2 June 2011

Borders gone!

| johnboy
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Borders

Liquidators Ferrier Hodgson have announced they haven’t been able to find a buyer for Borders and so the remaining bookstores, including the ones in Canberra, will close.

A total of 315 staff will be affected by the closures, which will take place over the next six to eight weeks.

The final Borders stores will close on July 17, but others may close sooner dependent on the sellthrough of remaining stock.

The Administrator, Mr John Melluish, said the stores are closing because no buyers had emerged for the Borders outlets.

As a lover of books it always seemed that while Borders (and Angus and Robertson for that matter) might have had a lot of books, but they didn’t do a great job of pointing the reader to the best books.

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clueless70 said :

Suggested advertising copy for e-readers of any brand.

–‘Paper-like’ magnetised ink display: just like paper!
–Digital Rights Curtailment. You buy it; we keep it.
–Limited range of titles. Available material subject to oligopolistic commercial interests and middle-of-the-road marketplace demand.
–Poor user interface lacking basic file organisation tools.
–Small display of invariant proportions.
–Unable to display colour images.
–Half or less than half the dot resolution of commercially printed paper.
–Displays 16 levels of grey, the square-root of the greys available on this video display screen.
–Allows days of continuous reading time. After device is recharged for 4 hours, you’re back in business for days more reading.
–Relies on state-of-the-art, global, wireless communications network to function.
–Unavailable where electricity supply unavailable.
–Available intermittently where electricity supply intermittent.
–Lifetime expires as soon as 3G wireless connectivity protocols and hardware become obsolete.
–CAUTION: Fragile. Do not drop, flex, expose to moisture, extreme heat or cold, or place under heavy items. No user serviceable parts inside. Battery non-disposable and costs the same as a soft-cover novel.
–Cost: only ten times the price of a large hardback novel.
–Contents not included in purchase price.

No, I’m not in a hurry to buy one either.

What an appropriate user name.

Suggested advertising copy for e-readers of any brand.

–‘Paper-like’ magnetised ink display: just like paper!
–Digital Rights Curtailment. You buy it; we keep it.
–Limited range of titles. Available material subject to oligopolistic commercial interests and middle-of-the-road marketplace demand.
–Poor user interface lacking basic file organisation tools.
–Small display of invariant proportions.
–Unable to display colour images.
–Half or less than half the dot resolution of commercially printed paper.
–Displays 16 levels of grey, the square-root of the greys available on this video display screen.
–Allows days of continuous reading time. After device is recharged for 4 hours, you’re back in business for days more reading.
–Relies on state-of-the-art, global, wireless communications network to function.
–Unavailable where electricity supply unavailable.
–Available intermittently where electricity supply intermittent.
–Lifetime expires as soon as 3G wireless connectivity protocols and hardware become obsolete.
–CAUTION: Fragile. Do not drop, flex, expose to moisture, extreme heat or cold, or place under heavy items. No user serviceable parts inside. Battery non-disposable and costs the same as a soft-cover novel.
–Cost: only ten times the price of a large hardback novel.
–Contents not included in purchase price.

No, I’m not in a hurry to buy one either.

creative_canberran5:30 pm 22 Jul 11

The store is now totally shut up, yet the lights inside continue to burn. WTF is the point of that?

Uh oh. Amazon has bought the Book Depository. No doubt that will spell the demise of free shipping, at least until another company steps into the role.

Time to break the piggy bank and go through that wish list

Thoroughly Smashed10:49 am 11 Jun 11

Who’s suggesting that books are dead?

All we’ve seen here is the death of an old business model.

astrojax said :

Mysteryman said :

I think it will be a long time before anything is created that can replace the enjoyment of holding a book in your hands. For me, at least.

+1

and unlike vinyl, you don’t need specialised equipment to use a book. what will happen when your kindle packs it in and you’re three pages from the end of a thriller?? plus, i love being able to re-find text in a book because you have a memory of sort of where on which page it was and so can be found flicking back through the pages. long live books.

umm… search!

Thoroughly Smashed2:49 pm 10 Jun 11

Waiting until you’re going out of business isn’t quite the right time to try to be competitive.

At least Angus & Robertson had the good sense to discount by 75% when they had their closing down sale.

rosscoact said :

SheepGroper said :

Borders Civic are now discounting at 30% for most stuff, 40% for DVDs and 20% for cards.

and yet still dearer than you can buy online

+1

SheepGroper said :

Borders Civic are now discounting at 30% for most stuff, 40% for DVDs and 20% for cards.

and yet still dearer than you can buy online

Borders Civic are now discounting at 30% for most stuff, 40% for DVDs and 20% for cards.

Given how bad they were at their core business of running physical bookshops, I don’t see much future for their online sales, especially now that they’ve tarnished their image with the stupid decision to cancel gift cards.

Maybe Civic Library can move in there, so people can still go and read at lunchtime

creative_canberran6:53 pm 03 Jun 11

Worth noting that the Borders online store at this stage will continue to trade and receive new stock. Given that their chief competition is from Amazon online anyway, this may well be a good move. Remove the expensive, capital intensive retail footprint and incompetent staff and focus online with lower overheads. We could actually see some improved competition come out of this… maybe. All depends on how they play it.

And Borders also had trouble with spelling –

http://the-riotact.com/its-the-attention-to-detail/28425

Ryan said :

Wonder who will take over the space vacated by Borders? Seems too big for your ‘ordinary’ store and its location probably isn’t best for chopping it up into smaller stores..

MudLark said :

“Vast areas of the Hyperdome (including the newsagent) have disappeared”

Where has the newsagent gone?

Out onto Anketell Street apparently, somewhere along that section of empty shopfronts opposite Southlife.

It’s right near the pedestrian crossing out the front of the Hyperdome. There were “now open” signs out the front yesterday.

Internet book sales continued (free plug http://booko.com.au/ )

… and nothing of value was lost.

Thoroughly Smashed1:00 pm 03 Jun 11

johnboy said :

As a lover of books it always seemed that while Borders (and Angus and Robertson for that matter) might have had a lot of books, but they didn’t do a great job of pointing the reader to the best books.

Nor, apparently, did they realise their business model had become an anachronism.

Mysteryman said :

True. I read the wrong link. I was reading an announcement from 2010. My other points remain though – they are still selling more print books than ever before, regardless of their ebook sales. That doesn’t sound like the death of printed books to me.

The market share of ebooks is growing exponentially (a recently released report from the Association of American Publishers puts a figure of 5-6% of profits to member publishers coming from ebooks – this is in keeping with exponential growth).

Similarly, Amazon’s market share has continued to rise since it’s inception (hence they are selling more printed books than previously, because they own more of the market).

It’s still early days, but Amazon are now selling more ebooks than printed books. It was only in 2010 that they announced that they were selling more ebooks than hardcover (which is a very small market).

How would you foresee these shifs in market share occurring if not at the expense of printed books? Is everyone buying more ebooks *and* printed books?

Figures from the AAP don’t support this conclusion (depending on which end of the market you look at, print sales in the US are either declining or stagnant), and Australia reports the same (with not just the liquidation of Angus & Robertson and Borders, but also large distributors such as REDGroup).

In 2010 in Australia, print runs declined by roughly 20%, but overall volume of book industry production actually increased by 4%. eBooks aren’t responsible for this shift (in Australia, ebooks have a very small 3-5% of the market), but they are very quickly coming in to fill the gap.

Because of the regional restrictions to a lot of ebook reading technology, we’re lagging a few years behind the American experience, but the way forward is remarkably clear. eBooks will continue to take more and more market share.

pink little birdie12:23 pm 03 Jun 11

People who buy books don’t just buy from Amazon. There are still alot of people who buy books from physical book stores… before going to Amazon.
I tend to order my American print books from Dymocks who will get the book in for me. I only order books on the internet as a last resort if I can’t find the book here or can’t order it from a book store.
Amazon might be cheaper but I like going into a store and finding the book I want and then leaving with it… and I’m going to be willing to continue to pay for that service for a long while.

Also have you seen how many people attend the lifeline bookfairs here? The number of people attending is going up each time 🙂

Jim Jones said :

Mysteryman said :

Let’s not forget that the statistic about e-books outselling HARDCOVER books is for one company only – Amazon – which is also the company that produces the Kindle. They are selling more e-books than hardcovers. There was no mention of selling more e-books than printed books. That’s an important distinction. Just as importantly, during the same announcement, the Amazon CEO said that hardcover sales had also increased during the same period. So really, the argument that e-books are killing print books is specious at best.

No. You obviously didn’t bother reading the link.

Amazon are selling more Kindle e-books than both hardcover and paperback books combined. They are selling more ebooks than printed books.

True. I read the wrong link. I was reading an announcement from 2010. My other points remain though – they are still selling more print books than ever before, regardless of their ebook sales. That doesn’t sound like the death of printed books to me.

ConanOfCooma10:39 am 03 Jun 11

The title is wrong. Borders hasn’t gone, it’s going.

Wonder who will take over the space vacated by Borders? Seems too big for your ‘ordinary’ store and its location probably isn’t best for chopping it up into smaller stores..

MudLark said :

“Vast areas of the Hyperdome (including the newsagent) have disappeared”

Where has the newsagent gone?

Out onto Anketell Street apparently, somewhere along that section of empty shopfronts opposite Southlife.

John Moulis said :

kezzafezza said :

I’ve got my books online for awhile now. A book I recently purchased was over $40 at Borders, and I got it from Amazon for only $13.
I’d love it if someone could post here if they notice Borders are having a massive closing sale. Last week Angus and Robertson in Woden were selling all their books in store on their final day for a gold coin each. I wish I had of known! A friend of mine got about 80 brand new books for $80.

I got there in the late afternoon when the shelves were almost all empty. Still managed to pick up 8 books for $8.00. There were several copies of Steve Vizard’s autobiography and surprisingly a book about gay sex also remained unsold.

Surprisingly?

The Traineediplomat9:42 pm 02 Jun 11

MudLark said :

“Vast areas of the Hyperdome (including the newsagent) have disappeared”

Where has the newsagent gone?

Bermuda…..I hear the Triangles are lovely…

“Vast areas of the Hyperdome (including the newsagent) have disappeared”

Where has the newsagent gone?

ebooks are more resilient than real books… if your reader is stolen or damaged just get a new one and download your books from where you got them or from your back-up.

Got a different reader as a replacement?… just shift the format with a fomat shifting programme.

Sad to see little inlymbo’s Friday night ‘Liberry’ trip gone.

Me on the other hand, could not care less. Over the years every book I was interested in buying was not in stock, one had won the New York Times book of the year that very year…..still no luck.

The staff never seemed to care too much about anything in my opinion except maybe how alternative their hairdo was.

I bought quite a few of little inlymbos many books there and joined the valued customer crap thing. Turned out you had to spend a lot of money within three months to get anything out of it (I think they changed it to 6 months at some point in time). I ripped up at least 4 loyalty cards that had expired.

The Canberra store was always full of people, and I do not remember ever walking to a register without at least 2 people in front of me, I don’t think the death of this bookstore has anything to do with the internet or ebooks, just bad customer service, stock holdings and less than enthused staff.

Mysteryman said :

Let’s not forget that the statistic about e-books outselling HARDCOVER books is for one company only – Amazon – which is also the company that produces the Kindle. They are selling more e-books than hardcovers. There was no mention of selling more e-books than printed books. That’s an important distinction. Just as importantly, during the same announcement, the Amazon CEO said that hardcover sales had also increased during the same period. So really, the argument that e-books are killing print books is specious at best.

No. You obviously didn’t bother reading the link.

Amazon are selling more Kindle e-books than both hardcover and paperback books combined. They are selling more ebooks than printed books.

The Canberra Borders is certainly a good case study in how to not run what should have been a very viable business. The stock clearly wasn’t tailored to local interests, prices were routinely marked up by 10% compared to the rates in other stores (and about 100% compared to rates available on the internet) and the staff didn’t know much about the books they were selling – often even whether they were in stock or where they were shelved! The fact that they were air freighting week old editions of weekly news magazines from the US and then selling them at premium rates says it all really. It’s a shame that people are losing their jobs and we’re losing a bookshop, but the writing has been on the wall for a while.

creative_canberran5:55 pm 02 Jun 11

johnboy said :

The printed book won’t die any more than the illuminated manuscript died.

But it will become irrelevant to future publishing.

Don’t say that JB… Canberra’s export income will disappear if those warehouses in Fyshwick have no stores to ship too!

Mysteryman said :

I love hearing the “death of print” predictions.

I know how you feel. it goes hand in hand with the “death of the postal system” doomsayers. People forget how massive Amazon, etc. is, and somehow have forgotten how the books get from the supplier to the people who ordered them.

I don’t own an e-reader, and I have no intention on buying one until I can be sure that I’m not being ripped off on the price of what is essentially nothing (an infinitely copyable file). I understand that money has to go the the author/distributor, but charging almost as much as a printed copy is beyond me.

Jim Jones said :

What’s the difference between reading an ebook in a comfy chair and reading a paperback in a comfy chair?

Quite right, there is no difference. But what’s the difference between having your bag stolen with your e-reader in it, and having you bag stolen with one paperback in it? When was the last time you felt comfortable whipping out an expensive electronic device on crowded public transport? Nobody ever mugged you for your book before, right? Or what happens when the book you’re reading gets wet, or you accidentally drop it? You can still read a damaged book…

Back on topic.
I personally think that one of the reasons Borders went under is because of the high markup of books, particularly for classics. Last time a checked, these works were in the public domain, yet Borders tried to charge roughly the same amount as a non-classic. Even the Penguin series (or what have you), that are intended to be cheap, are still priced around the $20 mark. One look at Amazon shows just how ridiculous this markup is, as they generally don’t charge close to that amount. Even the smaller/independent book stores don’t gouge by that much, and they are supposed to have less buying power.

I can’t be the only person who used Borders as a walk-in catalogue for “stuff I’ll buy off the internet later.”

Stevian said :

Jim Jones said :

neanderthalsis said :

johnboy said :

Any business based on selling hard copy media is doomed.

What will be left will be selling the object, not the information within.

But that’s OK, because the opportunity is there to sell lovely cases for our kindles.

There are a lot of ardent bibliophiles out there (me included) that consider e-readers to be an abomination before God and all things holy. Having a kindle with 3000 e-books just isn’t the same as a book lined room with a comfy chair.

What’s the difference between reading an ebook in a comfy chair and reading a paperback in a comfy chair?

The only one I can see is that the ebook reader is generally a lot more convenient. It’s lighter and easier to handle, you can alter the font to your desired size, and so on.

I dunno – a lot of this sounds like people saying that they refuse to drive cars because nothing compares to the experience of riding a horse.

I’ve held a kindle I’ve held a book. Books are better

I’m not sure what the reason for the demise of Borders is, but I would hazard a guess and say it has less to do with the advent of e-books than some people are assuming.
Sure, Kindle sales, along with all tablets, are growing, and the sale of e-books has been growing at a massive rate as hard copy has declined, but this is normal as the adoption of this new technology is taken up by those who prefer it. At some point it will probably plateau and we will have a clearer picture of the future of print. I believe that there will always be people who will just prefer the hard copy over the digital version, and for a number of reasons. For example, books make great gifts – it just seems a little weird to give your mum a download of Donna Hay’s latest release as a Mother’s Day present – and they look good on the shelf or on the coffee table. Their tactile nature is more attractive to many and somehow, to many people they just “feel right”.
It is also interesting to note that after the release of the ipad, many punters were predicting the end of the hard copy magazine as more and more people would start to download their favourite periodical, but the facts show that the sale of magazine downloads has taken a dramatic turn for the worse once the initial novelty has worn off. Some publishers have reported declines of downloads as high as 60% in the last year.
So back to Borders, maybe it was just bad management, or the effects of the GFC etc etc..

I’d just like to thank the RiotACT for introducing me to booko.com.au (and through that, bookdepository.co.uk) many moons ago. Novels for <$10? Textbooks for 1/3 the price? I've actually bought MORE books thanks to the evil internet discount retailers. It's a great time to be a reader!

Jim Jones said :

Mysteryman said :

I love hearing the “death of print” predictions.

I buy more books now that I ever have. The internet has allowed me to source a greater variety of hard copy books than I ever could have 10 years ago. The same can be said for all my friends who are readers. Design, photography and architecture books are what I usually buy, and you can’t view them on an e-reader because of the large photographic content.

I think it will be a long time before anything is created that can replace the enjoyment of holding a book in your hands. For me, at least.

I also buy a lot of pictorially dependent print books, because the ebook technology hasn’t yet reached the point where reproduction is satisfactory (although that will no doubt change very very quickly, with the Ipad not only providing lush images, but also starting to include image interactivity, and now with the development and progression of coloured e-ink).

But the tide is slowly changing – Amazon is now selling more ebooks than paperback and hardback combined, and they are far from being the only ones witnessing the shift.

Given that ebook readers are still in relative infancy and are owned by a minority of readers (although the uptake is on a very sharp upswing – and it’s worth noting that ebook readers tend to be owned by the most voracious readers), it’s pretty clear that paperbacks (at very least those that are solely text-based) will be supplanted by ebooks.

I don’t know why some people find this threatening. It’s liberating.

Compare it to what happened in the music industry. Since the death of hard copy formats (vinyl, tapes, CD) and the move to electronic files, all varieties of music are infinitely easier to get hold of, listen to, share, and there’s been an upsurge of amateur and semi-professional recordings (as opposed to the previous dominance of recording artists who were pushed by large recording companies).

The same kind of thing is already happening with publishing – the relatively low overheads involved in producing an ebook (as opposed to the costs involved with storing and shipping expensive printed books – not to mention the operational costs involved when you add retail markups and the rest) means that there’s a lot more books available to choose from, without prohibitive costs. This involves more people reading, not less.

Yes, printed copies will probably exist in one way or another for a long time. Just in the same way that vinyl has made a small resurgence of late (“because you can’t hug an mp3”), but it’s a minor part of the market for a small group of collectors, as will printed books be, I think.

The book is dead, long live the book.

I’ve used iPad, Galaxy Tabs, and an endless list of new technology. I would never trade a large photo book for an ipad, or anything like it. I can see that each has a place, and I get that people love iPads and other gadgets. When it comes to books, though, I prefer hard copies.

Let’s not forget that the statistic about e-books outselling HARDCOVER books is for one company only – Amazon – which is also the company that produces the Kindle. They are selling more e-books than hardcovers. There was no mention of selling more e-books than printed books. That’s an important distinction. Just as importantly, during the same announcement, the Amazon CEO said that hardcover sales had also increased during the same period. So really, the argument that e-books are killing print books is specious at best.

I like the simplicity of being able to write on a page with a pen when I need to make notes. I like the feeling of paper on my fingers. I like being able to turn pages in large format photo books. I really like being able to lend and borrow books to friends. I don’t expect everyone to feel the same, but for those reasons, I’ll keep buying hard copies.

Mysteryman said :

I love hearing the “death of print” predictions.

I buy more books now that I ever have. The internet has allowed me to source a greater variety of hard copy books than I ever could have 10 years ago. The same can be said for all my friends who are readers. Design, photography and architecture books are what I usually buy, and you can’t view them on an e-reader because of the large photographic content.

I think it will be a long time before anything is created that can replace the enjoyment of holding a book in your hands. For me, at least.

Mysteryman, I too appreciate the feel of books for their own sake, and I agree that some books – in my case, ones about architecture and Japanese culture – are always going to hold a special place that cannot be replicated by an e-reader, and I’ll happily pay for them.

But for other books, given that my space is at a premium, I’ll be going on-line – and that, I guess, is the bottom line for the economic shift.

And now Borders is going, one has to ask – was it worth the death of all the small specialised bookshops ?

Borders – the greatest waste of retail space in Canberra CBD – how could they have so many books that nobody (or at least too few to survive) wanted to read at a price that was higher than anywhere else?

E books – I buy e books and if I really find it useful (I’m mainly talking reference here) I buy a print version. I’ve done it about 5 times now and it’s so easy. Download the book from Kindle, read it on the ipad, flip a page and look up booko, order and bob’s you mother’s live-in lover. Ina week or so it arrives, postage free for 1/3 to 1/2 the price that Borders charge

FYI for the bookworms
Amazon UK have a sale on now until 15 August whereby freight to Aust for virtually all books is FREE.
I’ve been buying new release paperbacks for 1/3 or less the A$ price. Eg the Stieg Larsson set of 3 books – in Oz they are $20 plus each – I got the set of 3 for $19

Jim Jones said :

neanderthalsis said :

johnboy said :

Any business based on selling hard copy media is doomed.

What will be left will be selling the object, not the information within.

But that’s OK, because the opportunity is there to sell lovely cases for our kindles.

There are a lot of ardent bibliophiles out there (me included) that consider e-readers to be an abomination before God and all things holy. Having a kindle with 3000 e-books just isn’t the same as a book lined room with a comfy chair.

What’s the difference between reading an ebook in a comfy chair and reading a paperback in a comfy chair?

The only one I can see is that the ebook reader is generally a lot more convenient. It’s lighter and easier to handle, you can alter the font to your desired size, and so on.

I dunno – a lot of this sounds like people saying that they refuse to drive cars because nothing compares to the experience of riding a horse.

I’ve held a kindle I’ve held a book. Books are better

Holierthanthou4:04 pm 02 Jun 11

Books vs ebooks is different to vinyl vs CD or VHS vs DVD. ebooks have taken off and will conintue to chomp aggressively into the market share but printed books will still be around as a major player for a long time. And not just as niche like vinyls or reel-to-reel or horses or gaslight are today.

But good riddance to your high prices and pre-read-heavily-thumbed books.

neanderthalsis said :

johnboy said :

Any business based on selling hard copy media is doomed.

What will be left will be selling the object, not the information within.

But that’s OK, because the opportunity is there to sell lovely cases for our kindles.

There are a lot of ardent bibliophiles out there (me included) that consider e-readers to be an abomination before God and all things holy. Having a kindle with 3000 e-books just isn’t the same as a book lined room with a comfy chair.

What’s the difference between reading an ebook in a comfy chair and reading a paperback in a comfy chair?

The only one I can see is that the ebook reader is generally a lot more convenient. It’s lighter and easier to handle, you can alter the font to your desired size, and so on.

I dunno – a lot of this sounds like people saying that they refuse to drive cars because nothing compares to the experience of riding a horse.

Mysteryman said :

I think it will be a long time before anything is created that can replace the enjoyment of holding a book in your hands. For me, at least.

+1

and unlike vinyl, you don’t need specialised equipment to use a book. what will happen when your kindle packs it in and you’re three pages from the end of a thriller?? plus, i love being able to re-find text in a book because you have a memory of sort of where on which page it was and so can be found flicking back through the pages. long live books.

Mysteryman said :

I love hearing the “death of print” predictions.

I buy more books now that I ever have. The internet has allowed me to source a greater variety of hard copy books than I ever could have 10 years ago. The same can be said for all my friends who are readers. Design, photography and architecture books are what I usually buy, and you can’t view them on an e-reader because of the large photographic content.

I think it will be a long time before anything is created that can replace the enjoyment of holding a book in your hands. For me, at least.

I also buy a lot of pictorially dependent print books, because the ebook technology hasn’t yet reached the point where reproduction is satisfactory (although that will no doubt change very very quickly, with the Ipad not only providing lush images, but also starting to include image interactivity, and now with the development and progression of coloured e-ink).

But the tide is slowly changing – Amazon is now selling more ebooks than paperback and hardback combined, and they are far from being the only ones witnessing the shift.

Given that ebook readers are still in relative infancy and are owned by a minority of readers (although the uptake is on a very sharp upswing – and it’s worth noting that ebook readers tend to be owned by the most voracious readers), it’s pretty clear that paperbacks (at very least those that are solely text-based) will be supplanted by ebooks.

I don’t know why some people find this threatening. It’s liberating.

Compare it to what happened in the music industry. Since the death of hard copy formats (vinyl, tapes, CD) and the move to electronic files, all varieties of music are infinitely easier to get hold of, listen to, share, and there’s been an upsurge of amateur and semi-professional recordings (as opposed to the previous dominance of recording artists who were pushed by large recording companies).

The same kind of thing is already happening with publishing – the relatively low overheads involved in producing an ebook (as opposed to the costs involved with storing and shipping expensive printed books – not to mention the operational costs involved when you add retail markups and the rest) means that there’s a lot more books available to choose from, without prohibitive costs. This involves more people reading, not less.

Yes, printed copies will probably exist in one way or another for a long time. Just in the same way that vinyl has made a small resurgence of late (“because you can’t hug an mp3”), but it’s a minor part of the market for a small group of collectors, as will printed books be, I think.

The book is dead, long live the book.

John Moulis said :

kezzafezza said :

I’ve got my books online for awhile now. A book I recently purchased was over $40 at Borders, and I got it from Amazon for only $13.
I’d love it if someone could post here if they notice Borders are having a massive closing sale. Last week Angus and Robertson in Woden were selling all their books in store on their final day for a gold coin each. I wish I had of known! A friend of mine got about 80 brand new books for $80.

I got there in the late afternoon when the shelves were almost all empty. Still managed to pick up 8 books for $8.00. There were several copies of Steve Vizard’s autobiography and surprisingly a book about gay sex also remained unsold.

Bugger missed it!

neanderthalsis3:50 pm 02 Jun 11

johnboy said :

Any business based on selling hard copy media is doomed.

What will be left will be selling the object, not the information within.

But that’s OK, because the opportunity is there to sell lovely cases for our kindles.

There are a lot of ardent bibliophiles out there (me included) that consider e-readers to be an abomination before God and all things holy. Having a kindle with 3000 e-books just isn’t the same as a book lined room with a comfy chair.

kezzafezza said :

I’ve got my books online for awhile now. A book I recently purchased was over $40 at Borders, and I got it from Amazon for only $13.
I’d love it if someone could post here if they notice Borders are having a massive closing sale. Last week Angus and Robertson in Woden were selling all their books in store on their final day for a gold coin each. I wish I had of known! A friend of mine got about 80 brand new books for $80.

I got there in the late afternoon when the shelves were almost all empty. Still managed to pick up 8 books for $8.00. There were several copies of Steve Vizard’s autobiography and surprisingly a book about gay sex also remained unsold.

*Sale update*
As of this afternoon Boarders are still only offering 20% off marked price on most stuff (didnt check the whole store).

If anyone is close by during the week would appreciate updates as the % increases.

kezzafezza said :

I’ve got my books online for awhile now. A book I recently purchased was over $40 at Borders, and I got it from Amazon for only $13.
I’d love it if someone could post here if they notice Borders are having a massive closing sale. Last week Angus and Robertson in Woden were selling all their books in store on their final day for a gold coin each. I wish I had of known! A friend of mine got about 80 brand new books for $80.

If you cross your fingers Borders might drop their price to RRP.

I love hearing the “death of print” predictions.

I buy more books now that I ever have. The internet has allowed me to source a greater variety of hard copy books than I ever could have 10 years ago. The same can be said for all my friends who are readers. Design, photography and architecture books are what I usually buy, and you can’t view them on an e-reader because of the large photographic content.

I think it will be a long time before anything is created that can replace the enjoyment of holding a book in your hands. For me, at least.

I am in two minds about this.

Next week I will move house together with Mrs. Ryoma, and we will (finally – yay!) have more space, in which to take things out of boxes, including books. But the new rental we’re moving too is not so much bigger I could buy a heap of new books, even if I had the desire or the cash. So, I’m likely to invest in a Kindle or the like at some time in future.

But part of me is quite sad. I found Borders to be one of the few bookstores in Canberra with what I consider to be the right attitude towards its customers; let them browse, especially when it’s cold and wet, and when they do buy a book, it will be from the store they appreciate. Unfortunately, even though I’d spend roughly $200/year on books, that’s not enough overall….

And a wider implication has just occured to me as well. If printed books get rarer, especially ones around politics or history, then they may get more valuable for more than just their scarcity value.

In a world full of spin, and where websites can change in a matter of hours, a book may come to be seen as something which is like a photograph; something which captures a certain perspective at a point in history. Even if that perspective later looks backwards or wrong; at least it will be percieved as honest, as it’s harder to doctor a book than it is to doctor a website…

johnboy said :

The printed book won’t die any more than the illuminated manuscript died.

But it will become irrelevant to future publishing.

Already happening.

Horses didn’t ‘die’ when the automobile was introduced, nor did vinyl disappear with the advent of tapes, CD, mp3, etc, but their central place was certainly disturbed.

dungfungus said :

The town centre shopping malls are starting to look like a row of rotten teeth. Vast areas of the Hyperdome (including the newsagent) have disappeared, the fruit shop at Erindale has closed again and there literally streets of vacant shops all over Canberra not to mention the failed Brand Depot and the eternally half empty DFO. I hope all you smart-arsed Amazon shoppers are happy and are confident you will be able to get your kids and “on-line” job when they leave school. If things are this bad in Canberra imagine how bad it is in the rest of Australia. You won’t read about in the CT that’s for sure. I could add more but most Canberra people are so self-centered they wouldn’t care. I hope all their superannuation is vested in the share market.

You could argue that Borders and the newsagent have been affected by online shopping, but how would that make a fruit shop going out of business? Brand Depot went under for a whole different set of reasons, and DFO is just too big for the market. Had it occured to you that perhaps Canberra is just oversupplied with retail space relative to the population?

Stevian said :

johnboy said :

Any business based on selling hard copy media is doomed.

What will be left will be selling the object, not the information within.

But that’s OK, because the opportunity is there to sell lovely cases for our kindles.

The death of the book has been predicted for years. Still no sign of that happening.

http://venturebeat.com/2011/05/19/kindle-books-surpass-print/

The printed book won’t die any more than the illuminated manuscript died.

But it will become irrelevant to future publishing.

johnboy said :

Any business based on selling hard copy media is doomed.

What will be left will be selling the object, not the information within.

But that’s OK, because the opportunity is there to sell lovely cases for our kindles.

The death of the book has been predicted for years. Still no sign of that happening.

Any business based on selling hard copy media is doomed.

What will be left will be selling the object, not the information within.

But that’s OK, because the opportunity is there to sell lovely cases for our kindles.

The town centre shopping malls are starting to look like a row of rotten teeth. Vast areas of the Hyperdome (including the newsagent) have disappeared, the fruit shop at Erindale has closed again and there literally streets of vacant shops all over Canberra not to mention the failed Brand Depot and the eternally half empty DFO. I hope all you smart-arsed Amazon shoppers are happy and are confident you will be able to get your kids and “on-line” job when they leave school. If things are this bad in Canberra imagine how bad it is in the rest of Australia. You won’t read about in the CT that’s for sure. I could add more but most Canberra people are so self-centered they wouldn’t care. I hope all their superannuation is vested in the share market.

Whilst there are undoubtedly better bookstores here in Canberra, Borders did definitely have their place in the greater scheme of things. I had a couple of surprise finds there over the years, with books turning up at Borders that one really would have expected to have been stocked by places like Paperchain or the NLA shop. Borders, you will be missed!

staminaman62 said :

Good riddance. I once fronted up to buy a book (hardcopy $60). When I had the temerity to ask for a bag they tried to charge me an extra 20 cents (it was a hot day and I didn’t want to get my sweaty hands all over my nice new expensive book). As I didn’t have any change they refused to give me a bag for free, even though I had just spent $60.

A short time later I decided to return the book and told the staff member why. He couldn’t give a stuff. I went to another bookstore and purchased the same book for about $15 cheaper (and free bag).

If a store has such a stupid policy and treats its customers with such contempt, it deserves to close.

Exactly the same reason i wont shop there, or at Target which have the same policy.

staminaman62 said :

Good riddance. I once fronted up to buy a book (hardcopy $60). When I had the temerity to ask for a bag they tried to charge me an extra 20 cents (it was a hot day and I didn’t want to get my sweaty hands all over my nice new expensive book). As I didn’t have any change they refused to give me a bag for free, even though I had just spent $60.

A short time later I decided to return the book and told the staff member why. He couldn’t give a stuff. I went to another bookstore and purchased the same book for about $15 cheaper (and free bag).

If a store has such a stupid policy and treats its customers with such contempt, it deserves to close.

Refusing to give you something for free is your idea of treating you with contempt? Geez… shopping must be a frustrating ordeal for you.

kezzafezza said :

I’ve got my books online for awhile now. A book I recently purchased was over $40 at Borders, and I got it from Amazon for only $13.
I’d love it if someone could post here if they notice Borders are having a massive closing sale. Last week Angus and Robertson in Woden were selling all their books in store on their final day for a gold coin each. I wish I had of known! A friend of mine got about 80 brand new books for $80.

Even at sale prices Amazon works out cheaper.

It must be pretty s*** being a sales person in such a situation, having charged $60 for a book and having no discretion to offer a bag for free. I probably wouldn’t be surprised if the person returned it either.

staminaman62 said :

Good riddance. I once fronted up to buy a book (hardcopy $60). When I had the temerity to ask for a bag they tried to charge me an extra 20 cents (it was a hot day and I didn’t want to get my sweaty hands all over my nice new expensive book). As I didn’t have any change they refused to give me a bag for free, even though I had just spent $60.

A short time later I decided to return the book and told the staff member why. He couldn’t give a stuff. I went to another bookstore and purchased the same book for about $15 cheaper (and free bag).

If a store has such a stupid policy and treats its customers with such contempt, it deserves to close.

A lot of places have the policy to not give plastic bags without charging for them first. It’s to discourage the use of..well plastic bags. I’m sure it wasn’t personal:) As for the guy not giving a stuff at why you asked for a refund.. at least you got a refund?

staminaman621:29 pm 02 Jun 11

Good riddance. I once fronted up to buy a book (hardcopy $60). When I had the temerity to ask for a bag they tried to charge me an extra 20 cents (it was a hot day and I didn’t want to get my sweaty hands all over my nice new expensive book). As I didn’t have any change they refused to give me a bag for free, even though I had just spent $60.

A short time later I decided to return the book and told the staff member why. He couldn’t give a stuff. I went to another bookstore and purchased the same book for about $15 cheaper (and free bag).

If a store has such a stupid policy and treats its customers with such contempt, it deserves to close.

creative_canberran1:11 pm 02 Jun 11

Good riddance I say. The place was poorly managed and the staff never knew what they were doing. Their overseas magazines were double the price you can get them at a local newsagent who assumedly has less buying power. So when they didn’t sell well, their solution was to halve the range and put up signs telling people not to look at them… nice. But above all the staff were useless. More than once I asked them to check for a book, they didn’t know how to. So I just told them to step aside and used their computer.

I really liked being able to hang out there, check out books, grab a drink. I spent quite a bit of money there, too. I’ll be sad to see them go.

I’ve got my books online for awhile now. A book I recently purchased was over $40 at Borders, and I got it from Amazon for only $13.
I’d love it if someone could post here if they notice Borders are having a massive closing sale. Last week Angus and Robertson in Woden were selling all their books in store on their final day for a gold coin each. I wish I had of known! A friend of mine got about 80 brand new books for $80.

Sad……………………….I feel really sorry for the staff there.

Hopefully, while those Liquidators are in the mood for closing things, they could swing past the ACT Chambers on their way back to Sydney……………………………………? Hmmmm…………………?

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