Growing up in Huntsville for the longest time we only had one bookstore. It is a local chain out of Florence Alabama, Books A Million. They are still my favorite bookstore with Barnes and Noble quickly coming in second. I had never heard of a Borders until I traveled with my husband while trucking one summer. I don’t remember exactly where we were, but it was in the North. He made a point of getting me by a store, as he knew I loved all things books. It was an awesome store. I found out that there were some stores in the south, but they were all in Georgia. I think Atlanta would have been the closest to us while we were still in Bama.
Now that I have been living above the Mason-Dixon line, I have had opportunities to visit a Borders that is about a 45 minute drive from my home.
Now, Borders, started by brothers Tom and Louis Borders, and who have been in business for 40 years, is closing shop across the board in Chapter 7 land. In February of this year they filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Now it is complete shut down mode. Around 11,000 people will loose their jobs and a really nice bookstore, in my opinion, will be gone. The total stores closing are 399, with 10 of those stores all in Georgia.
They are in liquidation mode right now and although I have not been able to hit the big sales, some family members have and told me it was chaos, but some really good deals were worth pushing through the crowds and the disarray of books that were just stuck anywhere.
They plan to see the liquidation complete by September. The liquidation could generate $252 million to $285 million. This company has not turned a profit since 2006. In 2008 Borders ended their marketing alliance with Amazon.com. Amazon had been acting as Borders’ online component. They owe tens of million dollars to publishers. They owe Penguin Putnam $41.5 million and debts to 3 other publishers at about $35 million each.
It is said that Borders also failed to jump in with the new trends in the reading industry. The electronic readers, electronic books and web usage in general, which is today’s hottest methods of reading, got away from them due to being too sluggish in responding. Some analysts have said that Borders focused too much on superstores. When Borders saw their peak in 2003 they had 1,249 stores under the names Borders and Waldenbooks.
In 1992 Borders was acquired by K-mart, who had also acquired Waldenbooks previously. K-mart’s hope was that the Borders business brains would help save the floundering Waldenbooks. Waldenbooks were mainly found in shopping malls.
They also made the mistake of hiring 4 CEOs in the past five years who had no book selling experience. That one baffles me. Payoffs, blackmail, politics, or just old fashion stupidity? There has also been a good amount of shuffling on the board for some time.
Another analyst said Americans are buying lesser books. Sales fell nearly 5% in 2010. I know personally, I have really cut back on the books I actually buy. I use our library. If my local branch doesn’t have what I am looking for, I can request the book and from anywhere in the region, based on availability, they will loan it to me out of my local branch.
You know how on Cheers when Norm walked in the door everyone yelled Norm! When I walk in the library they all say Kimberly! They just do it in a quiet way.
From what I read it seems Borders made some really lousy business decisions. And unfortunately in this economy there were no takers when Borders was up on the block before the bankruptcy deadline. An actual auction had been arranged but was cancelled according to the Wall Street Journal.
I blame this economy, but that is just my guessing. I thought if times were better, maybe someone would have seen some potential with Borders, but I think it would take too much money and too much time to get it right. I could be wrong; it could just be that even trying to salvage Borders would be another bad business decision. 
Either way, I think it is a shame we are seeing this company close it’s doors. Not just because it is a bookstore, but also because it is an American company based out of Ann Arbor Michigan. The worse outcome in this situation of course is that many folks are loosing their jobs. That will mean 11,000 more people dealing with the stress of loosing their job and trying to find another job. Even more stressful is the pickings right now in the job market are not very encouraging.
Take care and stay safe,
KJ
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