Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Borders to liquidate

I'm sorry to see Borders going out of business. The remaining 400 stores will close, and 11,000 employees will be out of work.

I loved this comment to the story on Huffington Post:

"The end of Borders is partly due to YOU. You know who you are. You spent all day here, reading a pile of books, using the bathroom and the free wifi and spent NOTHING. You used us as a free babysitter­, dumping your children in the Kids Department to destroy the toys while you flipped through magazines, and spent NOTHING. You cost us payroll cleaning up after you every day, and spent NOTHING. Where will you go now?"

Think of it, the next time you are in Jewel-Osco or Walgreen's and see customers reading magazines that they won't buy or letting their kids play with toys they won't buy. The merchandise is For Sale, folks. If you want to read the magazines, go to the library or subscribe to them!

2 comments:

Justin said...

I'd blame their high prices. I shopped there during their 50% off sale and the prices were still higher than Amazon.

I purchased several books on CLEARANCE only to check and see that even with shipping Amazon was much cheaper.

People look for value. Arianna Huffington likes to huff and puff but the truth is Border's didn't provide value.

Steve said...

The paradigm is shifting. Go with the flow or be swept under. Where's the nearest video store? Can you get me some VHS tapes or maybe even some cassettes or, gosh, an 8-track tape of the Statler Brothers? How about some buggy whips?

Borders (and Barnes & Noble, et al) were the ones who put in chairs so customers could sit and read what they should have been buying, they tolerate this and, to make it even more friendly, put in coffee bars to keep the folks in there. They screwed up - MAYBE - or perhaps books in the traditional analog form will be going the way of the dodo bird. It is what it is. The one thing we don't need is everybody pointing fingers at anyone other than those who directed their own downfall - BORDERS!