Barnes and Noble Strategic Audit

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.

The bookstore chain has been decreasing in profit in the US over the past 20 years. Most of the books retailers are shutting down their operations and only a few are still operating in the country. Barnes and Noble has become the largest bookseller in the book retailers industry. The firm has integrated its business philosophy into web presence though eBook marketplace. This business strategy assisted the firm to be able to reach a large scale customers and remain as a strongest competitor in the book retailing market.

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.

If traditional book sales continue to fall at their present rate of 34% annually we will be out of the traditional books selling in three years. The CD sales are declining at a similar rate.

“Marketing Professors’ Perspectives on the Cost of College Textbooks: A Pilot Study” is a paper by Lawrence S. Silver, Robert E. Stevens of Southeastern Oklahoma State University and Kenneth E. Clow of University of Louisiana. It was published in the Journal of Education for Business Volume 87. The first half of the paper starts off by explaining why the cost of textbooks is an issue. They go on to explain different competitors’ textbook have in the marketplace today and how publishers are trying to appeal new customers through professors. The second half of the paper focuses on a study that was done by surveying random marketing professors in the United States. The survey contained questions asking about the pricing of textbooks and how they

A book that cost 25 dollars in 1978 would have cost 208 dollars in 2013, for an increase of 812 percent, and 82 percent just between 2002 and 2013. This is a higher increase than medical care, housing, and even the consumer price index. The college board estimates that in 2014 an average student paid 1,200 dollars on books and supplies, roughly 14 percent of the students tuition cost. A survey in 1997 shows students paying an average of 642 dollars, almost doubling in 17 years time. This is a drastic increase in the price of books, but what is causing the textbooks to increase in price so severely? The regular inflation rate is one part of the increase in price, but the increase in book costs are more than double the regular rate of inflation, 6 percent over the regular rate of 3 percent. Half of the textbooks produced in 2003 were “bundled” with additions such as a CD-Rom or a workbook, nearly doubling the cost where a non bundled version was available. However, these additional resources are not always used by the instructors. 65 percent of instructors polled reported that they “rarely” or “never” used the additional materials. Another way the cost rises is when a new edition is released, roughly every three years a new edition of a textbook is released. The new edition of the textbook normally will have an increase of price of 12 percent. A text that starts at 50 dollars will cost 70 dollars or more by the time it is on it's third edition. 76 percent of the instructors polled say that the new editions that they use are justified in the “never” to “half the time” range while 40 percent say the new editions are justified “rarely” to “never”. Perhaps the largest contributing factor to the cost of textbooks rising as quickly as they do is one simple fact, there are very few publishers that release college textbooks and four of them, McGraw-Hill,

1-In order for Barnes and Nobles to use the Value Chain and Competitive Force Models they needed to be ingenious with their tactics. First, publishers are on B&N side and they are doing everything to make sure that B&N stay at float because they are basically their “bread and butter”. So B&N is securing supplier intimacy with the publishing companies which will lead to strengthening its loyalty relationship with its customer in the store and digitally. Second they are securing their niche in the market, they are doing this by having the stores advertise and communicate to their customer that a there is a specific book that “is a big deal” and B&N is offering an extensive inventory of physical books and it enhance its core competency. Microsoft announced in 2012 that they would be investing $300 million in B&N Nook tablet, e-reader business and its college division. This will enable them to included Windows 8 operating system in Nooks application; this is a space where it will have a product differentiate.

I am currently a college student at Valdosta State University with a major in marketing, hoping to graduate next spring. As a student I buy and sell textbooks to make extra money, and I have come up with the idea of a textbook marketplace. A textbook marketplace, which we call a Textbook Market, is a location where students can drop off their books to be sold for the price they want to other students. Once the textbooks are sold, the Textbook Market receives 20% of the total selling price and the student receives the rest. The Textbook Market allows students to get more money back for their books and to buy books cheaper. The chart bellows provides recent data on rising book prices.

The article why are text books so expensive by Henry Roediger III is exactly what The title implies and discuss The reasons why college text books are over priced, from the analysis of an author of a psychology text book. Reodiger discusses how some college students and parents of college student have written letters to him inquiring why textbooks are so expensive. they wonder is it because of the amounts of colors in the books or the inflation ad possibly that the smaller companies are now umbrellas by massive textbook companies or the frequent revisions. Reodiger tells us that that these are possible factors, but most likely not at all but the real reason is the sale of used books. he goes on to tell us that this is mostly unnoticed because it all just seems like a good idea, but

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. ...

Students all over America are worried about tuition, student loans and the housing. And the prices of books make it worse. The books are already expensive enough for the students, that the bookstores, instead of reducing the prices of their books are increasing the prices of books. Danielle Kurtzleben in her article "The Cost of an Education" explained that to how the price of books are increasing,

According to Association of American Publishers and the Book Industry Study Group, the sales of e-books were skyrocketed from US$ 869 million in 2010 to more than double in 2011 to bring in some US$2.07 billion for the US publishing industry. Another report from the CNN website, it showed that e-book sales have a 202% of increment from 2010 to 2011.

Depending on the source, independent bookstores are said to be making a slow comeback the American Booksellers Association asserted that 41 new independently owned bookstores were opened in 2011 or are still hemorrhaging Bosman (2012) suggested that 500 independent bookstores have been shuttered since 2002.

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

The Book Print Industry has been decreasing as a result of the persistent growth of present technology. However, the aforementioned statement does not stop the circulation and sale of books within the Philippines. Print sales fall, as shown by all signs, is not showcasing that there is a shift to more technology-based materials, since the NBDB survey has showed “a tiny six percent of those reading in digital”. 16