The Bookseller highlights cheerful remarks from Waterstone’s managing director James Daunt that their three-year turnaround plan is “on track” after the company’s results — already dated — through April 2013 were revealed. The silver lining is that sales only fell 3 percent, and their operating losses were also smaller. Daunt adds: “We put together a plan three years ago and we think we have delivered pretty much to the plan. These results are clearly a step forward but we have much more to do.” As you can see, sales at the chain are down 30 percent from their peak 5 years […]
Archives for January 2014
Amazon Grows In Fourth Quarter, and Stock Slides On Lower Than Expected Sales and Earnings
Amazon reported fourth quarter sales after the close of the market on Thursday, with sales of $25.6 billion (up 20 percent) and net income of $239 million, or 51 cents a share. (That’s a profit margin of less than 1 percent.) Analysts were expecting higher sales and earnings, and the stock is down sharply in early after-hours trading but finished down $19 a share — after gaining about the same amount during regular trading, so a wash on the day. North American media sales in the quarter were $3.5 billion, up 21 percent, and international media sales were up only […]
People
Follett has named Todd Litzsinger chairman of the board, effective immediately. He succeeds Steve Waichler, who held the role on an interim basis following the passing of Follett’s former chairman, Alison O’Hara, last July. A fourth-generation Follett family member, Litzsinger first joined the company in 1992 and has served on the company board since 2003. At Simon & Schuster, Bryony Weiss has been promoted to senior marketing manager in the corporate marketing group. At Kids Can Press, Naseem Hrab has been promoted to marketing director. In addition, Carly Slack has been named senior manager, licensing and retail development, moving over […]
Something Else Amazon Might or Might Not Do
The first paragraph of a WSJ story is widely recirculated today: “Amazon.com plans to offer brick-and-mortar retailers a checkout system that uses Kindle tablets as soon as this summer, people briefed on the company’s plans said.” But many of the retransmissions overlook the story’s fourth paragraph: “Amazon’s plans remain fluid and the project might be delayed, altered or canceled, they said.” Modernized credit card checkout systems from the likes of Square and eBay are big and growing business, as are “mobile wallet” plays to turn cellphones into payment devices. It makes sense that Amazon wants to expand into payment processing, just […]
Bookselling: Chains Challenged In Netherlands and Poland, and More
Less than a year after Dutch investment group Procures bought bankrupt bookstore chain Selexyz for €3.5m and combined operations with the secondhand and discount De Slegte chain under the banner Polare, the entire company is facing new financial woes. The 20 Polare stores “temporarily” closed Tuesday and their online store has suspended operations as well as part of a “strategic organization,”according to NLTimes.nl, but ceo Jan van de Wouw told RTL Nieuws that Polare is negotiating with “two interested parties” to reopen the stores. Tuesday’s shutdown came just two months after Polare laid off 54 of 336 full-time workers, with book […]
Flat World Raises Another $9.5 Million; Blackboard to Sell Textbooks
Over a year ago open source textbook start-up Flat World gave up their free online textbooks — and the company relocated to Washington, DC and went through a quiet period (the company “newsroom” last posted in December 2012 when they hired Christopher Etesse as ceo, taking over from founder Jeff Shelstad). The company recently closed another funding round, receiving an additional $9.5 million from previous backers (led by Bessemer Venture Partners and once again including BDMI and Penguin Random House). Founded in 2007, the company has raised close to $36 million so far. Part of the funding — and their […]