About three weeks ago I read the latest "Resnick & Malzberg Diaglogues" in the Feb-Mar 2009 (Vol. 42, Issue 4) Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's (SFWA) "The Bulletin." Let me quote Mike Resnick: "$13 is the 52-week high for Borders stock. 67 cents is the prices it's going for today (December 8, 2008), as we begin this dialogue..." The article goes back and forth between Resnick and Malzberg as they discuss the future of super bookstores and what might come next. As with all of their Dialogues in "The Bulletin," there isn't so much a final answer to the be all and end all, but rather a sobering listing of what's happening in the industry.
I did a little research and found that Borders' stock (BGP on the NYSE) last trade for 99 cents on Friday. In after hours, the stock price has gone up to $1.05. In digging a little more, I found an article on Yahoo entitled "Borders Turnaround Is Happening Despite Downturn."
I read through all of this news and scratched my head. Yesterday I went to Borders and tried to buy a copy of the April issue of Scientific American. I had listened to American's latest podcast and wanted to pick up a copy to read about the Dark Energy story and the controversial decision that the Texas school district just passed. My wife took the kids upstairs to the children's books section and I scoured through the magazines. I looked and I looked. I came upstairs, checked on how my wife was doing and told her that I couldn't find a copy of Scientific American. After a bit, I wandered back downstairs and talked to a sales associate. He told me that he thought that Borders was no longer carrying the magazine but he would check. As he was paging through a huge book, he said that Borders had recently cut back on 400,000 items. I nodded my head and a memory began stirring in my mind. The Resnick & Malzberg Dialogues article popped into my head. The sales associate walked me over to the magazines and we began looking together. After a minute, he used the microphone headset he was wearing and asked a colleague if they still carried Scientific American. While he was waiting for a response, we continued to look and I noticed that I couldn't find Astronomy magazine or Sky & Telescope. I was a bit surprised. There were a ton (and I mean a ton) of magazines on fashion, weddings and the like, but not on science. I was rather shocked. The sales associated paused for a moment, listening and then turned to me to say, "I'm sorry but we no longer carried it." I thanked him and headed off to meet up with my family.
My goal was to purchase a Scientific American and because I didn't want to leave empty-handed I left with purchasing Cooking Light magazine.
Throughout the store, I saw red tickets on CDs and DVDs--40% off. It looked to me that Borders was hoping to clear a lot of their inventory. Not a good sign if you ask me. Has anyone else noticed this sad state of affairs for Borders?
After a horrendous fourth quarter Borders is drastically cutting back floorspace devoted to DVDs and CDs. They plan on using the space to increase their stock of bargain items, cookbooks (the category with the most growth)and genre books popular by store.
Posted by: Brian Burkart | April 06, 2009 at 06:39 PM