Digital Revolution: Barnes & Noble

In the New Atlantis, Christine Rosen wrote an article, “People of the Screen.” The article talks about old books that are no longer being printed, that if the books are no longer printed, if we choose to replace the book-what will become of reading and the print culture it fostered? Rosen states, “We have already taken the first steps on our journey to a new form of literacy— “digital literacy.”

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.

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.

Barnes & Noble was created by Charles Barnes and opened the first store in 1917 in New York City. Barnes & Noble is the largest retail bookseller and a leading retailer of digital media and educational products. The company operates 640 bookstores in 50 states. Barnes & Noble’s mission statement is to “operate the best omni-channel specialty retail business in America, helping both our customers and booksellers reach their aspirations, while being a credit to the communities we serve (Booksellers, 2012).

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

The author of this article Mrs. Denise Davis is the director of the Office for Research and Statistics of the American Library Association. This means that Mrs. Davis is able to access and is responsible for the reports mandatory for each library across America to turn in each fiscal year, these reports are used to determine what changes the libraries need to make to better serve the public. Given her credibility to write on such topics she then chooses a topic each year to write on to prepare libraries and librarians across the country for the upcoming years. In 2010 Mrs. Davis choose to write on eBooks and their increasing popularity throughout the American population as well as the difficulties libraries have encountered in the past fiscal year to compete with eBooks. Because this article is written in 2010 it shows just how long libraries have struggled with the topic of eBooks and can demonstrate the new policies that have been used by the libraries throughout the past four years. This information can help my research in showing how eBooks have affected the library's behavior, and consequently give me the statistics needed to show the effects of eBooks on the libraries throughout the recent years. Understanding this source is outdated other sources will also likely be used in my final project from the American Library Association websites of statistics of more recent years.

We chose go to Barnes and Nobles, because we are fascinated by their ability as a company to target multiple age groups and sustain being successful. Their target market are people that love to learn and enjoy reading. They appeal to all age groups not just one market segment and are able to do so as a result of their variety of different sections. They stack the shelves, as you can see in the pictures below, abundantly full with their products, however when shopping we noticed they are almost too cluttered with too many things on them to make a choice simple.

Charles Montgomery Barnes, a Wheaton College graduate, decided to start a second-hand book store, selling discounted textbooks to Wheaton College students. In 1873, that same year, he decided to expand his business by moving to Chicago. He established his own firm by 1904 by the name of the C.M Barnes company. The firm was maintained as a family business until 1917, when Charles’ son, William, made partner with Gilbert Clifford Noble and his company, Noble and Noble. Gilbert Noble had entered the book business after graduating from Harvard University, and entering a partnership with the owner of Arthur Hinds and Company. Gilbert Noble eventually bought ownership of the company, changed the name to Hinds and Noble (then to Noble and Noble), and of course entered the partnership with William Barnes. The bookstore’s name was changed to Barnes and Noble, which was maintained, even into the present, despite Noble’s share being sold and his death in

Barnes and Nobles is one of the biggest bookstores that has a brick-and-mortal store concept. In the past they were know as a “big bully” that drove small book stores to close down because of their aggressive tactics to have competetetive advantage over them. Nonetheless, with the evolving circle of technology they have had a hard time in keeping up with the E-book era. In 2014 E-books increased its reader subscription by 28% compared to 23% in 2013. This number will continue increasing because 50% off American’s have access to devices that are either an e-reader or a tablet. B&N changed its business model to adjust to this new setting before it suffered a

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.

However, Amazon compete with them very well. Also, due to wide variety of products, their competitors ranges from retailers, merchandise retailers, online internet retailers,etc. In the late 1990's it provide competition to the bookselling industry and forced Barnes & Noble to launch their online website. Barnes and Noble offers books, DVDs, and CDs, which directly competes with Amazon.com's media segment. Amazon.com competes against all competitors on selection, convenience, and customer experience as well as price. Barnes & Noble had not been successful in online business and they decided to partner with Amazon.com

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 seller of digital textbooks will also be saving money over producing hard copies. 32% of the cost allocated to paper, printing and editorial can be completely eliminated along with 22.4% of costs related to bookstore operations and personnel. Bookstores as we know them could become obsolete or transformed into stores that sell tablets, e-readers and software packages on campus. Publishers or sellers will now be able to tap into a more global market with electronic textbooks as the information can be translated into many languages quickly.