Small Business and Secret Acres Essay

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.

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.

Will e-book as read on kindle or other e-reader, eventually phase out the conventional print book? Why or why not?

Inventory is the biggest investment of the business and the performance of the inventory can determine whether the store succeeds or fails. We have chosen a different supply strategy as a method to save on cost. This method will require our publishers to ship books directly to the store which will save on our shipping expenses.

Barnes and Noble Incorporated is currently the largest book and media-content retailer in the United States. Founded in 1873 in Wheaton, Illinois by Charles Montgomery Barnes, who had started it as a family business, it has since evolved into the biggest book marketplace of our time. Although Barnes and Noble has had a long-run of success, it is currently near the edge of bankruptcy. It’s lack of sales and the shift of interest in reading physical books has forced most book retailers to “close-up shop”, with Barnes and Noble being next on the list. Therefore, Barnes and Noble is not worth investing in, because of its loss

For my project, I ran Coffee-Roma, a coffee shop located in the business district of a large city. My simulation ran for 60 days. Over this timeframe, I hired 7 employees and earned gross revenues of $89,984.20. From those revenues, my net profit totaled $14,046.83. Below are the details of how I attempted to best run my business.

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.

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.

The prevalent of e-books creates numerous platforms for the marketplace of books. For example, when Steve Jobs announced the launch of the iPad iBooks, it created an enormous opportunity for publishers.

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

The small business marketplace is extremely dynamic and the changes are fast. Here are some encouraging facts from the US Small Business Administration on small businesses. There are about 30 million small businesses in the United States and employ just over half of the country’s private workforce. They employ a staggering 40% of high tech workers such as computer professionals, scientists and engineers. More than half of the small businesses are home-based businesses and two percent of them are franchises. One of the most important aspects is the fact that a majority of innovations in the United States come from small businesses.

The second option involves entering the book production business. But, its potential is unlimited. Here we are dealing with huge market consisting significant figures of 50,000 new titles and 1,500,000 repeat titles a year. Moreover, the market for on demand and short run books is extended beyond the life cycle of normal book. This makes market interesting in terms of extent it can expand to.