BOOKS!
Today, books are on our iPads, Nooks and Kindles or streaming right into our
ears. But before the internet transform them, books looked like this. Only this.
And buying a book, meant going to a book store. And bookstores? Well, for many years,
and many Americans, bookstores meant one place, Barnes &Noble.
Today though, Barnes & Noble is struggling. Where it used to run other
booksellers out of business, Barnes & Noble has shuttered dozens of its own
stores in the last ten years and could soon have a new owner. So what happened?
Book selling businessman, William Barnes and Gilbert Clifford Noble, join forces
in 1917, renaming Nobles existing educational bookstore business in New York
as Barnes & Noble. Their flagship location opened on Fifth Avenue in 1932
and focused on selling textbooks, medical books and other academic novels.
The groundwork for the Barnes & Noble that we knew today was forged in middle decades of the 20th century.
1940s, 1950s, especially with GI's returning from the Second World War. During World War II,
American soldiers became accustomed to carrying lightweight paperback books,
a relatively new invention. Barnes & Noble captured that market when veterans
returned to American shores. And that's about all there is to say about the book
stores namesakes. William Barnes's son, John, died in 1964 and the conglomerate,
Amtel, bought the book stores in 1969. Then came Leonard Riggio a.k.a Barnes &
Nobles modern day founder. Riggio got his start in books as a part-time clerk
at New York University's bookstore in the early 1960s. He thought he could run
the store better, so he opened the competing Student Book Exchange. It was a
success so he opened five more. And then, in 1971, he borrowed capital to buy
Barnes & Noble from Amtel for 1.2 million dollars. Under his leadership, the
bookstore chain became an American mainstay. By 1974, the store offered a
150,00 books and earned the title world's largest bookstore from the Guinness Book of World Records.
That same year, it ran the first ever television commercial from the bookseller.
Do you have any books for early readers?
Sorry, have you tried Barnes & Noble? Barnes & Noble! Of Course, of coruse!
It expanded across New York and Boston
toying with smaller discount stores. But it soon shifted investments from those
into what became its staple, mega stores, featuring hundreds of thousands of books,
reading areas and cafes. Suddenly, it was a destination, where customers could
spend hours reading in comfy armchairs, sipping coffee from the in-store Starbucks cafes.
The idea was: Yeah! Come. Stay. Buy a cup of coffee. Read our books the for free if you want."
And I think that really is the thing that distinguished them though.
We were the first retailer and bookseller to rule out cafes in all of our stores in America.
We actually opened up Starbucks cafes in cities that Starbucks hadn't been in.
Its biggest move though came in 1987, when it bought the chain of B. Dalton bookstores.
It acquired nearly 800 locations, making it the second biggest
chain bookstore behind Waldenbooks at the time. This period could be called the
Golden Age of Barnes & Noble. Suddenly, the business was everywhere.
It gained a reputation for running smaller bookstores out of business.
You know I'm just looking to do as much as I can, to see this company be successful.
So it's, kind of, you know, huge responsibility considering I've been
doing this for over 50 years.
Barnes & Noble went public in 1993 and opened its online store, BN.com, in 1997.
Right around the time another entrepreneur founded his online book selling business, out of his garage, in a
suburb of Seattle. Yep, you know the one, Jeff Bezos.
Even though Amazon quickly expanded beyond books, Barnes Noble took Bezos to court
when he claimed that his store was the world's largest bookstore. The suit
was eventually settled out of court but this heralded the beginning of a
downward spiral for Barnes & Noble. As it struggled to keep up with the
Internet's retail disruption. First Amazon teamed up with Barnes & Nobles
rival, Borders, in 2001 to sell more books online.
When borders folded in 2011, Amazon grabbed a huge share of Borders
customers, due to its prior relationship with a store. By the first half of 2018,
Amazon accounted for nearly half of total new book sales, including at its
new physical bookstores. Then Barnes & Noble tried to expand into selling music
and movies, right as streaming services like Spotify and Netflix entered the
scene. It tried launching its own E-Reader, Nook, in 2009. Two years after Amazon
introduced the Kindle and one year before Apple launched its first iPad.
All the while, foot traffic to the company's B. Dalton stores started falling in the
mid-1990s. In 1995, it decided to step up closing mall stores until all B. Dalton
bookstores were dark by 2010. The idea was to focus on its own Barnes & Noble
super stores instead. But it's even had to close those locations over the years.
Meanwhile the independent bookstores set Barnes & Noble once-shuttered, are making a comeback.
Today, Barnes & Noble is debating its future. Sales have fallen
every year since 2012 and the company has gone through four CEOs since 2013.
It currently doesn't have one. The constant shake ups frustrate not
only analysts and investors, but the whole publishing industry, which still
relies on the retailer as a key outlet. Currently, the company is reviewing bids
to sell itself and go private. Including one from its founder Riggio, who still
owns roughly 19 percent of the company and serves as executive chairman.
We did come up empty with the last couple of CEOs and had we not, I think this, you
know, I'd enjoyed a three-year-old grandson a lot more.
Than the question of, you know, at this stage of the game, you know, how much
horsepower do I have? But you know I'm not trying to run and hide from the responsibilities.
So well this for my book juggernaut recover? or go the way of Borders?
That part of the Barnes & Noble story has yet to be written.