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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday January 09 2018, @10:35AM   Printer-friendly
from the pick-a-direction dept.

Barnes & Noble reported their sales from the 2017 holiday quarter, and the news is not good.

B&N today reported holiday sales for the nine-week holiday period ending December 30, 2017. Total sales for the holiday period were $953 million, declining 6.4% as compared to the prior year. Comparable store sales also declined 6.4% for the holiday period, while online sales declined 4.5%.

Entering December, the Company was encouraged by the comparable store sales improvements throughout the second quarter and into November. However, sales trends softened in December, primarily due to lower traffic.

The Company's book business declined 4.5%, outperforming the overall comparable store sales performance. Declines in the gift, music and DVD categories accounted for nearly half of the comparable store sales decrease. The Company said it remains focused on executing its strategic turnaround plan, which includes an aggressive expense management program.

The keywords are "aggressive expense management program," which translates to "lowering" the cost of employees, and closing and downsizing stores.

Previously: Barnes & Noble Pivots to Books


Original Submission

Related Stories

Barnes & Noble Pivots to Books 32 comments

Barnes & Noble will shift to smaller stores and is turning to books to attempt to save its business:

The retailer had hoped that toys, games and other items would shore up its results, especially as Amazon.com Inc. ate away at its traditional business. But its non-book sales have flagged the past two quarters, and now the company is putting its focus back firmly on reading.

Barnes & Noble will "place a greater emphasis on books, while further narrowing our non-book assortment," Chief Executive Officer Demos Parneros said in a statement.

The failed foray is just one of the challenges bearing down on the chain. Customer traffic is down, and Barnes & Noble is losing market share. Though the release of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" reinvigorated sales a year ago, the company is now paying for that blip: Same-store sales fell 6.3 percent last quarter, with about half of that decline coming from the drop-off in Harry Potter demand.

Barnes & Noble's Nook e-book business also has languished, a further sign of Amazon's tightening grip on readers. It all added up to a loss of 41 cents a share in the fiscal second quarter, compared with a deficit of 29 cents a year earlier. Analysts projected a 26-cent loss for the period, which ended Oct. 28.

Barnes & Noble may benefit from short leases, allowing it to close or downsize stores as needed. New stores may be only about 40% as large as the average existing location.

Headline credit where it is due.

Also at WSJ:

"There's too much stuff in the stores," said Barnes & Noble Inc. Chief Executive Demos Parneros, in an interview after the company's earnings call. "We're drawing a line in the sand and reducing the assortment of gift items and what I'd call tchotchkes. For example, we love journals. But we have way too many. We're refocusing on books."

Related: Amazon Opens Physical Bookstore in Seattle
Amazon Books Opens in New York City


Original Submission

Barnes & Noble's "Bloody Monday" 60 comments

On Monday, February 12th, Barnes & Noble fired a number of employees.

From CNBC:

Barnes & Noble is trimming its staff, laying off lead cashiers, digital leads and other experienced workers in a company-wide clearing, CNBC has learned from sources familiar with the matter.

The news came abruptly for many workers who showed up Monday morning at various Barnes & Noble locations to be notified that they no longer had a job, the people said. The number of affected workers couldn't immediately be determined. As of April 29 of last year, Barnes & Noble employed about 26,000 people.

"[Barnes & Noble] has been reviewing all aspects of the business, including our labor model," a spokeswoman told CNBC about the layoffs. "Given our sales decline this holiday, we're adjusting staffing so that it meets the needs of our existing business and our customers. As the business improves, we'll adjust accordingly."

From The Digital Reader:

The initial report said B&N had fired "lead cashiers, digital leads, and other experienced workers", but what that report missed - and why this was worth bringing up a day later - was that B&N also fired nearly all of its receiving managers in what current and ex-employees are calling Bloody Monday.

[...] When B&N fires a digital sales lead, it means they'll sell fewer Nooks. This is no big deal given how B&N's digital revenues have fallen since 2013. When B&N fires a head cashier, it means you're in for longer waits at the register.

But when B&N fires its receiving managers, it means that B&N won't have the merchandise to sell you because the person who was responsible for making sure shelves get stocked does not work there any more.

Previously: Barnes & Noble Reports Holiday Revenues Down
Barnes & Noble Pivots to Books


Original Submission

Barnes & Noble Just Fired Another CEO 16 comments

Barnes & Noble just fired CEO Demos Parneros after fourteen months on the job.

Barnes & Noble said Tuesday that it has fired CEO Demos Parneros for violating company policies.

The company did not specify exactly which policies were violated. It did say, however, that Parneros' termination "is not due to any disagreement with the Company regarding its financial reporting, policies or practices or any potential fraud relating thereto."

Parneros will not receive any severance and is no longer a director on its board, the company said in its statement. Barnes & Noble said it fired Parneros under the advice of its law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

Barnes & Noble said it will begin its search for a new CEO and that it has tapped a group of leaders to run the company in the interim. That group includes chief financial officer Allen Lindstrom, chief merchandising officer Tim Mantel and vice president of stores Carl Hauch.

Parneros joined the company in 2016 and was named CEO in 2017. He was previously president of Staples' North American stores and online.

Barnes & Noble's prior CEO was Ronald Boire, who lasted eight months on the job before being fired.

Previously: Barnes & Noble's "Bloody Monday"
Barnes & Noble Reports Holiday Revenues Down"
Barnes & Noble Pivots to Books


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 1) by jshmlr on Tuesday January 09 2018, @12:23PM (1 child)

    by jshmlr (6606) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @12:23PM (#619966) Homepage Journal

    That's a tidy sum when you're not serving shareholders.

    https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BKS/ [yahoo.com]

    --
    Need nothing, then see what happens.
  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday January 09 2018, @12:51PM (11 children)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @12:51PM (#619980) Journal

    I don't see how private bookstores can last much longer. The business model of selling dead tree copies is horribly inefficient compared to downloading ebooks.

    I saw B&N has set aside a few rows for vinyl LPs of all things. I can't believe that's a lasting trend. Has to be a fad. Why interest for that obsolete format has grown still puzzles me. Is it to avoid the loudness wars? Is it mp3s from terrible quality mp3 encoders still hanging around? Maybe it's that there aren't any rootkits on LPs?

    • (Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Tuesday January 09 2018, @01:51PM (1 child)

      by nobu_the_bard (6373) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @01:51PM (#619991)

      It is 50% nostalgia, 25% novelty, and 25% playing music that isn't easily available in other formats; this is approximate based on my friends that are into it. Might flip novelty/nostalgia for millennials.

      • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday January 09 2018, @09:27PM

        by darkfeline (1030) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @09:27PM (#620224) Homepage

        All it takes is one digitization and some unscrupulous sharing for a vinyl to be easily available, universally, globally, in an infinite variety of digital formats (including spectrogram jpegs, if you're into that).

        Digital audio is completely superior to analog. There isn't even a shred of argument for analog, except for the ignorant who do not understand the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem and various techniques like dithering.

        --
        Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
    • (Score: 5, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday January 09 2018, @02:58PM (2 children)

      by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @02:58PM (#620018) Journal

      Not really. Dead tree books still make up the vast majority of sales of books. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/13/printed-book-sales-ebooks-decline [theguardian.com] https://www.npr.org/2015/10/19/450030372/why-the-battle-between-e-books-and-print-may-be-over [npr.org] , for example. Ebooks have never had anywhere near a majority, though they have had around 30ish percent if this story is to be believed: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/03/ebook-sales-falling-for-the-first-time-finds-new-report [theguardian.com] . That's huge but not enough. Anecdotes aren't evidence, but as an eBook user I find myself outnumbered by more than two to one and am used to continually hearing the refrain, "I like having the paper book in my hands as I read".

      Besides which, B&N HAS it's own eBook reader and division, the Nook. So FWIW they're prepared-ish along that front, except that they aren't really prepared to do textbooks or serve student needs. (I say that as someone currently in a third degree who's visited there and their website several times to look - they seem to have ceded that market to Chegg and Amazon. I was actually told by an employee there that getting a particular print-on-demand title may be quicker and easier by going Amazon then having them order it for me. It was). Amazon has better PR for the Kindle, mainly - that's part of how they killed off Sony.

      What they don't have is the ability to fight someone coming in, going through the shelves to find titles they'd be interested in, whipping out their smartphone and finding that Amazon will sell it to them for 5% less with free shipping to doorstep. (Or skipping the whole I'm-going-to-the-bookstore in the first place). Like Waldenbooks and B. Dalton before them, the only thing B&N has over Amazon is the experience of being at the bookstore.... Just as Starbucks doesn't really sell you coffee they're competing on selling you ambience, not books. (Amazon is also selling you the ambience of you don't have to leave your home to purchase whatever...). And instead they have well over a third of their floorspace dedicated to games and toys, CD's and other similar non-book impulse buys, bookends/notebooks/etc. that are pricey, and in many locations a Starbucks' counter, and rows of closeout books that may be cheaper than Amazon but conversely didn't sell well in the first place.

      I like B&N and use them for a part of my Christmas shopping because I'm used to that experience, plus I feel like I need to support them so they don't disappear. But unless they reinvent themselves they're going to manage their expenses into bankruptcy. No company thrives on expense management. Sadly, the battle may be lost already.

      --
      This sig for rent.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @11:35PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @11:35PM (#620266)

        I like B&N I really do. But I think its days are numbered. Not books stores, those will be around for a long time. But the bulk wholesale style book stores like B&N are I think are done.

        Then ones I goto are not exactly bustling like they used to. They no longer carry what I want. The staff is also kinda rude. My wife decided to get a coffee at their 'not a starbucks' and was treated rather shoddy. A story I have heard from 3 other people.

        Something has changed about the store. I can not really put my finger on it but it is no longer a nice place to shop. Oh it has the 'look' of being nice. But it isnt. The selection is not bad. But it feels like it is hard to find things.

        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Wednesday January 10 2018, @05:37AM

          by anubi (2828) on Wednesday January 10 2018, @05:37AM (#620349) Journal

          My problem was I did like to browse when in a physical bookstore... but the local B&N has nowhere to sit!

          I noted some kids that were quite a bit more limber than me ( I'm closing in on 70 ) were trying to sit on the floor, but roving security guards kept rousing them.

          I can only stand for so long before blood starts pooling in my legs. So, slowly but surely, I had to give up the bookstore for Amazon and Alibris.

          And that's coming from one that notoriously has held on for way too long over doing things the way I've always done them. Yes, I still have a WIN95 system, and every year come tax time, I still drop to DOS to run VisiCalc, put my new numbers in, and transcribe it back via pen and ink to the tax forms. Just like I have done every year for the last thirty years. Then copy the whole directory, executable as well as all data files, back onto ONE floppy disk, to put back in the binder along with hardcopy, for next year. That's right, the executables AND thirty year's worth of my tax files... and the floppy disk is still less than half full.

          I tried the "buy a coffee" route, so I could sit in the cafe area, but they were watching the clock and after so long, I was deemed "loitering".

          Even though no-one was waiting for the seat.

          Old habits are hard to break, but businesses can find leaders who know how to break them.

          To make it better for all of us, I don't go there anymore.

          I understand. Rules are rules. Rule-makers are paid to make rules, customers like me are kinda a pain-in-the-ass.

          Oh yes, another thing. Last time I tried to buy a book there, they had all sorts of "discounts" offered. I tried to get one. Nothing for me. I guess they were testing me to see how much I would take before I finally walked out without buying. Although they lost a customer, I guess they did get valuable marketing information for the decision makers higher up. I fussed and fumed about it, but the register people I guess were told to get a complete burnout to prove the point.

          The switchover started when I first started learning of things Arduino. I used to buy ALL of my Arduino books there. That's when the fuss started over whether or not I could sit, and how long I could sit at a table with coffee browsing the books to see if they had stuff in them I considered worth around 40 bux to have a hardcopy of. Most of the books I saw had little new in them... just rehash of what the one I already had, but occasionally someone would publish something with new stuff in it. And, of course, I always had to check for the latest copy of "Circuit Cellar". Once in a while, I'd get one if they featured a nifty little thing I wanted to build or understand how it would work.

          I finally had to "join the modern crowd" and get an Amazon account. I still do not have a Google account, nor Facebook. Well, for me, "social media" is here, and a diesel truck forum.

          --
          "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday January 09 2018, @03:57PM (1 child)

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @03:57PM (#620048) Journal

      I don't see how private bookstores can last much longer. The business model of selling dead tree copies is horribly inefficient compared to downloading ebooks.

      Consumer demand often has little to do with "efficiency." As another post pointed out, the majority of book sales are still "dead tree copies," not ebooks. I know a lot of people who absolutely hate the ebook experience. Will that be enough long-term to keep physical bookstores alive? I don't know.

      I greatly dislike ebooks myself. I don't think my complaints are novel. But it's not about nostalgia -- it's about usability, no DRM, overall experience, etc. I spend a lot of time reading on screens at work, etc. I have a tablet for casual web browsing, etc. But when I want to sit down and relax with a book, I'm really happy to not look at a screen. And if I'm not reading a book for a long time, it's probably a reference book -- and paper books simply have different features for reference. With paper books, I have an intuitive physical relationship -- I can remember where stuff is on a page (not reflowing randomly) and approximately where it is in the book. Of course, full-text search with an ebook also has significant advantages, but it's just different, not necessarily superior. And it gets worse with many reference books that have complex formatting -- if there are lots of images, tables, and other materials, and the conversion is poor, ebooks are terrible to use. Or you get a PDF, which is often difficult to resize to make it as easy to skim and use as a paper book. The physicality advantages also extend to bookshelves, where I can keep track of where physical books are more intuitively and can often reach for a reference book on my shelf and find it with my eyes closed. Sure, you can come up with organizational systems for ebooks too, but with so many formats and ereaders, it's rarely as intuitive.

      As for the bookstore experience, there's also something completely different about physical browsing in a bookstore (or a library) compared to searching online. Amazon is very good about suggesting books to me that other people like me (especially with my purchase history or interests) already find popular. Amazon and online search algorithms are often very bad about helping me find interesting stuff outside that circumscribed metric of purchase popularity and rough similarity. I can think back on so many times I found amazing books at a bookstore or library just because of what was on the same shelf or around it. And I can really browse the book and see whether I'm interested, rather than getting merely reviews and some excerpt that may not be at all what I want to know about the book.

      Anyhow, obviously a lot of people love ebooks. And I have nothing against those who do. But in their current form, I have absolutely no desire to buy them.

      • (Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday January 10 2018, @05:42AM

        by anubi (2828) on Wednesday January 10 2018, @05:42AM (#620351) Journal

        I know a lot of people who absolutely hate the ebook experience.

        Add me to your list.

        Anything with DRM in it is on that list. If I am lucky, it will work for several weeks before something times out, or it start insisting that I comply with some demand before it will work.

        --
        "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday January 09 2018, @04:35PM (3 children)

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @04:35PM (#620071)

      I saw B&N has set aside a few rows for vinyl LPs of all things. I can't believe that's a lasting trend. Has to be a fad. Why interest for that obsolete format has grown still puzzles me. Is it to avoid the loudness wars? Is it mp3s from terrible quality mp3 encoders still hanging around?

      It's probably mostly stupid hipsters thinking "retro is cool". Retro IS cool sometimes (as with Model M keyboards), but LPs aren't one of those times. However, admittedly, LPs are superior to the other format that hipsters are in love with these days: cassettes. Seriously: cassettes have made a comeback because of stupid hipsters. I guess they think tape hiss and horrible sound quality is cool.

      • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday January 09 2018, @05:27PM (1 child)

        by Freeman (732) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @05:27PM (#620100) Journal

        There is something kind of elegant to a record player. Maybe, it's pure nostalgia, but there's probably quite a bit of that to go around for some time.

        --
        Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
        • (Score: 1) by anubi on Friday January 12 2018, @04:25AM

          by anubi (2828) on Friday January 12 2018, @04:25AM (#621254) Journal

          The vinyl LP was the last of true physical "plays for sure" media, but even then, sometimes it skips!

          If you took it to a friend's house, it would also play on his player, no matter who made it.

          No, we did not give that up. We have .MP3 format if we still want "plays for sure".

          Not .MP3? Ummm, if I can't put the content in a .MP3 format, I really don't want it all that bad. There is just too big a chance for me of getting another pain in the ass to deal with.

          --
          "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @06:26PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @06:26PM (#620134)

        records have a warm sound and tapes are tough.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Tuesday January 09 2018, @12:58PM (2 children)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @12:58PM (#619982) Homepage Journal

    Look at this picture of the Barnes & Noble "flagship" store in New York [fortune.com]. If you can, pretend that you don't know what store it is, what business they are in, and try to deduce this from the products on display.

    Chips, cookies and snacks. Are those bags of coffee beans? Some sort of boxes with cartoon heads drawn on them, containing...dunno what, maybe a doll? A basket full of stuffed animals. In the background, a generic electronics rack, probably containing earbuds, USB cables and such. To my eye, it looks like a typical over-dimensioned airport store, where people go to browse (and not buy anything) while waiting for their plane.

    What it's clearly not, is a bookstore.

    Looks to me like Barnes & Noble have lost track of what business they're actually in. Which might be why they are having trouble. Funnily enough, there was an article last November, where the CEO said that he thought maybe Barnes & Noble should focus more on books [fortune.com]. Like this is some kind of revelation for a company that is supposes to be a bookseller.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by ledow on Tuesday January 09 2018, @01:32PM

      by ledow (5567) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @01:32PM (#619987) Homepage

      You can notice this trend among a lot of stores that are on their way out.

      Our local Dixons/Currys (large white-goods suppliers) did the same for many years before one went bust, the other got subsumed, etc.
      And things like Maplins (the nearest internationally-familiar equivalent would be Radio Shack). They started stocking everything from toys to camping gear a few years ago and it's slowly taken over (some stores don't even have the electronics component counter at all any more).

      When your primary market isn't enough to sustain you, you have to branch out and the further and deeper you branch, the more in trouble you are. You're trying to get that extra 1% of business from stores that sell NOTHING but the things you're trying to now stock, just by virtue of having them in your store too to be convenient.

      Even places like Halfords (car/bike maintenance products) are doing the same now.

      It's a sign that, where you can get everything in one place online, you can't do it in real stores as you just can't stock enough without turning into a generic shop.
      And equally, if you're after something very specialist you're still better off online (because the specialist offline stores can't stock everything including all the niche items based only on passing trade).

      We're heading towards the days of a few single mega-retailers that stock everything, with a pocketful of large niche people who cater only for the specialist stuff. That doesn't translate to traditional shops at all well.

      Even "supermarkets" are now huge and do everything from pharmacy to tanning salon to optician to post office to florist all under one roof. The days of a shop that sells one thing is numbered. That's going to move purely to trade-sales only for such specialist suppliers. Everything else will be mega-mart sold.

      (Aside: In my town, there is a road junction with two large supermarkets, one on either side of the road. One is sign-posted "Supermarket", the other "Hypermarket".... talk about oneupmanship.

    • (Score: 1) by oldmac31310 on Wednesday January 10 2018, @10:01PM

      by oldmac31310 (4521) on Wednesday January 10 2018, @10:01PM (#620663)

      That picture shows part of the ground floor only. I believe there are a further three floors that do indeed contain a LOT of books. I was there on Sunday to use the bathroom. I didn't buy anything. If they close down, where can I take my son for an emergency pee?

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 09 2018, @02:38PM (4 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 09 2018, @02:38PM (#620009) Journal

    My generation has aged. I pick up a book, skim over the title, intro, whatever pictures, get to the first chapter, and start reading - except, I can't see shit. Depending on how you define the boomers, maybe I'm the very last of them, or maybe I'm whatever came right after the boomers. But, it's very difficult to read dead tree books today.

    The next generation will be the last to even want books. Generation X and everything after would rather read a screen of print - if they even like reading. Everything is videos now. Why go to the effort of reading to comprehend something, when someone on Youtube is happy to show you how to do it? Reading is for old people, and the old people are dying off.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by TheGratefulNet on Tuesday January 09 2018, @02:55PM

      by TheGratefulNet (659) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @02:55PM (#620016)

      I'm mid 50's and have neck and joint pain. anything I do, these days, often has some bit of pain to it (arthritis never goes away once you get it). holding a book, moving my neck or even my bad eyes to read the thing takes effort and at the end of the day, I'm tired from the day job and reading paper books is the last thing I want.

      I do find it easier to read screens, though. generated light vs reflected light. dark term windows and green or amber text helps me see better and I can control the font size and window size.

      I did read a lot when I was younger, but physically, it takes effort and sometimes a mild amount of pain.

      besides, almost anything technical is out of date once its printed. to stay current and employed I need to spend all my spare time maintaining my tech background; pleasure reading of fiction does not fit into my schedule. I can just barely stay current as it is, in tech; and that's with all my spare time reading up on tech articles and similar subjects.

      finally, books take up a lot of space, get dusty over time and cost real money to have to pack and move (I'm in an apartment and so I'm often moving every few years). boxes of books are NO FUN to move.

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday January 09 2018, @03:49PM

      by LoRdTAW (3755) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @03:49PM (#620046) Journal

      Generation X still reads, a lot. But we grew up during the computer boom and screens began to displace books for some. So now most have switched to e-book but a friend is still an avid dead tree collector and reader.

    • (Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Tuesday January 09 2018, @05:00PM

      by WizardFusion (498) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 09 2018, @05:00PM (#620085) Journal

      I am a Generation X person that spends most of my time in front of a computer screen (I am a sysadmin).
      I like e-books due to the portability of them (1000's on a single device), but I still read a lot of physical books.

    • (Score: 1) by anubi on Friday January 12 2018, @04:37AM

      by anubi (2828) on Friday January 12 2018, @04:37AM (#621257) Journal

      Don't blame 'em either!

      Although I still have a mechanical typewriter, its been ten years since I used it.

      The only time I pick up a pen is to either sign something, make notes in books, make quickie sketches of circuits I may dream up...

      Even my brother and sister get typewritten notes from me. Not because I am so prim and proper ( laughing ), but because my penmanship would earn me a F- by ANY teacher. I can barely read it, I certainly do not expect anyone else to.

      Neither do I see too many people stitching by hand either. I sometimes try to repair fabric by hand, and boy is it obvious.

      Used to use a 300 baud GTE/Lenkurt analog modem ( all tuned by coils and capacitors, no less! ) on the BBS as well.

      The mental bandwidth of video is several orders of magnitude over reading. Why use such slow methods? Oh God, I remember all too well of the tedium of reading some of that crap my English teachers assigned me. Charles Dickens. It took a seeming eternity to fish through his verbose communication to try to get to the nugget of info he was trying to convey. Might as well be looking for needles in haystacks. But it was what was necessary to get a passing grade. I can't even list all the other things I would have much rather been doing than trying to read such a boring tome.

      It takes me several weeks to read a novel. But the neat thing about it is I can read a page at a time, lay it back down, and when I pick it back up, I am precisely where I left off. Great for toilet reads.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 09 2018, @05:33PM (1 child)

    by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @05:33PM (#620107)

    The keywords are "aggressive expense management program," which translates to "lowering" the cost of employees, and closing and downsizing stores.

    Why is it that whenever a company's profit margins aren't what upper management was hoping for, it's the people with no decision-making power in the organization who end up paying for the mistakes or circumstances in question?

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by nobu_the_bard on Tuesday January 09 2018, @08:47PM

      by nobu_the_bard (6373) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @08:47PM (#620201)

      The people in upper management for very large operations don't see a store floor and the perpetual battles for retail share from the front lines. They see spreadsheets with numbers. They have to take pains to keep their perspective in check, and not forget what it's like out there on the sales floor, or they forget and the drift.

      Most of the newer items B&N is stocking, are HIGH profit margins (those niche toys and statues, cellphone accessories, etc). They don't need to sell a ton to make money on them. They look great on spreadsheets.

      The problem is they're low demand. The margins are high because they're from markets with low volumes of sales. You might get lucky and inspire a wider market but that'll be a temporary thing before the fad passes or the prices have to come down to compete. It's not a great way to dig the company out, its just something that maybe can keep your head above water.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Crash on Tuesday January 09 2018, @07:53PM (4 children)

    by Crash (1335) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @07:53PM (#620176)

    B&N Membership: $25. Benefit: 10% off books.
    Break Even Point: Spend at least $21 per month for a year. ... for a grand total savings of 20 cents. Wooo Hooo.

    I miss Borders.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 09 2018, @10:28PM (2 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday January 09 2018, @10:28PM (#620244) Journal

      Do they have to tax you before the 10% discount is applied?

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 1) by Crash on Tuesday January 09 2018, @11:04PM (1 child)

        by Crash (1335) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @11:04PM (#620256)

        Ah dunno, I never got the B&N membership. Borders was free. At my peak-reading (in adulthood) I didn't average more than a couple soft-covers a month. The B&N membership would require you to buy at least 3-4 non-hardcovers a month for it to be remotely feasible.

        IIRC most of those discounts were pre-tax, just like coupons -- as discounts don't cover tax.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 10 2018, @05:59AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 10 2018, @05:59AM (#620354)

          IIRC most of those discounts were pre-tax, just like coupons -- as discounts don't cover tax.

          Does it make a difference?

          Assume $10 item, 50% discount, 10% tax ( just to make the numbers easy )

          Pre-tax: item-discount=$5. Add tax. $5.50 out the door.

          Post-Tax: Item with tax: $11. Minus $5.50 discount. $5.50 out the door.

          You come out a little better on Pre-Tax if its a fixed discount... run the above with flat $5 discount.. you'll save 50 cents if they deduct the discount from the taxable price before factoring in tax.

    • (Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday January 10 2018, @06:14AM

      by anubi (2828) on Wednesday January 10 2018, @06:14AM (#620359) Journal

      Yeh, I believe that was the one that had me all worked up.

      I figured if they were offering discounts, I oughta get an old-geezer discount.

      I sure feel like a sucker if I seem to be the one paying full list price while others flash cards and promotional slips.

      All that "club" stuff only hammers home the idea I am overpaying. Every time I see the words "with card", it just drives me to WalMart. Those two words were the main driver of my finding out WalMart would sell me my prescriptions far cheaper than CVS. But, I realize highly-paid people like those words... gives them a feeling of privilege. Keeps the riff-raff out.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
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