You win Big Box Store!

[Evil Queen]

I sympathize for you from the bottom of my heart and the many, many bookcases currently lining my library! I adore independent book stores. Who cares if they tend to cost slightly more (for an extra buck or two I'm happy for the service and the "I'll do everything I can to find this for you" attitude).

[B&NGoddess]

hoo boy. obviously i work for one of the hated big box stores, so i guess im a little biased, but what does being a big box have to do with an independent store going out of business? because they "steal" customers? customers are gonna shop wherever the hell they want for whatever reason. especially with books, which are priced by the publisher. the book at B&N is gonna be the same price as the book at your independent store, so it cant really be that, and we do about 80% of our business on backlist, not our discounted bestsellers/featured titles anyway. i guess i never understood the claim that big boxes drive mom and pop stores out of business. i think it all comes down to business practices. its not like B&N suddenly became a multibillion dollar company overnight. it started small like everyone else.

sorry for the rant, and i dont want to be confrontational, but some of the anti-big box comments riled me up. B&N's pretty decent for a company its size. i felt like i had to speak up.

edit: and the employees are usually just as knowledgeable/willing to help you as any other employee.

[Antisocial_Worker]

I'm really lucky to live where I do. The stats came back last year and it turns out that library usage is up across the city, bookstore visits are up, and the main independent bookstore downtown is going gangbusters, while the other two are holding strong. We're also able to support four chain bookstores, and at least five or six used bookstores. We're definitely a readin' town.

[Broomjockey]

sorry for the rant, and i dont want to be confrontational, but some of the anti-big box comments riled me up. B&N's pretty decent for a company its size. i felt like i had to speak up.

edit: and the employees are usually just as knowledgeable/willing to help you as any other employee.

Just providing a little moral support here: a "big box" store isn't really that different than a "Mom and Pop shop" other than size, and the fact that there's some occasionally bizarre policies handed down by people in another city, rather than in the store.

I have had some truly horrible service in the M&P stores. Just like in BB stores. I've had employees who know there stuff in both. In fact, BB stores are BETTER in that respect purely because there's more employees, raising the chances someone's interested in that section.

However, the focus shouldn't be on hate for big box stores, or which is better, etc. The issue at hand is someone's losing their job, and for that, I'm very sorry.

[Andara Bledin]

i guess i never understood the claim that big boxes drive mom and pop stores out of business. i think it all comes down to business practices. its not like B&N suddenly became a multibillion dollar company overnight. it started small like everyone else.

I don't think the 'big box stores are evil' applies quite the same to things like book shops and other types of shops where the prices are set by someone other than the shop.

That's more for places like other big box stores that carry a lot of things and tend to price some things at less than cost until the mom'n'pop shops are driven out of business, and then raise all their prices so they're making profits again.

^-.-^

[B&NGoddess]

Just providing a little moral support here: a "big box" store isn't really that different than a "Mom and Pop shop" other than size, and the fact that there's some occasionally bizarre policies handed down by people in another city, rather than in the store.
<snip>
However, the focus shouldn't be on hate for big box stores, or which is better, etc. The issue at hand is someone's losing their job, and for that, I'm very sorry.

thanks. and blueberry, i am sorry that youre losing your job. thats pretty shitty.

[Javarod]

Sadly I think the book business is a bad one to be in these days for anyone, even the big boys. IIRC, book sales are down, book and periodical reading is down and the shear number of titles not to mention editions makes it impossible to have everything. Aside from certain hot titles, you really are operating a business that will never offer a good cost to performance ratio, too much space needed to handle an adequate variety compared to how much will actually sell. While a lot of independent book sellers will go under in the future, I wonder how long until you see the big boys start closing their doors. Just consider that they sell music and videos as well as books, its a good hint that selling books just isn't cutting it these days. Online shops have the advantage, warehouse space is cheaper than retail, and an electronic storefront costs very little to staff or maintain, they're really the only ones that stand a chance of making money selling books.


All that said, it sucks that you're losing your job Blueberry.

[iviles]

I agree with Javarod also it seems that not as many people enjoy reading like they once did. It seems that a lot of mom and pop stores are going the way of the dinosaurs. Which is heartbreaking really. Where Im at the only non second hand bookstore is B&N and and Ive only been about to find one comic book store. And I wont lie I love B&N I used to be able to spend hours talking with the workers and have discovered some great authors and titles through them. Now...Ive actualy met workers that seem almost iliterate. I really miss the passion. Kind of makes me think of the movie you got mail! But hang in there blueberry I know you will land on your feet.

[Bright_Star]

And then those same SCs complain because THEIR jobs are shipped overseas.

Americans and Canadians need to wake the hell up ... if you want to keep your jobs, stop shopping at big box stores. Just stop it.

Right. Like that's really gonna happen.

[Javarod]

Comic books are actually a whole different cause, reading drops did cause some of it there, but most of the blame can be pinned on Marvel Comics who at the time were owned by an investment group. They decided to cash in on the collector market with a million variations, special covers, so on and so forth. Basically they glutted the market, pushing out the independents, and eventually bankrupting many stories through their greed. Last I heard, the new owners are still trying to sort things out, heck those idiots even sold the movie rights to the Avengers (original group, Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, and I'm not sure who else) to one studio, and the rights to Captain America to another.

[Andara Bledin]

Comic books are actually a whole different cause, reading drops did cause some of it there, but most of the blame can be pinned on Marvel Comics who at the time were owned by an investment group. They decided to cash in on the collector market with a million variations, special covers, so on and so forth. Basically they glutted the market, pushing out the independents, and eventually bankrupting many stories through their greed. Last I heard, the new owners are still trying to sort things out, heck those idiots even sold the movie rights to the Avengers (original group, Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, and I'm not sure who else) to one studio, and the rights to Captain America to another.

The thing with comics started with speculators, buying into the market and artificially inflating demand. Marvel reacted to that stimulus without considering what it was in an attempt to cash in.

Distribution is what really killed the independents. Diamond is the largest distributor, and they are not independent.

Oh, yeah, and a gajillion crossovers and a million different covers doesn't help people want to buy a series, especially when the economy is down.

.... yeah, I'm a comic geek, too. I actually wrote an online article under the heading (someone else's title) "How Not to Attract New Comic Book Readers."

^-.-^

[Blueberry]

thanks. and blueberry, i am sorry that youre losing your job. thats pretty shitty.

That's okay! I broke my glasses and haven't been able to see anything for a few days.
I do shop at big box stores too, but the Canadian Big Box Bookstore actively buys out independants, and is pretty much the ONLY bookstore in many places. They are also restrictive as to what they will and will not order. For example, they refuse to carry or order Mein Kampf, but we do, since it IS a historical document that people do study in school. We are probably the only store in this city that does.
Also, up here in Canada, the main problem was that when the US and Canadian dollars became worth the same, the crazy was let out.
The Canadian AND US prices are printed on books, and the difference was anywhere from $1 to $20 or even higher. So customers were of course freaking out. But we buy the books months, or years in advance, so we are charged the Canadian price. To sell at US price would have shut us down. Lots of bookstores did end up shutting down. One of the biggest Canadian publishers had to close down. Customers didn't understand why we weren't cutting prices. They didn't understand that when we bought the books, the dollars were NOT equal. Big Box did cut most of their prices first. They could absorb the losses better than the smaller independants. This is part of the reason why we are closing. We can't match the prices. We tried, but add the huge loss to huge labour costs and rents, and well, store gets closed.
Big Box has over 14 Super Big Boxes in the city (I'm not counting the ones in the malls, then there would be at least 30). They have 2 of the smaller stores within blocks of us.
The owners are surprised at how much media we are getting because of this. We've actually had customers crying in the store, crying to reporters and sobbing over the phone, about our closure. Some have offered to plan funding nights or sign petitions, etc, anything to keep us open.