Who is borders books

The late s and early s posed significant challenges to the book industry, in general, and Borders Group specifically. Stock prices were down, online businesses suffered losses, and shareholders questioned Borders management. Independent booksellers went to court with charges that the big chains had made unfair deals with publishers, thus discouraging competition. Financially, the year was a gloomy one for book retailers. Annual sales at superstores increased 14 percent over the previous year.

The Company's Web site, Borders. Borders became an online bookseller later than its major, already well-established, competitors. Business losses were also attributed to a general retreat in the industry from discounting online purchases, and subsidizing book sales by selling below operating costs.

As Borders and other online sellers stopped discounting and offering other incentives to purchasers, online sales were reduced substantially.

In December , Borders management faced heavy criticism from shareholders Alan and Barry Lafer, who controlled approximately two percent of the Company shares. The Lafer brothers had previously asked the Company to consider strategic options, including a possible sale of Borders Group, Inc. The Lafers accusations were fueled by the Company's slow growth during the previous fiscal year.

During summer , Merrill Lynch had been hired to evaluate the options. Subsequently, the Company resolved to remain independent. In renewed criticism, the Lafers charged that the half-time employment contracts of top executives weakened the Company's management capabilities. Part-time management leads to part-time results, they claimed. The Lafer brothers also accused management of errors in handling the Company's online expansion and the acquisition of the retail toy store, All Wound Up.

In March , Borders announced that Greg Josefowicz, the president and chief executive, would become chairman at the end of the year, replacing Robert DiRomualdo. After the realignment of online commitments and internal review of options and management, Borders Group's strategy in the new millennium was to continue growth and increase profitability by focusing primarily on its superstores and continuing to develop mall and kiosk bookstores.

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E-mail: Show my email publicly. Mike Edwards, a merchandising veteran with stints at Target and Lucy Activewear among others, first came to Borders in The retailer had already begun to shed hundreds of stores in its bid to stay afloat, and executives rotated in and out of the CEO position like a game of musical chairs.

Soon, it would be Edwards' turn. On Jan. The board of directors then tapped Edwards, an executive vice president and chief merchandising officer at the time, to temporarily take over the role. Edwards became the company's fourth CEO in five years. The company badly needed to stabilize its balance sheet and Edwards was set on making that his number one priority — it all seemed like a pretty simple task to him at the time.

If Borders was a traditional turnaround story, he thought, the retailer would need to downsize its store footprint and tune up its operations. Amazon released its first Kindle e-reader in and it sold out within hours.

With sales migrating online, Edwards realized that every Borders store — 25, square feet on average — had about 10, square feet too many. Managing a company on the brink of bankruptcy teaches you a lot about leadership, he said. For him, the process was difficult, but Edwards said he tried to be transparent and emit a sense of urgency. He was blunt with employees, acknowledging that he ultimately could not predict the future.

Some chose to leave; others yet were let go. By August , the retailer only had about workers left at its corporate office. In one example, Edwards woke up one day and decided to take tags, which gave information such as which department books belonged to, off the books they were selling.

Mike Edwards didn't know what to expect when he returned to Borders' flagship office after filing the paperwork to liquidate Borders. But when he and then-CFO Scott Henry walked through the doors, they were greeted by hundreds of Borders employees, who applauded them for 20 minutes. There was a lot of pride in the brand. Most of the decisions that led to the end of Borders were made long before Edwards' plan to save the business.

By the time he became CEO, the company had already spent years employing Amazon to sell its books online and had failed to seize on the e-book trend before it was too late. You can be in the hotel business and then Airbnb can surround you with 20 properties with a great size at a lower cost.

From experience, Edwards says crafting the right omnichannel experience for an over-stored traditional retailer is no easy task. Today, retail stores need to function with a level of exclusivity and experience. Otherwise, the brutal reality is that Amazon will cater to customers with a higher level of convenience and speed.

And I learned a lot. But his true passion has always been to run his own company, and Edwards now has a home as the CEO of eBags, an online seller of luggage and handbags. In making the decision to join the company, Edwards realized he was ready to be on the disrupting side of retail for a change.

The creditors said that if Borders was to be liquidated, it wanted the Borders-approved liquidators to handle the process. July 13, : Najafi says it cannot proceed with an acquisition of Borders under the terms it previously laid out — a development believed to be related to the publishers' objection. July 14, : A bid by a team of liquidators is established as the top bid in an auction tentatively scheduled to take place July Without another bid, the company would have to start liquidation sales as soon as July July 17, : Deadline for bids passes without any new possible acquirers emerging.

July 18, : Borders announces plans to liquidate. Some 10, people will lose their jobs, including in Ann Arbor. Contact AnnArbor. You can also follow him on Twitter or subscribe to AnnArbor. Capitalism and legacy don't have a lot to do with each other. Pay attention to your customers and innovate or die. I do mourn the early days of Borders when I could walk into the computer book section on State St. My career benefited markedly by that guidance.

But its hard to pity serial bad management decisions and repeatedly turning their back on the roots. I was disappointed that the original Borders store on State St was not given more space in this timeline. To those of us who remember it, it was like going to a shrine - the first bookstore where you could sit down, relax, not feel pressured - and measure your time in dollars per minute.

It was a destination and part of what made the Ann Arbor book scene unique. This should be a warning to the bookstore business. Borders reckless expansion caused much of its problems, but online innovation could also be the next knockout blow. Barnes and Noble should be cautious in their approach. While they are much better managed than Borders and wisely did not purchase the latter company; they are not immune to the online onslaught.

A couple of important milestones that would be interesting and relevant to include would be: Beginning sales of eReaders such as Kindle Arrival of Napster Launch of iPod and iTunes Launch of Netflix Launch of Amazon All of those events helped to act as killer technologies for all of Borders sales channels.

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Posted on Mon, Jul 18, : p.