Barnes & Noble Goes Local

In contrast to Borders Group, Barnes & Noble which is a leading bookstore in the US recorded an 11% increase in their share value in the past year with the introduction of their e-book reader “Nook”. It is clear that Barnes & Noble were not “Myopic” in their approach and were able to retain and even grow their customers as well as profits by embracing a new product.

Barnes & Noble was successful on releasing the NOOK tablets, which responsible for major contribution to the company’s digital book sales. These tablets helped to eliminate the physical copy of book to the customers. This

Barnes & Noble does business -- big business -- by the book. As the #1 bookseller in the US, it operates about 650 superstores throughout 49 states and the District of Columbia under the banners Barnes & Noble, Bookstop, and Bookstar, as well as about 200 mall stores using the names B. Dalton, Doubleday, and Scribner's. The company's GameStop subsidiary is the #1 US video game retailer with about 1,500 stores under the names Babbage's Etc., GameStop, and FuncoLand. Barnes & Noble owned about 75% of online book seller barnesandnoble.com after purchasing Bertelsmann's interest in 2003; Barnes & Noble then purchased all remaining shares and took the company private in May 2004.

However, how can a store that offers the same products and services be creating an authentic experience? Walker Percy, author of "The Loss of the Creature" would argue that Barnes & Noble is not creating an authentic experience for customers. The founder of Barnes & Noble had this prepackaged idea of what a community bookstore was supposed to be. Barnes & Noble wanted customers to not only purchase a book, but to get coffee or listen to music while they were there. In spite of this, customers don't go in a Barnes & Noble because it is a community bookstore. We don't expect an experience when we go in a Barnes & Noble store because we are used to having these products and services offered to us. Similar to Percy, we are not looking to get an experience because we already know what to expect in the bookstore. Percy said, "The consumer is content to receive an experience just as it has been written about, just as a consumer may surrender sovereignty over a thing which has been presented to him by theorists and planners" (7). Yet, we still enjoy the services offered to us, whether it be free Wi-Fi or a café. Barnes & Noble may say they are a community bookstore, but customers don't realize the store is giving them an

While value is a competitive advantage for Barnes and Noble’s retention of market share, their prices are not low enough to impose a low cost strategy.

The most noticeable growth in this section is seen in sales from 2002 to 2003. These sales have increased from 3.7% in 2001-02 to 23.5% in 2002-03 after the expansion of the store. This truly helps the company to a positive way when seeing such drastic changes. Net earnings have almost doubled and gross profit was on the rise as well, which is also a positive trend for the company that will not go unnoticed. This indicates a positive correlation and increases in profitability.

When I walked into Barnes & Noble, it gave me a home-like environment. Their shelves hold 20 to 200 thousand titles of books. Groups of couches and chairs are placed throughout the store to sit in while reading books and magazines. I feel like they wanted to give the store a home feeling as if you were just sitting in your own home reading a book. I know when I started to walk around the store it made me feel like I was at home. As I started to look around at books, I noticed a couch. I went and sat down for a bit, overviewing the book. Another feature I noticed about the store was people on their Nook. They have Wi-Fi to browse the internet for books to add to their Nook.

They take the constructive feedback they receive from customers and apply it to future enhancements. A unique feature is, they hand-pick their books; these books consists of Canadian small presses, national publishers, and international imprints as they echo the diversity of their customer’s interests (BryanPrinceBookseller, 2015). One of the main reasons why this bookstore has been so successful is because of the passion held within the business. The owners are all enthusiastic readers and highly value the art and heritage behind literature. In addition they are always happy to discuss what they are currently reading and are capable of making

2-B&N and the book publishers are changing their business models to deal with the Internet and e-book technology by B&N developing its own e-readable devised called Nook. In order to meet demand and supply, they started to be actively in control of its supply chain by developing,

The book market is in fact growing ‘with the exception of weak fortnights in both March and April, sales figures for the overall book market have shown sustained growth in 2005. ...

Better World Books (BWB) was founded in 2002 as a B corporation, meaning it targets successful performance in three fundamental areas: financial, social, and environmental endeavors. BWB has grown successfully since its creation as a small, socially motivated firm to one of the larger, more successful corporations of its kind. Despite the impressive and inspiring performance and growth through creative expansions, BWB acknowledges the changing conditions of the used book marketplace and is pleased to outline a brief review of current strategy and recommendations for supporting operations moving forward.

Indigo’s objective to enrich Canadian lives through books has taken a turn due to the growing influence of the digital era. The company is reforming their corporate strategy to adapt to the new realities of the market place. Indigo addresses their new ambition to “create a cultural department store;” their strategy is evolving to meet the emerging needs of the customers. The company strives to increase physical book sales by adjusting their merchandise mix, in order to maximize profits. As a part of their strategy reformation, Indigo is shifting their primary focus away from the core offering of books and is instead emphasizing on the customer experience within the store. Indigo now offers a wide variety of products that compliment the readers

Barnes & Noble are taking different tacks with regard to agreements with authors agents, and publishers. Amazon is pulling content off the market and padlocking it to their Kindle. In response, Barnes & Noble is refusing to stock Amazon published titles in its brick-and-mortar stores. Barnes & Nobles' investment in the well-received, well-reviewed Nook appears to have been a solid business decision, the ripples of which will continue to be felt for some time. In fact, the Nook is the proverbial finger in the dike as the waters of Amazon continue to threaten the very infrastructure of the publishing business by eroding the relationship between publishers and bricks-and-mortar stores.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. operates as a content, commerce, and technology company in the United States. It provides access to books, magazines, newspapers, and other content through its multi-channel distribution platform. The company sells its products directly to customers through its bookstores and on barnesandnoble.com. Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com, one of the Web’s largest e-commerce sites, which also features more than 3 million titles in its eBookstore.  Through Barnes & Noble’s NOOK eReading product offering, customers can buy and read eBooks on the widest range of platforms, including NOOK eBook

Opening a new bookshop in a local shopping store is difficult. Due to modern day society, there is many things that can apply or impact the business. One of the main things that can be applied or impacts the business is the general environment and its five elements. The general environment represents the forces that exist outside of the company that has the potential to indirectly affect it in some way (Alanis Business Academy, (2014). The five elements of the general environment are economic, technological, sociocultural, political and natural conditions. When opening a bookshop, these five elements affect the business in various ways and will be explored in depth in this essay. While a business cannot physically control the general