The Sears situation is just sad. I'm not sure why shareholders are putting up with it, except... most probably have just accepted the narrative that sears is dead, and are OK with the sell off and ... yeah, treason isn't a bad word. But... selling off assets you control to another company you also control would seem like... oh.. what's the term? Conflict of interest? I don't understand in the slightest why this has been allowed to go on. I can't imagine if, say, Target's CEO started cutting store budgets, then closing and selling the bad performing stores and real estate to another company the CEO owned, and then made a profit repurposing those stores to other companies. It's truly bizarre.

jandrese 9y ago
I figure the board must be getting their pockets lined as the CEO guts the company as fast as possible. It's going to be sad but completely predictable when Sears goes under.
madengr 9y ago
Sears was/is a total mess. Went there to buy something (before they closed the local store) and it took 10 minutes to checkout, with the clerk fumbling between the iPad, a CRT register, and credit card scanner. What a cluster F.

jroseattle 9y ago

With all due respect, this is only a strategy to prolong eventual death. Counting on survival by hoping there's a backlash against Amazon is folly. B&N needs leadership to offer product and services that can compete, period. Need to cutback? Sure. But where's the business plan? That's call this what it is -- poor execution by leadership.