B&N is for sale (or: If I were a rich man….)
by Pablo Defendini
So Barnes & Noble has put itself on the block.
If I were a rich man, I’d buy B&N, get rid of all the mass market shelf space, replace it with an Espresso Book Machine, start strong-arming publishers to print and bind really, really nice hardcovers at lower print runs and stock the hell out of those, and open up the B&N in-store ebook store to all devices and platforms (fuck it; even license mobi from Amazon if I can).
What to do with all that extra big box retail space once I’ve coldly slit the throat of the mass market and trade paperback retail supply chain and replaced it with a POD machine? Simple:
1) Expand the café to include actual meals from a relatively gourmet kitchen with table service (featuring produce from a rooftop or back-of-house organic garden, where possible).
2) Create a lounge area for leisurely reading
3) Create a cloistered co-working space for freelancers
4) Expand the children’s area (with short-term day care)
5) Hire a badass events coordinator for each store to bring in local artists, musicians and theatre troupes for performances, as well as authors, for nighttime events
6) Apply for a liquor license for those nighttime events
Boom: Instant community centers that promote book (and other) culture where before stood a big, cold piece of consumer monoculture. And better yet: four of the above points should bring in some relatively decent revenue. Who’s with me?
EDIT: Bob Stein sent me a link to a post of his where he proposes a similar approach to brick & mortar bookselling, but with an interesting dimension: instead of focusing on an existing brick & mortar store like B&N, he posits that perhaps publishers should jump into the retail game. He makes the excellent point that, after all, many publishers actually started as printers and booksellers.
Comments
Genius.
I’ll spot you at least ten bucks to the purchase price.
Sounds really nice…but, I don’t tend to buy hardcover. (I just like to read. I don’t care if I own it.) And when I go to the bookstore, I love picking up books I didn’t expect to find. With only a POD machine, I’ll have to know what I’m looking for and I might not buy as many books.
How about big screens throughout the store, one for each genre/section, that rotate pictures of book covers? Then I can see what catches my eye for the POD machine. And maybe a special rack or two that carries the printed covers, back cover copy and an excerpt (not actual books) for those POD titles that have been highly recommended by sellers in the store and/or publishers.
The store should have knowledgeable booksellers and selections from all genres/sections. I don’t want to be limited to literary fiction and non-fiction.
Stacy, that’s what the hardcovers are for: some people will buy, but the majority will probably just browse in hc and buy in e. I do like the screen idea, though. And real, live, human booksellers with specific knowledge about genres and customers should, of course, go without saying (but I’m glad you did).
Every time I hear ‘food’ and ‘book’ in the same sentence I see ‘stain’.
I cannot get around this. I cannot imagine a world in which people with fudge-stained fingertips abstain from flipping through books they do not intend to buy, giving me a value-add I do not want.
I can see it working in a small boutique. I can’t see it in a suburban box.
Add dedicated machines for reading reviews from a wide variety of sources and I’ll move in altogether.
Dude, I’m with you 110%.
Great idea! I would be one of your regular customers!
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I love the fact that someone mentioned staining, I’d like to say first. But in reading the actual post, 3 things jumped out. First, I like the idea of an area for freelancers. That’s a very smart idea though you may have to do something to generate revenue from it. Rent out space? Second, I think you’re asking too much of one space. And third, some of these functions are done at independent bookstores – why do you need to buy up the B&N stores to do it across the country, instead of just focusing on one location and trying out a couple of these ideas there?
Maybe Starbucks should buy B & N. There already there.
Crap! Sorry. I meant to say ‘Their’ already there.
Agh! “They’re” already there. Crap! I think I need to go to Starbucks.
@Brian:
Yeah, the staining issue is, well, an issue, but I don’t think it’s something that B&N doesn’t already have to deal with—I assume it’s baked in to allowances for shrinkage in general (shoplifting, vandalism, etc.)
The space for freelancers should definitely be a revenue generator, that’s why I called it a co-working space, and made sure to point out that it should be cloistered, not only for privacy, but also for easier management.
For clarity’s sake, the four points from above that I see as revenue streams are: the cafe, the co-working space, the day care, and alcohol sales at events.
As for asking too much for one space, I’ll admit that when I think of B&N, I think of their flagship store here in NYC, at Union Square, which is *huge*. Other stores are smaller, granted, but there’s no reason why store managers can’t pick and choose what features or amenities their individual stores can support.
With regard to the notion of trying it out on one store as opposed to rolling out a big, sweeping change to all stores at once: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a big, sweeping overhaul of brick and mortar stores in general—the consumer retail experience just isn’t the same as it was ten years ago, but brick & mortar stores act like it is. Clearly, if the sudden demise of giants like Circuit City and Tower Records (and the perpetually moribund status of Borders) are any indication, the phased/pilot program approach doesn’t work—these programs don’t seem to move fast enough between the pilot stage and the mass rollout stage to make a difference.
Besides—and I’ll admit to a personal bias towards the revolutionary as opposed to the evolutionary here—I’m a fan of radical change; I think large corporations suffer tremendously from inertia and general a lack of cojones, if you will, mostly because they need to kowtow to shareholders and the clownshoes on Wall Street, who care more about how this quarter’s balance sheet affects their share price than they do about the long-term viability or health of a business. If B&N is in trouble, there’s nothing to be gained by making small changes here and there, changes whose effects will be swept away by the overarching current of business-as-usual. I say go big or go home.
@Greg:
You get mad points in my book for correcting yourself. Starbucks does seem to be moving in that direction, what with their free wifi and friendliness towards camping freelancers.
@Pablo D.:
Exactly. It’s like it’s an inevitable evolution.