Now it's official - Borders Group announced on Monday that it will close all of its stores and sell the company to a group of liquidators led by Hilco Merchant Resources. It means that almost 11,000 employees will lose their jobs and the chain's 400 remaining stores will close their doors by the end of September.This is a very sad day to any book lover, no matter if you're a Borders customer or not. The fact is that this isn't just an isolated case, but an indicator to the change in the industry, where brick and mortar stores can't find an adequate reply to the online competition as well as to the growing demand for ebooks and are losing customers until they can no longer stay in business.
NPR report explained the problem:
"Indeed, outside a Borders bookstore in Arlington, Va., shoppers say they rarely buy books the old-fashioned way."I'll go to Borders to find a book, and then I'll to go to Amazon to buy it, generally," customer Jennifer Geier says. With so many people going online to buy books, Borders lost out. The last time it turned a profit was 2006. "
According to NPR the case of B&N is different, but we believe it's actually no different than Borders, at least in the sense that B&N hasn't find yet the way to transform its brick and mortar stores back into an asset. If they won't find the way to do it, they will be left with BN.com and the Nook, but without stores. They still have time to figure it out, but they need to remember their time is running.
Borders stores will begin closing as early as Friday. The New Yorker gives a good advice to spend your gift cards this week. (Please buy books, rather than calendars, lattes, or Moleskine notebooks.) It adds that liquidation will continue through the summer and is likely to be complete by September.
For more news and updates on Borders post bankruptcy visit our website at http://www.ecolibris.net/borders.asp.
You can also find more resources on the future of bookstores on our website at www.ecolibris.net/bookstores_future.asp
Yours,
Raz@Eco-Libris
Eco-Libris: Planting trees for your books
