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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
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday February 14 2018, @05:40PM (15 children)
I think B&N is in for some rough times. They had an advantage in being better than Borders, so they outlasted them to become the only real new-book chain left in America, but that just means they were the winner of a dying business. Thanks to Amazon, they're losing with both ebooks and regular publications, and all those big mall stores are a big expense and overhead cost that Amazon doesn't have. I think there's still a place for physical bookstores, but not with the huge square footage in prime locations that B&N stores normally have.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Wednesday February 14 2018, @06:16PM (6 children)
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Wednesday February 14 2018, @07:26PM (5 children)
The existing options don't really do justice to how I agree with that. Not exactly nostalgia. +1 Fond Memories?
I miss Waldenbooks too. Used to buy a book every other week and eat a small ice cream in the mall at a small table next to the big fountain while I read. Sometimes look at video games after in another store. Now its just women's clothing stores for the most part.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14 2018, @07:42PM (3 children)
B. Dalton and Waldenbooks were ok back in the day when they were the only game in town. Then Borders came and disrupted things, with nice places to sit and drink coffee. B&N tried to copy Borders, but they don't have the selection, organization and atmosphere. I miss Borders. I don't care if B&N disappears.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14 2018, @08:41PM (2 children)
My favorite was Tower Books back during its heyday of weirdly shaped blue bookshelves (It was like two rows of regular shelves with an angled section at the bottom.
They weren't always the cheapest, but they regularly had selections of books you couldn't often find anywhere else. Ironically their big failures came as a result of expansion into Japan, which they subsidized with their American stores, Borders coming in and undercutting them by 25 percent on everything until they were gone (then jacking their prices up to retail and then beyond retail), and their decision to damage their book stock and replace it with a Borders-like venue.
Most people didn't go to Tower for a borers-like experience. They went there for a new-book library-like experience. While there were some issues with it, the only real issue during the borders invasion was pricing (in part due to the expansion above decimating their cash reserves) and later cutbacks in their magazine supplies, which were a major pull for customers. Tower literally stocked rare magazines from all over the world, and oftentimes if you couldn't find something, they could special order it if you know what you were looking for. Sometimes even a single issue of a rare magazine someone normally special ordered, just in case it piqued someone else's interest.
I had a friend who was into J-Rock/Pop around '99 who got all her magazines from there.
Nowadays in their former hometown the only options are Dimple Records/Book stores, Barnes & Noble, and a few independent used bookstores that pop up and disappear every couple of years.
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Wednesday February 14 2018, @09:32PM (1 child)
There's still one bookstore in town. It's run out of an old warehouse. You'd think I'd have been in there, but...
There's a huge sign outside. Two stories tall. "WE SHIP TO PRISONS FOR FREE"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 15 2018, @05:04PM
Anti-shoplifting sign?
I mean book welding shoplifters are the biggest danger to America, because THEY STEAL KNOWLEDGE! JUST LIKE THE CHINESE!
IN FACT THEY MUST ALL BE CHINESE SPIES!!! (Or is that 'classical American Patriots'... it is hard to tell the difference anymore.)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jdavidb on Thursday February 15 2018, @02:05PM
My grandparents, sometimes just my grandmother, used to take me to the malls (two in our area) about twice a week in summer. My grandmother would usually buy me a book every time.
After I learned to drive, the first time I went somewhere without telling my dad was a trip to the mall to go to Waldenbooks. That's about the extent of the trouble I caused in high school.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 3, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday February 14 2018, @06:50PM (7 children)
More like Circuit City. Fire the experienced folks who have all the institutional knowledge, leaving the drones to drive away the remaining customers.
Will upper management be fired because this really is B&N's to lose - there are many surviving (appearing to be thriving) indie bookstores showing how you push back against Amazon. Nope. The upper management will get out with their golden parachutes intact, mostly.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday February 14 2018, @07:25PM (6 children)
The indie bookstores aren't that easily comparable to B&N: a giant corporation just isn't going to give you the same experience you get with a little bookstore owned and operated by some old guy. Also, there's other differences: those indie bookstores are usually located in out-of-the-way locations where rent is cheap, and their stores are usually small. Some of them mix used and new books together. That stuff just isn't compatible with the B&N business model.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday February 14 2018, @08:33PM (3 children)
Good points, all, Grishnakh. My experience of those indie stores, though, is that they are also all about selling the customer an experience. B&N can't afford to compete with Amazon on price by everything I've read. If they want to survive, they have to keep their niche of people flowing in through the doors. Firing senior frontline staff just isn't the way to make that happen.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday February 14 2018, @08:54PM (2 children)
Oh, I agree. And that's absolutely correct about "selling an experience". But I just don't think it's possible for a large corporation to copy the indies and sell an experience like that. You're just not going to get people passionate about books to come work for peanuts at some mega-chain; the indies can do it because the guy/girl who loves books also owns the place and runs it the way they see fit, rather than according to some corporate mandate. There's really no way to reconcile this.
If B&N wants to survive, they'll have to reinvent themselves somehow, to offer something that Amazon just can't. Perhaps they should expand their cafes and become places where people with laptops can hang out all day long, perhaps they should downsize a lot so they're only the size that Waldenbooks stores used to be instead of taking up almost as much space as Dick's, perhaps they should try to buy up that other e-reader company, perhaps they should get into comic books, I don't know.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday February 14 2018, @10:17PM
Yes, I think you're right that if B&N tries to just copy the indie-feel they'd almost certainly fall flat. I have known B&N folks who are true bibliophiles - though you're right that there are plenty who are not, as well. The sad part is that they have been trying... I don't agree with the choices they've been making (maybe that's because between a Toys R Us and a really good games store in town, so much of that aspect is just poor copies of what I already have access to). They're pulling back from that a little, but it almost feels like Radio Shack did in going from a hobbyist store into a computer franchise to a not-quite electronics retailer to a cellphone store where it died. They probably don't have a lot of time left to find that voice - though that's just my feely-guess and not based on data.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday February 15 2018, @03:17PM
Funny, that indy feeling is the impression I got in Waterstones in Piccadilly circus. That's 6 floors, but (the way I remember it now) with here and there small cards saying "Why I love this book, by ... reason ...".
Dunno if that was completely faked or just company-wide suggestions distributed to all chains (Waterstones is not really small), or actual suggestions of the staff that works at that location. But it did come across as if the people who work there, care about books.
(Similarly good for the impression is the fact that they have lazy/comfy chairs for reading all over the place on each floor. It really gives you the feeling that you're welcome to sit down and read a book - as opposed to the cries of "this is not a library!" you'd encounter all to frequently elsewhere.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14 2018, @10:42PM (1 child)
There. FTFY.
And no, I won't tell you the name of the store or where it is.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 15 2018, @02:45AM
Dear Penthouse,
I never thought it would happen to me...