Hastings could close all stores

[bm10k]

http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/20 ... goes-broke

Given the fact that the internet has hurt
a lot of the brick and morters I'm surprised they
Lasted this long

[SamSpade]

The store in Tyler, Texas looked old and tired from the outside. . . kind of like the nearby Barnes & Noble location.
The store in Idaho Falls, Idaho may be one of the new "test" stores referenced in the article, they have a coffeehouse space and have significantly adjusted the merchandise mix according to my mom. They moved about 5 years ago from a very small former supermarket space (1950s) to another former supermarket space (Albertsons, 1960s) that had been housing a hardware store. The space was great though, nice layout, good ceilings, drive through for the coffeehouse.

[kr.abs.swy]

I was in the Hastings store in Kingman, Arizona, about six weeks ago. It is in a strip mall with a Safeway, JC Penney, and a space that used to be Family Dollar. It was really depressing on the inside. The carpet was old and had been sloppily patched, and it looked like no one had vacuumed for days. From what I saw, it seemed obvious that a decision not to invest any additional capital into the store had been made ... years ago.

I was in a store in Boise (the ParkCenter store that was part of a former Albertsons, along with a former Sports Authority) two weeks ago and things didn't seem quite as dire.

It's sad to see these stores close. People love to buy on Amazon but love to have a bookstore to wander through. You can't have it both ways ...

[storewanderer]

I felt like Hastings ran in a lot of medium sized markets where you just would not see a Barnes and Noble. To me, they seemed more like Borders than Barnes and Noble due to their more prominent display of media items vs. books. These seemed to be medium sized markets concentrated in the middle of the US, plains, and mountain states. I don't think the economy is great in a lot of those places and it makes sense stores like this would be low hanging fruit that won't make it.

Online hurts book sales, things like online and Redbox hurt DVD sales, it makes sense...

[pseudo3d]

There was a Hastings in my town, across from the H-E-B. Originally, it was a small store location located in a strip center anchored by Safeway (later AppleTree), then it moved south to its current location in 1999 (there was a Barnes & Noble further north). It originally boasted the "lowest book prices in Texas", and was a superstore that contained music, movies (both for buy and rental), video games, and books, sort of like how I heard Media Play was. At some point later in the stores history, they remodeled (probably mid to late 2000s, I'd reckon) that added a coffeehouse to a corner of the store, and rearranged everything else to fit. About a year ago it closed permanently, leaving no place in a town of 100k (a college town) to get video rentals. The other store in Bryan (a poorer, older area) had one next to the former Manor East Mall (built on the site of a former Kroger, though not 100% sure it's the same building), and expanded slightly in 2003 when the mall was redeveloped into a strip center (which involved tearing down half of it to build a new H-E-B). That one's still open for now. Toward the end (and present, for the Bryan store), the merchandise mix started to get a bit weird. They started pushing Spencer Gift-like novelty items more (like a stripper pole kit or a beer bong) while dedicating a significant amount of the front to movie-based toys and collectibles.


(I'm sure I wrote most/all of this elsewhere)

[wnetmacman]

Apparently, they have filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and will decided within 30 days if they will close or sell out:

Amarillo.com Chapter 11 story

Another sad story in the books/music retail that has also claimed Borders, Media Play and others.

[Super S]

I was in the Hastings store in Kingman, Arizona, about six weeks ago. It is in a strip mall with a Safeway, JC Penney, and a space that used to be Family Dollar. It was really depressing on the inside. The carpet was old and had been sloppily patched, and it looked like no one had vacuumed for days. From what I saw, it seemed obvious that a decision not to invest any additional capital into the store had been made ... years ago.

I was in a store in Boise (the ParkCenter store that was part of a former Albertsons, along with a former Sports Authority) two weeks ago and things didn't seem quite as dire.

It's sad to see these stores close. People love to buy on Amazon but love to have a bookstore to wander through. You can't have it both ways ...

I visited that very store on my last visit to Boise. I didn't think it was a terrible store by any means, but seemed more like a discount book store than anything. You could very easily tell the history of the place.

The few remaining independents will need to have a diverse selection in order to survive. But some areas not served by Barnes & Noble have very few, and in some cases, zero book stores left. Barnes & Noble can sometimes be real hit-or-miss, and when there is little competition they do not take pride in their stores and it shows.
The lack of book stores makes a case for operating libraries though.

[kr.abs.swy]

Yeah, I love that store in Boise. You can tell where Albertsons added on to the front (maybe in the 1980s?), then you can tell that they basically just built a wall down the middle and subdivided it between Hastings and Gart Sports when they moved the Albertsons across the street in the 1990s (I assume). They didn't do anything to the façade to disguise the fact that it used to be one big box.

I was in the Hastings store in Kingman, Arizona, about six weeks ago. It is in a strip mall with a Safeway, JC Penney, and a space that used to be Family Dollar. It was really depressing on the inside. The carpet was old and had been sloppily patched, and it looked like no one had vacuumed for days. From what I saw, it seemed obvious that a decision not to invest any additional capital into the store had been made ... years ago.

I was in a store in Boise (the ParkCenter store that was part of a former Albertsons, along with a former Sports Authority) two weeks ago and things didn't seem quite as dire.

It's sad to see these stores close. People love to buy on Amazon but love to have a bookstore to wander through. You can't have it both ways ...

I visited that very store on my last visit to Boise. I didn't think it was a terrible store by any means, but seemed more like a discount book store than anything. You could very easily tell the history of the place.

The few remaining independents will need to have a diverse selection in order to survive. But some areas not served by Barnes & Noble have very few, and in some cases, zero book stores left. Barnes & Noble can sometimes be real hit-or-miss, and when there is little competition they do not take pride in their stores and it shows.
The lack of book stores makes a case for operating libraries though.

[Super S]

Yeah, I love that store in Boise. You can tell where Albertsons added on to the front (maybe in the 1980s?), then you can tell that they basically just built a wall down the middle and subdivided it between Hastings and Gart Sports when they moved the Albertsons across the street in the 1990s (I assume). They didn't do anything to the façade to disguise the fact that it used to be one big box.

Yes, the Albertsons moved in the mid-1990s. The store was added on to the front in the mid-1980s, and the front used to line up with the Rite Aid (former PayLess) next door. After that remodel, they also had an open "center aisle" that ran across the width of the store, half way down the aisles. The Hastings side still even had the old Albertsons doors. I think they kept that arrangement when they first opened the new Parkcenter store, but have not been inside that one in many years.

With Sports Authority done for, and possibly now Hastings, it will be interesting to see what goes there. That area has seen a lot of growth, but then again, the Kmart they built with that new Albertsons was vacant a long long time....

[wnetmacman]

It appears to be over:

Hastings to close by October

They will be liquidated by Hilco.