One of those Kindle / Nook / iPad / “You’ve Got Mail” kinds of topics.
Hey, the enormous chain bookstore used to be on east 28th St in Grand Rapids; this season it’s a Halloween party store which will be gone early in November I’m sure. Over a year ago B&N built a two story glass (and escalators? I’ve only been in there twice) loud declasse’ book pusher type store, like the B&N Express format, but a little less fun. And it’s inside Woodland Mall, right where it’s difficult to get a parking spot.
All I have to say is, they must be kidding. Gone are the nice comfy chairs which do more to sell books to actual readers than does any ad campaign. Do the brains behind B&N really believe that the mall shoppers really offset what must be a high cost per foot lease rate?
The Big-Chain-Brick-&-Mortars rely on coffee sales, annual discount membership fees, magazine sales (which are on a “returnable” basis), greeting cards, toys, cookie sales, publishers paid promotional fees (what’s okay for retail is called payola in radio but not tv).
Basically a whole lot of other revenue sources.
E-books means selling a “license” to read to some virtual books (no inventory to maintain, no shoplifting, and many of those books are already public domain so no royalty...).
Takes a lot of money coming in the door to maintain those large brick and mortars that employee slackers who do things like HIDING conservative books in back rooms and in the wrong sections DESPITE it being against the bottom line of the “corporation”. In a smaller bookstore, you would be readily fired for being unable to do the job of getting the books in the right section or in the display that the publisher paid for (through “incentives”).
A bookseller at our local B&N (about to close because the landlord tripled the rent on them--a CVS pharmacy is going to take over the space) told us that they had to get rid of the cushy chairs because homeless people would take them all day and piss their pants while sitting there.