Barnes and Noble new stores

[Alpha8472]

Barnes and Noble in my area closed 2 stores. However, years later they reopened very close to where they used to be. The one in Downtown Walnut Creek, California lost its lease. Then years later after the pandemic, rents went down. A new Barnes and Noble opened up practically across the street from the old one in a vacant Forever 21.

One in Pleasant Hill, California lost its lease to Home Goods. A new one opened up years later across the freeway in a much nicer and busier brand new shopping center in Concord, California. The new stores are slightly smaller, but still very nice. One has a cafe and the other does not. Perhaps it is due to the abundance of Starbucks in the downtown area. A cafe would be overkill.

[ClownLoach]

Barnes and Noble in my area closed 2 stores. However, years later they reopened very close to where they used to be. The one in Downtown Walnut Creek, California lost its lease. Then years later after the pandemic, rents went down. A new Barnes and Noble opened up practically across the street from the old one in a vacant Forever 21.

One in Pleasant Hill, California lost its lease to Home Goods. A new one opened up years later across the freeway in a much nicer and busier brand new shopping center in Concord, California. The new stores are slightly smaller, but still very nice. One has a cafe and the other does not. Perhaps it is due to the abundance of Starbucks in the downtown area. A cafe would be overkill.

My understanding is the Cafe is pretty much a dead concept now unless it can be plumbed at a very low cost. It is apparently very expensive to dig and trench through these big boxes to add the water and drainage, plus the health permits and so on. If the hookups are out front it's a go, but in most cases they're on the back and that is a no due to cost.

B&N responded to several new store openings and relocations where customers asked on social media why they don't have a Café, the old one did and new doesn't etc, and high cost of installation was their answer. These new stores are very, very, very cheaply built, but I'll take that tradeoff for more bookstores since they can afford to open so many of these plain warehouse stores. I believe they are saving at least half on these new bare bones stores.

[buckguy]

I visited the "new" Barnes and Noble in Georgetown, which is in a building they occupied in the past. It later was a Nike store which closed last year after 11 years. It's 30,000 sf on three levels.

https://simg1.imagesbn.com/pimages/stor ... g/3989.jpg
https://www.georgetowndc.com/wp-content ... getown.jpg

It's very cheaply fixtured, but overall it's really more what I would expect from a B&N than some sort of new concept. It has a lot of non-book merchandise, which seems to be one of the things that has carried them in recent years. Toys, games, puzzles, DVDs that relate to the books, plus a large selection of cards, including boxed cards for the holidays. The one surprise was a large newsstand, which had a few browsers but no buyers---that used to be a standard B&N feature but seems anachronistic now. It's also on the second floor and has shelving in front of it.

Georgetown can be tricky to merchandise--locals, students (Georgetown and George Washington University are within walking distance), and tourists--particularly foreign tourists. The locals are mix--people who live in the city and those who come in for one of the more "one of kind" stores that are here. It was a nice day with many people out, but the parts of the store that seemed meant for locals (kid's books, history, current events) were busier than those that might have been more for tourists (genre fiction, pop management, self-help). The "local interest" books which often make good impulse purchases and appeal to visitors and locals were stuck in an odd corner of the third floor under the heading of "Favorites". The travel section--usually a B&N strength seemed a bit pathetic The staff picks look like they were printed out rather than written. B&N used to have what looked like actual staff selections in the past.

I'll be curious if they make some significant adjustments after a few months--the newsstand seems like it would be shrunk and I'll be curious what replaces the holiday items and whether they're able to bring in tourists. This isn't peak tourist season but it is a peak season for conferences and meetings which bring business travelers. They had a long running store in the traditional downtown near Metro Center that was similar in size, but actually had more breadth. It's a Nordstrom Rack now.

It looked like they were setting up for an author event but I didn't see a calendar and the one online has only scattered events and effort to start book clubs--maybe those will come later, although those kinds of things are a big part of what keep the indies going.

[ClownLoach]

I visited the "new" Barnes and Noble in Georgetown, which is in a building they occupied in the past. It later was a Nike store which closed last year after 11 years. It's 30,000 sf on three levels.

https://simg1.imagesbn.com/pimages/stor ... g/3989.jpg
https://www.georgetowndc.com/wp-content ... getown.jpg

It's very cheaply fixtured, but overall it's really more what I would expect from a B&N than some sort of new concept. It has a lot of non-book merchandise, which seems to be one of the things that has carried them in recent years. Toys, games, puzzles, DVDs that relate to the books, plus a large selection of cards, including boxed cards for the holidays. The one surprise was a large newsstand, which had a few browsers but no buyers---that used to be a standard B&N feature but seems anachronistic now. It's also on the second floor and has shelving in front of it.

Georgetown can be tricky to merchandise--locals, students (Georgetown and George Washington University are within walking distance), and tourists--particularly foreign tourists. The locals are mix--people who live in the city and those who come in for one of the more "one of kind" stores that are here. It was a nice day with many people out, but the parts of the store that seemed meant for locals (kid's books, history, current events) were busier than those that might have been more for tourists (genre fiction, pop management, self-help). The "local interest" books which often make good impulse purchases and appeal to visitors and locals were stuck in an odd corner of the third floor under the heading of "Favorites". The travel section--usually a B&N strength seemed a bit pathetic The staff picks look like they were printed out rather than written. B&N used to have what looked like actual staff selections in the past.

I'll be curious if they make some significant adjustments after a few months--the newsstand seems like it would be shrunk and I'll be curious what replaces the holiday items and whether they're able to bring in tourists. This isn't peak tourist season but it is a peak season for conferences and meetings which bring business travelers. They had a long running store in the traditional downtown near Metro Center that was similar in size, but actually had more breadth. It's a Nordstrom Rack now.

It looked like they were setting up for an author event but I didn't see a calendar and the one online has only scattered events and effort to start book clubs--maybe those will come later, although those kinds of things are a big part of what keep the indies going.

Based on all the communication about B&N I would not doubt that they planned out everything locally from the perspective of assortment and staff picks and space. They basically wiped out having a corporate office and leave all the work to the stores. You would be disturbed by the typical percentage of payroll spent at the corporate office versus the stores, I've worked in chains where the damned cubicle dwellers exceeded the payroll of all of the line level cashiers and floor help across over a thousand units. There are many articles about James Daunt and his strategy for these stores, and it is all about running like an independent and hiring in people who can't afford to keep an independent open to run their stores instead. I've had an email discussion back and forth with him about a matter several years ago and he is one of the sharpest folks I've ever seen in the CEO position of a company, didn't have an Admin or other crew to do his talking for him, it was actually him personally. B&N would have liquidated by now if he hadn't taken over. The only obstacle I see is apathetic local management could let a store go adrift without a corporate office telling them what to put where, but their sales will drop too and Daunt & Co. will drop out of the sky in that building and make a change. They are the epitome of "run it like it's yours" because of the management model they took on. I am concerned about your comments that particular location might not have the strongest leadership, but they also could have just been very busy trying to figure out how to order books and lay out their store (since there is no corporate planogram or space planning or store design team). Maybe they'll fine tune it now that they're open. I'm seeing similar in their new Tustin site that seemed to phone in the opening.

[Alpha8472]

Barnes and Noble to open 58 stores by the end of 2024.
https://www.retaildive.com/news/barnes- ... gy/733170/

[buckguy]

I visited the "new" Barnes and Noble in Georgetown, which is in a building they occupied in the past. It later was a Nike store which closed last year after 11 years. It's 30,000 sf on three levels.

https://simg1.imagesbn.com/pimages/stor ... g/3989.jpg
https://www.georgetowndc.com/wp-content ... getown.jpg

It's very cheaply fixtured, but overall it's really more what I would expect from a B&N than some sort of new concept. It has a lot of non-book merchandise, which seems to be one of the things that has carried them in recent years. Toys, games, puzzles, DVDs that relate to the books, plus a large selection of cards, including boxed cards for the holidays. The one surprise was a large newsstand, which had a few browsers but no buyers---that used to be a standard B&N feature but seems anachronistic now. It's also on the second floor and has shelving in front of it.

Georgetown can be tricky to merchandise--locals, students (Georgetown and George Washington University are within walking distance), and tourists--particularly foreign tourists. The locals are mix--people who live in the city and those who come in for one of the more "one of kind" stores that are here. It was a nice day with many people out, but the parts of the store that seemed meant for locals (kid's books, history, current events) were busier than those that might have been more for tourists (genre fiction, pop management, self-help). The "local interest" books which often make good impulse purchases and appeal to visitors and locals were stuck in an odd corner of the third floor under the heading of "Favorites". The travel section--usually a B&N strength seemed a bit pathetic The staff picks look like they were printed out rather than written. B&N used to have what looked like actual staff selections in the past.

I'll be curious if they make some significant adjustments after a few months--the newsstand seems like it would be shrunk and I'll be curious what replaces the holiday items and whether they're able to bring in tourists. This isn't peak tourist season but it is a peak season for conferences and meetings which bring business travelers. They had a long running store in the traditional downtown near Metro Center that was similar in size, but actually had more breadth. It's a Nordstrom Rack now.

It looked like they were setting up for an author event but I didn't see a calendar and the one online has only scattered events and effort to start book clubs--maybe those will come later, although those kinds of things are a big part of what keep the indies going.

Based on all the communication about B&N I would not doubt that they planned out everything locally from the perspective of assortment and staff picks and space. They basically wiped out having a corporate office and leave all the work to the stores. You would be disturbed by the typical percentage of payroll spent at the corporate office versus the stores, I've worked in chains where the damned cubicle dwellers exceeded the payroll of all of the line level cashiers and floor help across over a thousand units. There are many articles about James Daunt and his strategy for these stores, and it is all about running like an independent and hiring in people who can't afford to keep an independent open to run their stores instead. I've had an email discussion back and forth with him about a matter several years ago and he is one of the sharpest folks I've ever seen in the CEO position of a company, didn't have an Admin or other crew to do his talking for him, it was actually him personally. B&N would have liquidated by now if he hadn't taken over. The only obstacle I see is apathetic local management could let a store go adrift without a corporate office telling them what to put where, but their sales will drop too and Daunt & Co. will drop out of the sky in that building and make a change. They are the epitome of "run it like it's yours" because of the management model they took on. I am concerned about your comments that particular location might not have the strongest leadership, but they also could have just been very busy trying to figure out how to order books and lay out their store (since there is no corporate planogram or space planning or store design team). Maybe they'll fine tune it now that they're open. I'm seeing similar in their new Tustin site that seemed to phone in the opening.

You really seem to get distracted by shiny new objects that aren't so new. They can call their strategy whatever, but this store is definitely out of their old playbook--lots of non-book merch, an anachronistic newsstand, etc. If they've cut out a lot of the head office centralization, all they're doing is returning to the retail model that was standard before the 1980s---in big department stores, the chains acted as holding companies and departments were run as small businesses, with buyers having considerable latitude. Specialty chains like B&N gave latitude to store managers and they would have had department heads who functioned as buyers. Still, they had a distinctive playbook with newsstands, lots of puzzles and the like, a big selection of maps, etc. which distinguished them from Borders where there was much more emphasis on books and more customization by location----when I lived in Atlanta, I regularly went to Boston and had meetings across from the downtown Boston Border's where the selection was quite different from the Buckhead flagship in Atlanta (and frankly much better). They had a much better selection of genre fiction and current events. Long gone local chains like Olsson's in DC truly customized their locations---lots of art books and music CDs in Georgetown, fiction-heavy in Dupont, etc. I doubt that B&N will ever be quite like that. All they're doing is tweaking a familiar overall merchandise model. Georgetown is much bigger and has more depth in a few areas, but is fundamentally not much different from their Rockville store or the one they closed in Bethesda or for that matter the Eton Square store outside of Cleveland and it's nowhere near as quirky as the small chains like Politics and Prose that have been growing in DC

[ClownLoach]

I visited the "new" Barnes and Noble in Georgetown, which is in a building they occupied in the past. It later was a Nike store which closed last year after 11 years. It's 30,000 sf on three levels.

https://simg1.imagesbn.com/pimages/stor ... g/3989.jpg
https://www.georgetowndc.com/wp-content ... getown.jpg

It's very cheaply fixtured, but overall it's really more what I would expect from a B&N than some sort of new concept. It has a lot of non-book merchandise, which seems to be one of the things that has carried them in recent years. Toys, games, puzzles, DVDs that relate to the books, plus a large selection of cards, including boxed cards for the holidays. The one surprise was a large newsstand, which had a few browsers but no buyers---that used to be a standard B&N feature but seems anachronistic now. It's also on the second floor and has shelving in front of it.

Georgetown can be tricky to merchandise--locals, students (Georgetown and George Washington University are within walking distance), and tourists--particularly foreign tourists. The locals are mix--people who live in the city and those who come in for one of the more "one of kind" stores that are here. It was a nice day with many people out, but the parts of the store that seemed meant for locals (kid's books, history, current events) were busier than those that might have been more for tourists (genre fiction, pop management, self-help). The "local interest" books which often make good impulse purchases and appeal to visitors and locals were stuck in an odd corner of the third floor under the heading of "Favorites". The travel section--usually a B&N strength seemed a bit pathetic The staff picks look like they were printed out rather than written. B&N used to have what looked like actual staff selections in the past.

I'll be curious if they make some significant adjustments after a few months--the newsstand seems like it would be shrunk and I'll be curious what replaces the holiday items and whether they're able to bring in tourists. This isn't peak tourist season but it is a peak season for conferences and meetings which bring business travelers. They had a long running store in the traditional downtown near Metro Center that was similar in size, but actually had more breadth. It's a Nordstrom Rack now.

It looked like they were setting up for an author event but I didn't see a calendar and the one online has only scattered events and effort to start book clubs--maybe those will come later, although those kinds of things are a big part of what keep the indies going.

Based on all the communication about B&N I would not doubt that they planned out everything locally from the perspective of assortment and staff picks and space. They basically wiped out having a corporate office and leave all the work to the stores. You would be disturbed by the typical percentage of payroll spent at the corporate office versus the stores, I've worked in chains where the damned cubicle dwellers exceeded the payroll of all of the line level cashiers and floor help across over a thousand units. There are many articles about James Daunt and his strategy for these stores, and it is all about running like an independent and hiring in people who can't afford to keep an independent open to run their stores instead. I've had an email discussion back and forth with him about a matter several years ago and he is one of the sharpest folks I've ever seen in the CEO position of a company, didn't have an Admin or other crew to do his talking for him, it was actually him personally. B&N would have liquidated by now if he hadn't taken over. The only obstacle I see is apathetic local management could let a store go adrift without a corporate office telling them what to put where, but their sales will drop too and Daunt & Co. will drop out of the sky in that building and make a change. They are the epitome of "run it like it's yours" because of the management model they took on. I am concerned about your comments that particular location might not have the strongest leadership, but they also could have just been very busy trying to figure out how to order books and lay out their store (since there is no corporate planogram or space planning or store design team). Maybe they'll fine tune it now that they're open. I'm seeing similar in their new Tustin site that seemed to phone in the opening.

You really seem to get distracted by shiny new objects that aren't so new. They can call their strategy whatever, but this store is definitely out of their old playbook--lots of non-book merch, an anachronistic newsstand, etc. If they've cut out a lot of the head office centralization, all they're doing is returning to the retail model that was standard before the 1980s---in big department stores, the chains acted as holding companies and departments were run as small businesses, with buyers having considerable latitude. Specialty chains like B&N gave latitude to store managers and they would have had department heads who functioned as buyers. Still, they had a distinctive playbook with newsstands, lots of puzzles and the like, a big selection of maps, etc. which distinguished them from Borders where there was much more emphasis on books and more customization by location----when I lived in Atlanta, I regularly went to Boston and had meetings across from the downtown Boston Border's where the selection was quite different from the Buckhead flagship in Atlanta (and frankly much better). They had a much better selection of genre fiction and current events. Long gone local chains like Olsson's in DC truly customized their locations---lots of art books and music CDs in Georgetown, fiction-heavy in Dupont, etc. I doubt that B&N will ever be quite like that. All they're doing is tweaking a familiar overall merchandise model. Georgetown is much bigger and has more depth in a few areas, but is fundamentally not much different from their Rockville store or the one they closed in Bethesda or for that matter the Eton Square store outside of Cleveland and it's nowhere near as quirky as the small chains like Politics and Prose that have been growing in DC

I don't disagree with anything you have to say here. It doesn't sound like this particular new location has gone over all that well, and that is the concern I mentioned that can arise from lack of oversight coupled with local management that doesn't quite get it. I do think the newsstand piece is interesting, because I don't recall seeing one anymore in the last few stores I visited out here except one, which were a mix of old and brand new. One store had expanded book bags and journals and gifts where the newsstand was against a prominent wall for years, and if it was relocated elsewhere I didn't see it. Another store did still have a large magazine section but no newspapers. So even though you and I agree it is anachronistic, maybe there is a demand they're seeing at a few locations that isn't present at most of the chain anymore. Could have something to do with demographics. The store that had the traditional large sections of magazines is in my area which has a large percentage of retirees.

It is however very interesting to see any chain embrace the "everything old is new again" model in today's cost cutting and overly aggressive corporate office world. Most chains now have those people in the office who work to establish themselves as irreplaceable so that the entire chain would break if they left, they build little kingdoms for themselves even if it locks the company into mediocrity. It was a bold move, and risky one, to come in and tear down the kingdom.

I love to see the growth of independent bookstores, but I also recognize that many of these urban and suburban areas lack the affordable real estate they need to survive on lower volumes. The large chains help to resolve the problem because of their ability to sign multi-decade leases, their credit lines and borrowing capacity, and their ability to handle other operations in a centralized manner such as finance, HR, LP, facilities maintenance, transportation, etc.

Here B&N is acting smaller and finding success. That doesn't mean they're going to replace independent stores. It does mean that they do remain a threat to the independent stores that have the world working against them in some way (bad landlord raising the rent, etc) and they're now providing an exit door for those operators to come work for them instead.