[Erfael]

Just wanted to mention briefly here that Borders went into Chapter 11 Bankruptcy procedures at the end of last week. As of now, their stores are still open and they're looking to the future. I'd be sad to see another brick and mortar store close its doors. Let's hope they manage to keep things running.

Strike that bit about stores still open: A bunch are closing. Of the six within 25 miles of me, 4 are closing....

Looks like the current plan is to close 194 stores by the end of April.

[Eventine]

It's not just the US:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/18/3141978.htm

The world has turned...

[ElinIsabel]

This makes me so sad. As an Ann Arbor native Borders is a hometown store for me. But they did make some bad business decisions and hopefully they will restructure and come out of it.

And it looks like both "my" Borders stores are surviving; the Fairfield store out here in CT, and store #1 down at the corner of Liberty and State in Ann Arbor.

Times change. I also thought it was the end of the world when GM went bankrupt and the Wolverines had their first losing season in 40 years, yet they survived.

I feel so heartbroken for all the people losing their jobs, though. I feel sick to my stomach whenever I hear about any more people losing their jobs.

[Jennifer P]

It's my honest opinion that the day of the big box bookstore may be coming to a close. Amazon can out compete them on price.

The way to run a bookstore in the twenty-first century is going to involve good coffee, highly knowledgeable staff, genre specialization and regular events. Possibly good booze...the bookstore-bar is a growing concept in some areas. 'We have books' is not going to get people in the door in the age of Amazon and ebooks. You need to dangle more...signings, readings, poetry jams, open mike nights...and that's going to be hard for the big companies to do. I would not be at all surprised if both Borders and B&N eventually end up online only entities.

[FrnchDp]

I received this in an email yesterday.

Dear Borders Rewards Plus Member,

For generations, Borders stores have been beacons of enlightenment and education, where readers young and old explore their passions and find those special books that speak to them personally. As Borders moves forward, our commitment to you is to be a best-in-class bookseller - whether it's our stores or Borders.com - where you can purchase books and related products that stimulate and satisfy your reading interests.

However, because of the ongoing impact of the difficult U.S. economy, coupled with the rapidly changing bookselling environment, we must restructure Borders and reposition our business for long-term success. We determined that the best path for Borders to have the ability to achieve this reorganization is through the Chapter 11 process, which we commenced February 16.

Throughout this process, I want you to know that:

Borders stores are open for business. Borders pioneered the in-store experience, providing customers with a vast assortment of books in a warm, relaxing environment - and we intend to build on this. Our stores will continue to be community gathering places. Families can still enjoy enriching events, including author reading and signings, book clubs, and kids' storytimes and parties.

Our Borders Rewards Plus program remains in effect. As a member of the Borders Rewards Plus program, you'll continue to enjoy a rich array of savings and benefits, including 40% off the list price of hardcover bestsellers, 20% off the list price of selected hardcovers, and 10% off the purchase price of most everything else. You will also enjoy free shipping on virtually all Borders.com orders. As always, you can earn and redeem your Rewards in-store and at Borders.com, and you'll continue to receive valuable coupons via email, along with out special recommendations for hot titles. We are honoring gift cards as usual, which can be redeemed in-store and at Borders.com.

Borders.com is operating as usual. We are fulfilling online orders, and you can continue to choose from millions of books, CDs, and DVDs, as well as other entertainment items.

eBook libraries are perfectly safe. Our partner Kobo will continue to provide access to all eBooks purchased through Borders, and continue to sell eBooks to Borders customers.

Borders will continue to maintain a strong national presence. Our nationwide network of stores is foundational to the Borders brand. Over the next several weeks however, Borders will be closing underperforming stores within our network. Should your local store be affected, please visit Borders.com to find another Borders store near you, or to purchase from our incredible selection of books, music, and movies.

Over the next several months, we will build on our core strengths as a great bookseller with the goal of emerging as the destination of choice for the millions of customers who shop our stores each year.

For more information, please visit www.bordersreorganization.com. You may also call our Customer Care Center at (800) 770-7811, or contact them at ccare@borders.com.

I want to thank you for your continued loyalty to Borders. You are among our very best customers, and I appreciate your ongoing support.

Sincerely,

Mike Edwards
President and CEO, Border, Inc.

I think they realized that they got on the eBook bandwagon a bit late, and now need to restructure and reset themselves in order to better compete.

[expatrie]

Yeah, I got the special email about a week after I bought my membership thing. I guess I viewed it more as a charitable donation than something I was going to "break-even" on since I'd have to spend $200 or more to get back the $20 I paid. We have several that are closing, including the nearest mildly inconvenient to go to store. The next nearest is between my house and my parents, which would be fine, except now I'll have to shop with my son in a carrier. I guess this means I get to develop a new skill--speed book shopping / entertaining a six month old.

From what I heard (and responses are contradictory) the local store here is closed as of now and the 'bargain closeout liquidation' people who mark everything back up to 100% and then chop 40% off and call it a bargain are operating.

Others (cashiers, in this case, sorry for the undefined antecedent) have said they will remain open for a bit, perhaps months.

So who knows other than call the store before you make the drive if it's a long distance for you.

I went in yesterday to get Fight Club and walked away with Haunted instead (we will disregard for the moment the other eight books which were $1 except for the latest from Brian Greene. Haunted's cover glows in the dark. SO jealous.

The place was packed. And this is a store that's closing. I've never seen it so busy at two-three o'clock on a Friday afternoon. And it wasn't the obvious 'mom and baby' crowd from Babies-R-Us next door.

Apparently if you get the plus deal you can still get most of the coupons to work and you also get free shipping to an address you pick, so I will be shifting somewhat to the electronic thing instead--while I impatiently await Ghost Story. Do you suppose I can get 40% off coupon to work on the international building code?

Too bad, too, but at least I finally got a free coffee from them thursday now that I've managed to jump through the hoops frequently enough. The fine print is you have to buy the four in a month's time, which I'd never done before. As the rubber hits the road, apparently it also only counts purchases, not the type of coffee purchase, so the pair of extra chocolatey (their word) mochas and two regular coffees finally did the trick.

The thing about the online thing is there's no equivalent to nearby authors. While I was reading the backs of all the Paluniuk books, the hardcover--turns out steampunk--book nearby caught my eye. The equivalent online function is like "other people who bought this book bought these," and those don't jump categories like an alphabetical "Literature" bookshelf. As a possible author, I sometimes take a look at where I'd land, alphabetically. I'm amused by Irvine Welsh being next to Rebecca Wells, Irvine probably dislikes that. That kind of thing.

Yes, I really have been to the Borders three times this week. ( I had a coupon for a free birthday coffee that was expiring! I don't have a problem! There was another coupon for a free drink, any size! I'm not sick! I had another coupon and I wanted to buy Fight Club to be nice to Borders! I'm not sick! I don't have a problem!)

--Brian.

[expatrie]

The Richfield Borders store in Minnesota is having a 20%-40% off 'everything must go' sale today, so it looks like the liquidators get the store monday.

Anyway, your nearby stores may be having similar 'sell-outs.' These purchases will count for Borders bucks loyalty stuff, the liquidator purchases obviously won't.

Anyway..

[Erfael]

My local store did the 20-40% thing this weekend...not sure if it will continue into the week or not. I stopped in yesterday...the place was PACKED. If even a modestly small fraction of those people had been in there at any other given time, I'm sure Borders would have been doing much better overall. I was pretty frequently in the place and would often just buy something to buy something. I didn't buy anything yesterday, though, as 20% on the couple books I might have bought wasn't enough to get me to stand in the line they had. It was all the way across the front of the store.

One curious thing: The cafe was shut down. This seemed odd to me. Given the number of people there, it seems like they could have made a killing on coffee sales. Hell, have the cafe employees take orders from people in the line and then have the cashiers at the front ring people up when they got there...something.

[expatrie]

At Richfield the line was pretty long but manageable. I had my six month old and he was brilliant waiting in his carrier the "whole" time. The line moved a lot faster than I thought it was going to. Maybe 5 minutes to check out and I was in the slow--one cashier--line.

But the trick at Richfield was they had a cashier at the coffee outfit, no coffee, but you could buy books. That helped things move faster. What's taking so long is they have to peel off the Borders sticker and line through the UPC beneath to indicate it was sold cheaplike, (pity the cashier's fingers, folks) so people can't return them for normal price "lost the receipt" 100% and pocket the 20%. I don't see any money in that scam with the driving at 50c / mile, but... you'd probably break even at best and Borders would be out the 20%.

So that's why it's taking longer than usual. Everything in the store was 20%, with everyone asking when it would be marked down further--duh, like they're going to tell you. "Hey, why not hide those books in YA and come back tomorrow when they'll be 40% off." Sure. It's a dumb question, people. If 20% off isn't good enough for you, put the books back and come back every day for the next who knows how many days and see when they drop the price... or wait for some person to post online that the price has dropped, you know?

The other thing was they pulled the bestsellers and recents out, which is curious, because the day before I got The Hidden Reality for 30%, if they took off the 30% off sticker, that book would move, and they'd be up 10%. (I bought Zero History early at 30% off and a week later it sported a 50% off sticker).

Everything I wanted was in stock.

On the other hand, While Mortals Sleep didn't have 20% off when I trolled by it Friday, but it got the default 20% off on Saturday during the close-out.

Ching!

But I disagree it's all "freeloaders" I was a regular at that store. Not profitable, since I bought from the discount pile and with 40% off single title coupons and only bought one book--typical bookstore margin is 40%--, usually, but at least I was there to get the moldy stuff off the shelves to give them a chance to sell something at full price to the next guy.

Even so, Borders getting the sale at 20% off is better than selling the inventory to the liquidator. So they're not freeloaders in that sense either. All the liquidator is going to do is strip off the borders and discount stickers and mark them 40% 'off' full price. Which means the $3.99 trade paperback that's secretly $1 because it's got a blue sticker and is on clearance will be 'discounted' for 40% of $15. That's $9. Which means for a 'clearance' book you're paying 900% what you could have paid at Borders.

You're right, though, they could probably have done some nice business with the coffees, although SBC isn't really set up for troves of coffee drinkers, but then again, neither is Starbucks. And their routine is to take names and call out orders, so it would have worked so long as everyone didn't want a regular large coffee.

I went there and paid more for books than I've probably paid in the last year. And I only got four titles. But I was going to buy those titles anyway, this way Borders doesn't get stuck with the 'free shipping' and I get the books now.

[Sparrow]

We don't have a Borders by where I live here in Florida (leastwise that I know of), but when I lived in California there was one I visited at least once every two weeks. I have fond memories of just hanging out for a couple of hours browsing the scifi section, or the great audiobook area, paging through art books or spending time in the computer books aisle... it was sort of my 'me' time when I cut loose of work, family and friends, and just did what I wanted to do at my own pace.

I hope they make it out of Chapter 11.
I love the fact I can get whatever I want at Amazon or audible, but nothing beats those lazy Saturday evenings surrounded by books and other people who were also interested in books.