My neighborhood Borders is closing - it's a big blow to our local mall and movie theater complex. The rumor of Borders bankruptcy had swirled around for a while before it actually happened, so the store closing wasn't exactly a surprise. It still sucks for our local economy and psyche, though.
Recently, Mark Evans, Director of Merchandise Planning & Analysis for Borders outlined 6 reasons why he thought Borders failed. For example:
Failure to build efficient systems and processes - While Borders legendary "expert system" was considered cutting edge and an advantage early on, the company failed to successfully build upon this foundation and create new, better assortment, replenishment, and supply chain systems and processes to keep pace with the changing state of technology and efficient retail operations. B&N invested considerable time/energy/money through the 90's in systems and processes. To provide one example, a lower ranked title that sells out in a B&N will be replenished from a central warehouse within 2-3 days. The same process could take up to 16 weeks for Borders. Borders sought to upgrade systems with two large efforts in the 00's: first one was a home grown effort called Common Systems. Second was a "buy and integrate" project to implement Retek and E3. Both failed spectacularly. The Retek effort dramatically hurt the Walden chain, the only business unit that was managed by the system. With both of these efforts, large sums of money and, perhaps more importantly, human resources and time were squandered.
I read through all his 6 reasons (TLDR: lack of Internet sales, overspent on real estate, invested in music CDs as that sector cratered, carrying too large assortment of books, failure to reorder things that sell well, branding failure) - and noticed one conspicuous absence: they didn't mention their customers at all!
Our local Borders had terrible customer service (I remember the exact moment that Borders lost me as a customer: a manager once implied that I was stealing when I tried to return a book without receipt!)
http://www.quora.com/Borders-Books/Why-is-Barnes-and-Noble-performing-well-as-a-business-while-Borders-has-filed-for-bankruptcy/answer/Mark-Evans-9 - via Boing Boing
Do you agree with Mark Evans? Why do you think Borders went bankrupt?
(Photo: iSharQ [Flickr] - actually, this is quite an interesting photo - see the title of the book Haje Jan Kamps added to the bottom of the sign on Flickr)
I like Borders stores and as an avid reader am sorry to see them closing, but when I can roam around a store like that for 10 minutes (no exaggeration) before finding someone other than a cashier to help me, there's a definite issue.
Now if only Amazon would go down in flames...
Huge overhead. Limited selection. Noone pays retail anymore.
Like them or not, Amazon's model is able to address 'the long tail' that would be impossible to stock where you or I could walk in and browse.
Now if they would just get everything digitized...
They made it hard to do business with them, so I stopped doing business with them.
That's the real reason that businesses fail.
Most (if not all) big companies do this. Target, Wal-Mart and Home Depot all take returns without receipts though you have to show your driver's license and they track and limit non-receipt returns, so you can't abuse the system.
Borders label their books with their own stickers, so it's quite easy to see that the books came from Borders.
The manager basically explained to me that I could've taken their sticker, stick it to another book, and try to return it to Borders. Basically, thievin' them. I walked out never to return.
I've spent hundreds of dollars in Borders, and would've spent many more thousands during my lifetime, had they not lost me over a $20 item.
I'm sure the problem is that corporate says "no returns" because returns show up as a negative line item in their profit and loss statement. What doesn't show up is why sales decline because customers never return.
And yes, that's an anecdotal experience - but I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one.
That's why Amazon is thriving and Borders is going out of business.
Then there were the people who would get all mad when they said they got this or that book as a gift and we could only give them 5 bucks because there was a big pile of them sitting in the bargain section.
I get annoyed when people give me a hassle for returning stuff but that's only because I almost never return stuff. I seriously do not understand stores that have a return policy that will take back anything (i.e. Kohls)like shredded up pants that reek of cigarette smoke, but that's just me.