Hours after Barnes & Noble reported their second quarter financial results, Books-A-Million did the same Tuesday afternoon for its third quarter following the close of the market. Sales for the quarter ending November 2 fell 3.5 percent to $100.5 million. Same-store sales declined further, down 9.2 percent — and they had another big net loss of $7.1 million, or 47 cents per share (compared to a loss of $2.7 million a year ago). CEO Terrance Finley said in the release: “Our third quarter results are an improvement over the very difficult comparisons in the first half of the year. Comparable […]
Bookstores
Bookselling, Etc.: Fundraising for Changing Hands and St. Mark’s; Harper’s Inflight Experiment
Changing Hands Bookstore has planned to open a second location in Phoenix, AZ for quite some time, but they hope to make it a reality thanks to a crowdfunding campaign to raise $80,000. It’s a fixed-funding campaign, which means backers will see their money returned if the store doesn’t reach its goal by December 24, and the store told Shelf Awareness that goal “is just a fraction of what we need to build a new indie bookstore. We’re putting up the bulk of the funding from our own resources. The $80K we hope to raise with this project will bring […]
Bookstores: Two Well-Known Toronto Stores to Close
Dominant Canadian bookseller Indigo will close two iconic Toronto stores in the coming months. The site that houses the store known as The World’s Biggest Bookstore (though it isn’t) is being sold to a developer and the building will be vacated by April 2014. The property has been owned by David Cole, son of Cole Books founder Jack Cole. Indigo owns Cole Books, and has been leasing the store. Indigo is also closing the Runnymede Chapters, a splendid store in a restored theater that was recently featured in a BuzzFeed listicle of 16 beautiful bookstores around the world. Indigo’s vp of […]
Bookstore News
With Small Business Saturday still over a week away, the Indies First initiative has enrolled almost 900 authors who will be working as volunteers at more than 400 bookstores. Started by author Sherman Alexie, the program has been coordinated by the ABA, which has a posted map and list of participating stores (which is being updated continuously). Among the authors enrolled are Diana Gabaldon, Richard Russo, Cheryl Strayed, Wally Lamb, Dave Barry, Larry Watson, Jon Scieszka, Laurie Halse Anderson, Daniel Handler, Garth Stein, Maria Semple, and Adam Johnson. Dallas retailer Brian Bolke will open the small-format Chapter Two bookstore later […]
Bookstores in the News: Dutton’s, Another BN Closing, Strand Controversy
Billionaire developer (and associate of Warren Buffett) Charlie Munger has been trying to redevelop the space where Dutton’s Books resides in Brentwood, CA at least since 2007. But apparently the current version of that plan has been dropped and the 1951 building which houses the bookstore is spared again, for now. But you can add another Barnes & Noble closing to our list from last week. After unsuccessful lease negotiations, the chain will close their store at Sycamore Plaza store in Kenwood, OH just outside of Cincinnati. It is the seventh known end-of-year closing for BN. On the uglier side, […]
Widespread Layoffs At Follett’s College Bookstores
On Friday, college bookstore operator Follett Higher Education Group announced widespread layoffs across their stores, eliminating 570 full-time positions. The memo from svp retail operations Bob Scholl was posted on a web site featuring comments from anonymous employees. The company is converting those full-time jobs into more flexible part-time positions, which the company strains to position as providing a better experience in stores for customers. According to the post, Scholl wrote: “Managers across many of our stores took a series of difficult actions tied to an important Follett initiative…. In order to deliver the hassle-free shopping experience that our customers expect, […]