Borders Enters Chapter 11, Plans To Close 30% Of Stores

[Free For All]

I was surprised to see the Tallahassee Borders was not on the closing list.

I haven't been in there for a couple years. I used to hang out in Borders all the time.

[John L]

Borders has certainly gone downhill in recent years, especially for music. For better or worse, however, it is the last large bookstore and music store still standing in many areas. Without borders, the market really does shift almost completely to the Internet.

[Dmitry]

IMHO, without Borders the 'market' will, in many instances, revert to the independent retailers.

[Quincy]

IMHO, without Borders the 'market' will, in many instances, revert to the independent retailers.

Nice thought but I think so much is going to go to ebooks. We'll all be able to live in smaller houses without books, LPs, CDs, etc. And if you digitize the kids no need for extra bedrooms.

[sidewinder]

And if you digitize the kids no need for extra bedrooms.

And use free robots to provide the daycare, so more listening time.

[Dan Gould]

I hear Watson is pretty good at answering questions.

[BruceH]

Next step: Digitize regular life. Go for a virtual stroll through a pleasant park just by plugging in and laying in your bed. The virtual sensory experience unspools in your brain and there's no worrying about the weather, germs, insects, or meeting unpredictable "real" people. I can't wait.

[A Lark Ascending]

My grandmother was terrified of electricity. She was convinced it marked the end of civilisation as we know it. Used an old fashioned range all her life and would not go near the electric hotplate her kids bought to make heating things up easier.

Seems like every generation has its fear of change.

[Dave James]

Next step: Digitize regular life. Go for a virtual stroll through a pleasant park just by plugging in and laying in your bed. The virtual sensory experience unspools in your brain and there's no worrying about the weather, germs, insects, or meeting unpredictable "real" people. I can't wait.

I don't know, I kind of liked the Holi-deck idea they used on Star Trek, The Next Generation.

[bertrand]

You can do some of that with a Wii already.

Bertrand.

[Jazzmoose]

I don't know, I kind of liked the Holi-deck idea they used on Star Trek, The Next Generation.

It will be here some day, thanks to the never ending efforts of our great porn industry!

[jlhoots]

I stopped in at the Borders closing sale in Santa Fe today.

Pathetic.

I didn't buy anything.

[GregK]

I heard that there was a 2 hr wait at the checkout for the liquidation sale at the Arborland store closing sale. The discount was 20-40% off. That's what the average weekly coupon has been for at least the past 3, 4 years!! Where were these people then??

[ejp626]

I buy relatively little fiction, which is pretty much the only thing you can count on being in stock. I've found that of the academic books I do buy (which would have to be special ordered in any case), Borders either doesn't carry them at all or only the hardcover version whereas Amazon would have the paperback version. I don't know how they got locked out of this admittedly narrow market, but time after time I would see if Borders could come even close to the Amazon price and they never could.

Chicagoland is losing half of its Borders stores, but as far as the ones I went to, I think they are all gone except the downtown one on Michigan Ave. and maybe the one across from the Apple store at North & Clyborne. Still, this doesn't hurt as badly as when all the Tower Stores in Chicago closed.

[Rooster_Ties]

I heard that there was a 2 hr wait at the checkout for the liquidation sale at the Arborland store closing sale. The discount was 20-40% off. That's what the average weekly coupon has been for at least the past 3, 4 years!! Where were these people then??

Probably clueless to the coupons because if I remember right, unless you were a member, you never got those coupons or probably even heard about them.

[Dan Gould]

Not to mention the fact that they tightened up the rules on use of those coupons, so 20-40% off an entire purchase means those people were coming way out ahead than they did when they used a coupon for a one item purchase.

[Chuck Nessa]

I recently went searching to find something to use the "box sale" coupon and everything was out of stock. I figured I'd never see anything so I bailed.

[BeBop]

A month or so ago, I got my brother a box with a 40% off coupon, online. (Stores were/are hopeless, except for books, and even then...) I think it showed "out of stock - available in 5-7 days". And, by golly, a week later he got it.

[GregK]

Seems like store #1, the downtown Ann Arbor Borders, will be on the chopping block next, among the 75 other stores closing in the next wave.

[BERIGAN]

Seems like store #1, the downtown Ann Arbor Borders, will be on the chopping block next, among the 75 other stores closing in the next wave.

That's sad...I don't even know if it's the same store that I visited long before working at Borders(I was there in the 80's) but I remember it being 3 levels(I think) and having books I could never dream of seeing in Jacksonville Florida...

[.:.impossible]

I think everyone is over-saturated with loyalty marketing. Borders, among other grand mistakes, perhaps never realized the inherent weaknesses. They were only selling to their existing and dwindling customer base.

[Spontooneous]

I stopped by one of the store-closing sales and found a few CDs I actually wanted, plus one I was going to give as a gift. Endured the long checkout line. And then I watched in dismay as the kid at the checkout counter took the CD that was going to be a gift, tore off the cellophane and obliterated the bar code with a Sharpie.

He explained that management had ordered the clerks to do so with all CDs sold. I countered that the same bit of defacement wasn't being done to the bar codes on books being sold. He didn't have an answer for that.

I walked out without the CDs.

[Man with the Golden Arm]

I stopped by one of the store-closing sales and found a few CDs I actually wanted, plus one I was going to give as a gift. Endured the long checkout line. And then I watched in dismay as the kid at the checkout counter took the CD that was going to be a gift, tore off the cellophane and obliterated the bar code with a Sharpie.

He explained that management had ordered the clerks to do so with all CDs sold. I countered that the same bit of defacement wasn't being done to the bar codes on books being sold. He didn't have an answer for that.

I walked out without the CDs.

crazy, but part of the bankruptcy and was told all product had to get the Sharpie.

experienced that last night.

no CDs but the clerk slashed thru the barcode on my 40% off Packers Superbowl Sports Illustrated! I was tempted to put it back and take a pristine one on the way out. How stoopid, like I was going to return it!? My other periodicals had stickers with the bar-codes so no harm.

Funny that folks were picking up 20% off books by the arm load when the Border's killer Amazon has them for another 20% cheaper still.

[BERIGAN]

I stopped by one of the store-closing sales and found a few CDs I actually wanted, plus one I was going to give as a gift. Endured the long checkout line. And then I watched in dismay as the kid at the checkout counter took the CD that was going to be a gift, tore off the cellophane and obliterated the bar code with a Sharpie.

He explained that management had ordered the clerks to do so with all CDs sold. I countered that the same bit of defacement wasn't being done to the bar codes on books being sold. He didn't have an answer for that.

I walked out without the CDs.

crazy, but part of the bankruptcy and was told all product had to get the Sharpie.

experienced that last night.

no CDs but the clerk slashed thru the barcode on my 40% off Packers Superbowl Sports Illustrated! I was tempted to put it back and take a pristine one on the way out. How stoopid, like I was going to return it!? My other periodicals had stickers with the bar-codes so no harm.

Funny that folks were picking up 20% off books by the arm load when the Border's killer Amazon has them for another 20% cheaper still.

Man, that is really dumb, never run into that from a store...well, stores like Tower and Media Play were closing all stores, and borders is keeping some stores around(for now) but what a way to piss people off....

I saw the same thing when Circuit City was closing, people buying DVD's by the basket, yet the prices at 20% off still weren't as good as you could get them at Amazon or Deepdiscount

[Big Wheel]

If anyone else in SF was thinking of getting a great deal on music at the closing Post/Powell or Westfield Mall stores....you probably shouldn't bother. I went to the former a few days back and got John Abercrombie's Gateway at 50% off, then made a mental note of some pricier items that I wanted to come back for once the discounts went to 60%. Went back today and found that they had indeed gone to 60% off, but the entire music stock was gone except for like 4 Christmas CDs (including one from drummer Matt Wilson, which they had like 100 copies of(!)). The Westfield store appears to be a few days behind and is still at the 50% level. There were still some CDs there but selection is very grim. On the bright side, nobody took a Sharpie to my Abercrombie CD...

My suspicion is that they are hiring the same kind of liquidation firm to run this thing as other chains use for these sales, and in this case they are not giving consumers great discounts on most stuff. Instead they are sending anything that isn't grossly overstocked around to other surviving stores rather than discount it past half off. Or maybe cutting deals with local used bookstores who buy up stuff in bulk. Pretty disappointing when I think about the haul I ended up with when Tower shut down - a couple dozen discs at 90% off!

Edited April 7, 2011 by Big Wheel