Hedge fund manger Bill Ackman says he will finance a takeover bid for rival bookseller Barnes & Noble at $16 a share -- a 20.5% premium over Friday's closing price. Faced with increased competition, B&N has seen sales plunge in recent quarters.
Borders, the nation's second-largest bookstore chain, has struggled for years due to competition from both fellow bricks-and-mortar outlets and online booksellers. It's latest move to combat that is an offer to match the competition's prices -- but the program's limits doom it failure.
Borders Group Inc. is offering discounts on electronic readers throught the rest of the month as the retailer battles Amazon.com Inc. and Barnes & Noble Inc. for share of the rapidly growing e-reader market in advance of the holiday season.
Attention book lovers: The Nook and Kobo electronic readers are finally joining the iPad and Sony e-readers at Walmart. But with so many e-reading devices available or soon to be available at the world's largest retailer, could a price war break out just in time for the holiday season?
Online sales during the holiday season are likely to exceed their 2009 levels as shoppers shift away from shopping at some brick-and-mortar operations such as electronics and warehouse stores, said market research firm The NPD Group in a report Wednesday.
Retailers such as Toys R Us, Rockport and Borders hope to grow their Web sales with a new shipping service called ShopRunner.com. Much like Amazon's Prime program, consumers pay $79 per year for a membership, which lets them ship as many orders as they want from ShopRunner's retail partners.
The sale of Borders' Ann Arbor, Mich., headquarters for almost $18.4 million adds to persistent rumors of the company's imminent demise. But the truth has more to do with the real estate market than books sales.
Borders, the nation's second-largest book retailer, is trying a new tactic to gain a much-needed sales boost heading into the end of year shopping season: It's opening 25 "pop-up" shops meant to last only for the holidays, the company announced Tuesday.
For the quarter ending July 31, overall sales dropped 11.5% from a year ago to $526 million, continuing a downward spiral that's seen revenues over this time decline year-on-year from $945 million in 2007 to $749 million in 2008 to $617 million in 2009.
Faced with tumbling book sales, Borders, the country's second largest bookstore chain, will begin selling stuffed animal kits from Build-A-Bear Workshop in its stores. It also plans to cut prices of its e-reading devices.
In a tumultuous year, book retailer Borders is dealing with another bump: It's chief financial officer, Mark Bierley, has resigned "to pursue another employment opportunity" -- nine days before the company is scheduled to post quarterly earnings.
After losing in court, renegade investor Ron Burkle is poised to launch a proxy contest for Barnes & Noble that will be tinged by animosity between Burkle and B&N founder and chairman Leonard Riggio.
An unspecified number of the 650 employees working at the company's Ann Arbor headquarters have been cut. The stock price has already dipped on the news.
Think struggling book retailer Borders finished with layoffs in 2010? With four rounds of layoffs so far this year and no new ideas for a turnaround, don't be surprised if co-CEO Bennett Lebow pulls out his old 1980s playbook and makes a bid for, say, Barnes & Noble.
