From: Ian Russell <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:01:13 +0000

Interesting points, Jim.

I guess that the lead time through the supply chain has shortened
considerably so that a book store can order up a copy of anything in a
very extensive catalogue more quickly than was the case in the past.
That said, with Amazon I would assume that the physical stores are
ceding the vast majority of that market to the online only retailers.

Personally my online versus physical buying habits are now more to do
with being able to get a physical product immediately instead of
waiting even 24 hours rather than strictly price.  Convenience book
store on every corner anyone?

Ian Russell


-----Original Message-----
From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 15:32:44 -0500

Liblicense readers know my amateur counting habits.  Today a report
from two recent visits to Barnes and Noble -- one store in Clarendon
VA (a DC suburb in a mall-let shared with an Apple Store, Chicos,
Container Store, etc.), and one in Milford CT (in a strip mall with
Walmart, a block from a larger but not high end indoor mall).

I wandered both stores trying to estimate floor space and came up with
the same count in both places:  40% of these B&N stores' floor space
is devoted to what I would call books -- things in hard or soft covers
with words in them, for people to read.  The children's section of
both stores has grown remarkably, as also the toys and games sections,
while magazines, Nooks, DVDs, gifts, and the coffee bar fill out the
space.  I do count as books things like self-help and remaindered gift
books and B&N imprints of various kinds.  Once upon a time a bookstore
"superstore" (B&N or Borders) boasted of carrying 150,000 volumes.
That number is way, way smaller now, and I wonder how far they are
from carrying a line roughly equal to that of an old Waldenbooks or B.
Dalton.

One way in which the slimming down of stock happens is by thinning out
the supply of older and classic authors.  In fiction and literature
today in CT, there was one volume of Waugh, two Updike novels and two
volumes of short stories, four Nabokov novels and the volume of his
short stories, no Proust, a respectable collection of Hemingway, and
four novels of Faulkner.  In the glory days of the bookstore
superstores, I liked to say that I was confident I could always pick
up a copy of the next "classic" (broadly defined) title I wanted to
read.  Now, I have to transfer that confidence to Amazon or other
web-based sellers.

Jim O'Donnell