the Way of the Turtle

Barnes & Noble, We Have A Problem...
Sunday, July 30, 2017

Since I was over in the vicinity of Pittsfield anyway, I decided to stop in at the Barnes & Noble to see if they had some books I was looking for. Sure I could likely get a better deal on Amazon (and usually that's the route I take, since Prime gives me 2 day shipping on most items) but I also figured it was worth a few extra $$ if I could pick them up immediately and help keep B&N afloat.

Except of course they didn't have half of what I was looking for in stock. A while back I commented on this when I went looking for a couple of recently-released books and ended up ordering them online instead, and it seems like things have only gotten worse. The "new releases" section for the science fiction/fantasy section was nowhere to be found, and the selection was definitely smaller. The local interest section now seems to be mostly specialty books (historical photos of specific areas) and travel guides, with very few trail guides, and the martial arts section was virtually non-existent (three books, I think.) Bicycling, running, and triathlon used to fill multiple sections, now they don't even fill one.

I would imagine part of the strategy is to keep less stock on hand so that if the company fails it has less to sell at an enormous loss. But having far fewer books in a store that sells primarily books makes failure a self-fulfilling prophecy. People can't buy books that aren't there. I know, you can go to the help center and they will happily order books and have them shipped right to your home - but I've already got that capability at home, I go to a book store  to have the pleasure of walking out with a bunch of books right now, and also to see if there's something I've never even heard of that I might want to buy. And Barnes & Noble is failing at least partially on both scores.

I suppose to some degree it's surprising they've managed to hold on this long - and it makes me sad to contemplate the day when they aren't there anymore. But not as sad as it once did, if going there becomes a waste of time because I can't find the books I want anyway.

Sigh.

JMH