Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Is Nook on the way out?

I read an article last night about 9 major companies that may be disappearing in the very near future. One is Barnes & Noble Books. They can't compete with Amazon. One area of competition is their Nook reader VS Amazon's Kindle. I wonder if all the Nooks out there will become useless once you've read everything you have on it.

A couple other companies on the list were J C Penneys and Bank of America.

If B&N goes away, my bride will be very PO'd. I think maybe she keeps them in business by herownself . . .

Rumors of B&N going under have been around for awhile. I know the one we have does a good business. I hope they stay around for awhile.

I'm selling thousands of books on Amazon every month. So far on B&N I've sold a dozen or so in two months. Same advertising. I see B&N going the way of Borders very soon.

Dan

not just books, Amazon is putting a hurt on a bunch of brick and mortar stores.

Electronics stores can't compete , clothing, shoes, sporting goods....

Oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please........

Best Buy is not in good shape from what I have read.. Its not a surprise considering how terrible the economy is and has been for the last 4 or 5 years. You can only stay in business for so long with poor sales in a poor economy.

Yeah, JCP has had their big new retail/remake program going for a while now, be too bad if it all went down the tubes...

imo we're seeing the transition in how we shop, one due the economy and two just the economics of business.


every one gets the economy

but the second one economics of business just blows me away with the comparisons.


same product at both stores, a cyber store and a traditional bricks and mortar store we'll use books since B&N and Amazon were both listed.


our local B&N is very nice, large store, great location for biz, beautiful facility including fireplace and couches around it so you can sit and read your purchase or peruse a possible purchase,they have their little cafe inside as well. Really nice place, great selection of books (well other than hunting tomes) PRIME RE.

They have a customer base here of approximately about 80-100 thousand folks.

they have rent to pay, when we were in the same facility we were paying over $3 per sq. ft. but I'm sure as being an anchor store there's is less per sq. ft.


employees, they have a bunch, you have to in that size store

electric, well lit and appointed, water usage for both the cafe and the restrooms that are provided for customers that must be cleaned and maintained.

all in all when they sell a book for $16, there's a lot of overhead supporting that transaction, it's got to leave a pretty slim profit margin compared to Amazon. B&N provides a shopping "experience" but at what price?


it truly amazes me there's any bricks and mortar stores left?


Amazon can sell that same book for $12 and most likely maintain a higher margin. A great computer network, some warehouses or direct links to the publisher of the book where they just send the info "hey this guy wants your book, send us our cut"


plus Amazon was made for guys like me, I wish I had the money together what I've spent on FEDEX in the past to make sure b'day gifts, Xmas etc. made it to family outside in time! It would be considerable! Plus the time I spent perusing stores to try and find something they might like or need.

fast forward 20 years later , yeah mom's b'day is rolling around again, I sit here in my underwear at 11 p.m. find something on Amazon, have them gift wrap it, type some lines for the card and VOILA ! I'm still the favored son! (really helps that I'm her only son)

same with book recos, recently I decided to purchase a book based on discussion here at the 'fire about it. Stopped at the local used book store to see if they had it, owner is a former biz neighbor so I try and do what I can for him. They can't even order it for me, try Amazon was their suggestion.


I don't see good things ahead for traditional brick and mortar stores, with the exception of grocers and those that provide service rather than product.

there'll always be folks that desire the "shopping experience" that retailers like B&N provide, but at what price, both for the product and the biz's bottom line?

I'm guilty, I try to shop locally when I can...but it's tough looking like every other guy walking down the street in my small town. Hey nice shirt, looks like the one I'm wearing.

As far as Nook and Kindle, etc. I'm really surprised the ipad hasn't knocked them out, with all the 2nd hand gen 1 ipads coming on the market.

Kiss mid-size,small and really small US towns goodbye.
The mom&pop stores are part of the towns' tax base......close those stores and local gov services will suffer......slowly at first but it will gain momentum.
No summer jobs for teenagers......no jobs for the "unskilled"....no reason to stay or come back to after college or vocation school or military service.

That is why there is a growing movement among states and their communities to tax goods purchased on the net........they need that tax revenue......as long as the politicians don't blow it on ego projects like the Rail Runner in NM.

I'm the book equivalent to a crack ho when it comes to Amazon...... I read about Whitworth's new book on Big Bore Revolvers being avaliable there a few days ago and SNAP... 30 seconds later it is on it's way.....

IIRC the latest Guns Digest and a Glock sports holster will be showing up as well.... It was 1:00AM and everytime I pressed buy with one click now..... They kept flashing accurate "you migh also like" stuff at me......sneaky basdids....

yeah between Amazon and Ebay i usually have a number of new books showing up each week(the new Gun Digest showed up Saturday )....had 6 show up between Saturday and yesterday and another 6 books in transit....

that said i really hope all the big bookstores dont go away, they are the only places i can find a whole lot of magazines alot of which i dont feel like subscribing to cause i only pick up selected issues......if they go away it could be a royal PITA to track them down....

right now most of what I buy from Amazon (and to some extent, ebay) is tax free and has free shipping.

If I need a pair of shorts in December or wool socks in June, they have them, not only do they have them, they have 200 different selections of them.

If I don't like them I can return them for a full refund on the item and shipping (disclosure, I pay $79 to be a member of Amazon prime which includes streaming movies, music and eBooks).

On their website, I can find virtually anything - a mass air flow sensor for a 1999 Ford, a coleman tent, a replacement wiring harness for my Canon digital camera - and almost every item has customer reviews on the quality and value.

the only thing they don't offer is face to face service

I'm not sure Amazon hurts mom and pop shops anymore than a big box retail stores but they have to be killing the chain stores.

Amazon is killing brick and mortars, and rightly so. The face to face "experience" hasn't been a positive experience in most medium-large towns for some time, the prices are always higher, and unless you spend enough money to be noticed at a "mom and pop", you're not getting any better service there than you do at a big box store. Add to that the fact that an hour of good research online can easily give far more useful purchasing information than talking to a single semi-knowledgeable clerk at even the most attentive store.
Sure, your kids won't get a job at the local Best Buy. But they can still get a good job at the local UPS or FedEx hub, working for the local ISP, or in a warehouse moving goods on the internet. The future of bricks and mortars is to serve as regional warehouses and small storefronts for internet focused operations, much like the large camera shops in the NYC area currently do.

Amazon has pulled in millions of customers and now they're screwing them. They kept their prices low for a long time but now they're slowing raising them. I often shop on Amazon for the reviews, etc. but end up buying elsewhere cheaper.

Just pre-ordered 3 James Patterson novels from Amazon for two dollars a copy less than the price offered by Books-A-Million with my "Millionaires Club" membership card. Ya just gotta shop if ya want to save money.

EEeeeewwww, you read James Patterson???? Don't remember which one of his books I picked up years ago but it was bad enough to just throw away after suffering through maybe 2 chapters.....

most the books i buy are used unless the new price and used are within a couple of bucks and the new qualifies for free shipping....unfortunately for me im interested in reading books rarely found in used book stores in Montana though i frequent them in my travels....but try finding a book on carnivorous plants of Borneo or Deep Sea Angler fish even in a store in Billings

When I first read the title of this thread, I thought it asked, "Is n@@kie on the way out?" and I'm thinking not in our lifetime