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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Borders Group will liquidate after it received no offers to save its bankrupt bookstore chain. This is a real blow to the brick and border set–Borders was the second largest book chain in the U.S.–and doesn’t bode well for a chain that employed 10,700, per the WSJ. Rather than selling to a white knight, Borders is now asking a bankruptcy judge approved a sale to a liquidator as Borders ends its book selling run in the fall.
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Ha ha. Borders has the worst customer service. I tried ordering a DVD and it didn’t ship 1 week after release date and no one properly answered any of my inquires, so I finally canceled my order and ordered through Best Buy. Also, they refused to match online prices in-store toting they’re two separate companies, when companies like Best Buy will match their online prices. All Borders did was piss me off as a customer and make me take my business elsewhere.
I called to talked to a store once and asked about they’re impeding bankruptcy and going out of business and the rep said, “we’re not going out of business.”
Ha ha. That’s what you get for poor customer service and poor business practices.
Yes, real funny that more workers get to join the bread lines. Hysterical.
“Ha ha” is a sad and calloused comment. Thousands of people out of work. The loss of significant distribution for books and mags. Certainly, other channels will pick up the lion’s share, but the closure of a big chain inevitably leads to some loss of total volume. Regardless of how one feels about the personal experience of working with a company, a business closing is never worth a “ha ha.”
But this is all part of a larger issue in the American workforce – complete and utter incompetency. People are lazy and just don’t care or just completely incapable of performing their job. Therefore businesses lose customers, and then finally, like in the case of Borders, go under.
Really funny. You harass someone making 10 dollars an hour because your copy of Shrek 2 was a little late. Its easy for you to be judgmental when you get to live in your mom’s basement.
I worked at Borders for seven years as a supervisor and never made ten dollars an hour. They certainly didn’t go bankrupt because of the great wages.
10 dollars an hour? That’s more than I make. Are they hiring?!?!
Rude S.O.B. – While you may not agree with the company’s procedures, they run (RAN?) a legitimate corporate structure that employed over 10,000 people…
Boy, you sure got your vengeance wish because your little DVD shipped too slow. Sure seems like a proper response to this catastrophe.
Everything in America is crumbling. Social Security, the budget deficit, Brick and Mortar shops… seems like a good time to laugh and make jokes.
Jackass.
Ha Ha – Anybody reading your email can tell you’re a tool – and whatever bad customer service your majesty received was probably well deserved.
Anvils on your noggin, Wylie! Pfft…
HaHa- I worked at Borders for 15 years, starting as a bookseller and working my way up to manager. I left the business a few years ago because I was tired of long hours, working every holidayand never having a set schedule. I have to ask- did you ever work customer service? Try it sometime. It’s definitely an experience to work a 14 hour day, and then to get a phone call or request like yours. What did you expect the sales clerk to say about the bankruptcy? Whatever the store employees find out is confidential. That’s if they find out at all.I know some of my friends found out their stores were closing when the liquidators came in with the first wave of closings. And the online branch IS separate from the stores. The stores have the overhead of rent and employees, like the ones you were questioning. Neither B&N or Borders ever price matched with their websites. That’s the price of looking at a picture online, or holding and browsing the book in your hand. You’ll forgive me, but Borders was a large part of my life for a long time. It’s rather personal that they’re going out of business. Retail is a hard job. Long hours, you work every holiday, and you have to put up with a lot of grief. But we do it because we loved the business and books. And when was the last time you did a search on Amazon with a desciption of a book cover and have it come up with the book? Or sing part of a song, and have it give you the cd? I did that several times a day.
So,forgive me if I mourn Border’s passing, and feel badly for my friends who will soon be out of work. Did Borders make stupid decisions? Yes. But did we do our best in the field and in my store? Absolutely.
Perhaps you can buy a book on compassion and empathy with the liquidation sales.
Ha Ha,
I hope most people are not like you. YOUR attitude is what is wrong with our society.
Sad but inevitable. I worked at Borders several years ago and, even then, the mismanagement and unwillingness to embrace new technology found in the “upper echelon” was remarkable. I feel for all my friends and for the offbeat, interesting place Borders once was.
Borders deserves this…so many lousy management decisions. But it’s still sad when bookstores disappear…I guess I’m old.
Amazon should start paying sales tax
Businesses don’t pay sales tax. They collect it from consumers for the government. Amazon won’t ever pay sales tax. You and I will.
Absolutely. It’s that, or see the end of walk-in retail (that includes the movie business, too).
+1
+1
It was the huge bookstore chains, with their “economies of scale,” that began the process of killing off the small independent bookstore. Now Border’s has been killed in turn by online sales and the e-book. Rough justice.
Hear, hear! Borders and their ilk killed the small book store biz – it’s now become an inevitability that the web has killed the big booksellers. Extinction is evolution… The worst part is the lost of all those jobs in the current economy, regardless of how bad Borders did as a customer-focused company.
When I stopped by my local Borders during it’s going out of business sale, and found that even the clearance prices were still higher than what I could get on Amazon, I figured the writing was definitely on the wall for this company. Borders was an awesome place to go in the 90′s, but over time, the place felt increasingly hostile towards its customers. It’s a shame, really, but that’s what happens to businesses that forget the customer is priority one.
Perhaps the independent bookstores will now make a comeback.
There might be a slight pick-up, especially to those who just refused to embrace the online and digital book format. I know at my local, independent used book store was boasting increased sales as a result of Borders closing.
This is great news of “Woman and Women First Bookstore!” Now they can share their vision of the world in more places than just the North West!
Never a fan of Borders, the one in the Time Warner Center in Manhattattan always felt like it belonged in a suburban mall with a food court even though it was in midtown. Still, another nail in the coffin for the book biz. Sad news.
I’m not sure why they ever thought some company or equity firm would be interested in buying. This is win-win for Barnes & Noble as the biggest brick and mortar bookstore, distantly follwed by Books-a-Million (one of my favorite stores) and Hastings. I doubt Amazon even gave it a thought considedring it would have only dragged them down. I feel bad for the people who are losing their jobs, but that’s the fault of poor management more than anything else.
The only stores with ‘customers’ and people waiting in line to buy: walmart, costco, winco, traders joes; selling with barely a margin and would not survive without minimum wage workers in effect financing moderate to high income shoppers by providing them with cheap supplies while that segment of the population syphon sic for themselves off min.wagers at their own business/company. Capitalism has been morphed to gheto economy.
John Karavitis Wow, “ghetto economy” is the perfect phrase to describe what’s been happening to America since 2008. I agree with most of the posters here, Borders was a cool bookstore to browse the aisles at, I always felt more comfortable at Borders than at Barnes & Noble, B&N always felt more impersonal and more focused on forcing a sale no matter what, Borders always felt more low-key and, yes, “hip” aand relaxed. I’m sorry to see them go, but, then again, 99% of any book purchases that I have made over the last five years has been through Amazon. Wasn’t Borders descended from Crown Books? Isn’t the same family involved? Anyway, I think we’ll be hearing about B&N’s demise soon enough, if not their brick-and-mortar stores alone. How does B&N distinguish itself from Amazon and everyone else on the Internet who is trying to sell a book? Looks like the “ghetto economy” is spreading like cancer in America. John V. Karavitis
Paying floor workers minimum wages didn’t help Borders at all.
“Rough justice” is the best way to put this. The book prices were high, but good lord, the CD and DVD prices were even worse. Sometimes 3x as much as the Amazon prices.
The days of “we’re their only option, so let’s charge them $30 for a DVD of ‘The Hot Chick’, they’ll buy it” have gone away. I imagine their profit margin was at a point where they couldn’t start pulling prices down and getting with the times, so they had to ride that fucker into the ground.
After six and a half years of attempting to get my retail dream job, just a little under a month ago I finally got made it happen. Borders Books hired me as a bookseller. Since before my 16th birthday I’d been trying to get a job with them. And just as I did, alas… this.
But you want to know the worst part? I found out I’d be losing my job from this article. I found out I’d be losing my job from a goddamn RSS feed.
Nick, is that you?
It’s not just bookstores that are going the way of the horse and buggy. More and more people are buying more and more “stuff” online. Of course this results in fewer local brick and mortar stores, fewer local jobs, and lower local revenues. Ain’t technology grand!
I buy all my books online – usually Amazon; why not when U can read a review in one window on your computer and then open another to Amazon and buy it?
I’ve bought designer suits online – the only local need on that one is my tailor; why deal with the more expensive retail “retail” prices – and having to go to a mall with all the requisite LA mischief, if I know my fit, the designer and of course the tailor?
Why would I remotely go to rent or buy a DVD or CD at a store when there’s a myriad of sites to let me not only buy & rent, but also sample?
And I found a renovated mid-century Danish mod dresser online one morning and by that evening when I arrived home it was sitting upstairs in the bedroom; after already searching for the right piece — all online, it made sense to order it the same way (and it was a local Los Feliz renovator I got it from).
Now too bad we still got to go and deal with Trader Joe’s craziness.
it may not be politically correct to sound like an old person but 30 years ago the biggest thrill for all my college friends and myself ……the independent movie theatres where one could depend on a great substantial and inspirational creative foreign film every weekend, providing a weeks worth of discussions and dialogue;not big money makers but providing a lifetime of never to be forgotten visual imagery and endearment of story.
This isn’t exactly surprising. No one actually reads novels anymore, at least not from what I’ve seen. Look at the stats for teens and young people’s reading habits…it’s disturbing. No one has an appreciation for wonderful literature anymore. Next will be Barnes and Noble, then newspapers, then libraries…
What’s hilarious about your comment is the fact that you ordered a DVD from Borders in the first place. Apparently you like paying $15 more than Amazon. Best Buy?? Seriously?? They are next. That place is the worst.
Actually, you could often get DVDs $15 or more cheaper at Borders if you searched for online coupons and ordered from the website. For instance, I had just ordered the Stargate Atlantis Complete Series blu-ray for $90; Amazon had it for $114. Of course, I’m not sure that Borders order will be delivered now; but I’ve taken advantage of many great coupon deals on Borders in the past. I’m going to miss them for that reason; and I also enjoyed the atmosphere of their brick and mortar stores.
Borders’ business model failed them. Relying on the sales of books, magazines, CDs and DVDs these days cannot compete against e-readers, iTunes, Netflix, and other electronic delivery systems. Barnes & Noble needs to be on alert as well.
Borders actually had tried a more appropriate angle a few years ago by affiliating themselves with Amazon. They even sold early generation Kindles at Borders stores. For whatever reason, that association did not last long.
Borders and B&N don’t realize what they should be selling – it was the store environment, a “third place” for some, moreso than a bookstore. Add in an adjacent Starbucks or SBC and free Wifi and you could kill many hours there. Many did – they just didn’t spend as much money as the stores wanted them too.
Bookstores will never go away and there will always be great local examples – Elliott Bay and Powell’s for instance. But the digital options that basically killed record and video stores will undoubtedly affect the bookstore industry.
Borders could have morphed into something more like Half-Price Books where they would also buy and sell used books. Or they could have expanded their association with Amazon. Or they could have gone really small and expensive (think Rizzoli). But they didn’t and now they are toast. They thought their competition was B&N or Amazon. But they failed too late to combat the digital competition that was the real cause of their demise. (That, and really bad customer service in some locations.)
People will (hopefully) always read, but the era of the national bookstore chain may be over. Like Circuit City (crap), someone will likely buy the Borders name and revive them in an online incarnation, so the name may still be around. But the bricks-and-mortar Borders dies in 2011.
I loved the Borders in my area – they were well stocked and had a lot of good author events and hosted story times and reading and writing groups, plus it was the only place to get a lot of magazines that even the libraries did not carry.
But this was not just a brick-and-mortar issue. I had to drive 20 minutes to my closest Borders and with gas prices where they are it didnt make sense unless i had 3 or 4 other errands in the same area. And energy costs make it hard to heat and air condition a large store. It is a terrible shame – Borders employed almost 11,000 people who will now all be out of work and that is another big blow to the economy.
This was very small potatoes on 9/11, but, for me, one of the sad things about the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center was the loss of the Borders bookstore on the ground floor. It wasn’t that great of a bookstore, for its size, but it had what I needed, and you could just sit in the coffee area and look out over the people scrambling along Church Street.
I don’t see a problem with e-books that much. At least stories/newspapers/magazines are being read. The format shouldn’t matter.
How high were literacy sales just before Kindle became affordable to the common man? Pretty low as I recall
Part of the problem, I think, is that the act of reading is a solitary act. You simply cannot read in a group. It’s just you and the book.
It’s not a communal event the way most other forms of entertainment are and so….it’s kind of frowned upon by society at large.
And oh, there are a dozen other factors as well but this transitional change was inevitable.
I still think the powers that be could have tried a bit harder to make this transition easier for longtime readers plus try harder to gain new readers. It was a perfect opportunity. But now another few thousand tax payers are out on the streets.
But at least THAT’S a communal event, huh?
I feel your pain Frank as a reader of 3-4 books per month. It was fun to browse at Borders and I never knew what I would leave with. Not all those stores will remaim empty as cell phone stands are bound to crop up.
This is my FAVORITE BOOK STORE!!!!!!
I am so sad that it will be coming to an end
I visit my local store several times a month also the little coffee shop inside the store
The employees feel like family to me,
It is just another sad thing that is being done to honest hard working Americans.
It’s interesting to note that “…another sad thing that is being done to honest hard working Americans…” is not being done by inhumane companies but by other honest, hard-working Americans; Americans who want to pay as little as possible for goods and services.
At the same time people whine and mourn the loss of local book stores, hardware stores, appliance stores, record stores, etc, they are opting to shop at Walmart and Costco and Home Depot where all those things can be had for less, and in greater variety. Brick and mortar stores like these are doing just fine.
Now we’re going to confront the issue of sales tax for online purchases. The same people who scream about being so heavily burdened with sales tax, almost 10% in L.A. County, are the ones who also complain about diminished government services.
On the one hand, we have a right to complain about our tax dollars being wasted or spent on things we oppose. On the other, we have to realize that our tax dollars give us lots of goodies we really need. I’ll still shop at Amazon when and if they begin collecting California sales taxes. Where else will I go?
Yikes, I have a $150 Borders gift certifiicate…now what?!!!!
LOLOLOL…Oh no!!!!
I’m just bummed because Border’s usually all the current books and magazines in stock. I really hate Barnes and Nobles….because they never have industry related books in stock. It would seem I have no choice but to submit.
I’ll miss the reading room environment that Border’s rekindled from yesteryear.