Bookstores

Bronx residents continue to express “outrage, laced with deep resentment and a sense of loss” at the planned year-end closure of the last remaining Barnes & Noble store in the borough by Co-Op City, when the lease expires. Meanwhile, it was reported that the BN in Costa Mesa, CA will also close at the end of year. The chain’s North Brunswick, NJ location is also set for closure as their lease expires. The end of the calendar year is always the busiest time for store closures for the bookseller. They previously announced that they expect to close “about 12” stores […]

Geekwire has drawn attention for a story yesterday that underscores a policy introduced a couple of months ago: Amazon has shifted pricing practices at their growing network of Amazon Books stores, ostensibly selling books and other items (except Amazon devices) at list price to customers who are not Amazon Prime members. An employee says the revised policy was introduced in August — though in mid-August, Business Insider was still observing the original practice of selling books to all customers at the same price as Amazon’s online store. The new policy was already reported, with less fanfare and therefore less notice, when […]

The New Yorker has a phone interview with Barnes & Noble executive chairman Len Riggio. In an interesting bit of time travel, they write that: “As far back as 2000, Riggio said that he believed Barnes & Noble should open smaller stores (the company’s typical superstores are more than twenty-five-thousand square feet), in denser, more pedestrian-friendly locations. But, at the time, business was great, the suburban power centers were still growing, and the idea never translated into concrete action. ‘You blow some and you get some right,’ he said, reflecting on the missed opportunity. ‘Timing is everything.'”) While they were […]