It looks as if Barnes&Noble are struggling somewhat. This article by dbw talks about it and debunks some of this article’s suggestions, the same guy had the same ideas to save Borders you can follow the links and read his manifesto just like I did or see the link later on when I talk about it some more.

According to dbw the problem Barnes&Noble have is with the Nook reader, sales are not as high as they need to be and they’re losing money hand over fist. I’m not looking into the finances to see if this is being offset by sales of physical books, that’s not what I’m here for. Scott Booklover with his Save Barnes&Noble campaign gives all sorts of interesting ideas about reducing executive salaries, reducing or capping bonuses, getting executives out into the coal face so they understand what’s happening and getting feedback from employees Kaizen style. All of the monetary ideas are not going to increase sales, reducing overheads never increases sales and I don’t know what planet he’s on where this actually happens. The idea of getting input from employees who are on the coalface may help but then again it may not, it depends on how many people are employed in the Nook sales department and how much interaction they’re able to have with buyers.

Let’s have a look at the readers themselves. There are a number of different readers on the market including the Nook, Kindle, Kobo and far too many others. How many of them will survive in the future? Look at VCR machines, there used to be two main types, Betamax and VHS, you can now only buy pre-loved and reconditioned Betamax as VHS took over the market. I ask again, which ereaders will survive? Will it be Barnes&Noble’s Nook, the Kindle or will a new one come onto the market which outlives all of them?

Let’s take a trip back to Scott Booklover’s Executive Manifesto. He talks about reducing financial overheads, getting executives onto the ground floor and getting input from employees. The only one I see that would have helped is getting input from employees. I’ve talked to many booklovers, small publishers, authors and book sellers in Australia over the years and two things stood out among those conversations; they changed they way they stocked their shelves and the staff weren’t allowed to talk to the customers and recommend books.

I didn’t go into Borders much in the early days but I’m told they were excellent for niche books, books you couldn’t get anywhere else in Australia. Books you had to order from overseas which back in the early days were hellishly expensive and you had to order by fax or by letter. Borders stopped stocking those niche books and with the advent of the internet it became easier to order them from overseas.

What really makes a good bookshop stand out is the staff, how well they know their books and their being able to recommend books to customers. Borders staff were really discouraged from doing that, they were hired for their youth or their ability to stock shelves or some other totally useless reason which makes it incredibly irritating if you’re looking for a recommendation. People often have no idea what book they’re looking for when they go into a bookshop and have to rely on the book seller or the description on the back or the cover – I see a couple of different articles there -but if your ‘book seller’ is not allowed to help out and recommend then you’ve got a big problem.

I’m not convinced that cutting executive salaries is the entire solution to the problem. I do believe executives receive too much and that if they took a very large pay cut the organisation would be much better off, but it’s not the entire solution. They need to look at their sales and their staff to see what training their staff really need to make their job work for their customers. This idea could be replicated across many different industries.