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I went to my local Borders at the mall today. Fortunately it's staying open and is one of their most profitable stores. I heard that high rents are one of the reasons for the closures of certain stores.
Although Amazon is fine if you know you want a certain title or a work by a specific author, it's a pain to browse.
If your looking for the harder to find, Amazon is very accomidating. I sat down to kill a little time and searched for "war diaries" and came up with three or four hours of searching and a lot of stuff on the wish list. I like that you can look for theme or content instead of just catagory.
I almost always buy used or library copies and can get hardbacks for less than the cost of your average paperback today. For physical browsing, wondering when you'll come upon some hidden treasure in a used book store is half the enjoyment of being there. The other thing I love about used book stores is the people who run them LOVE books and generally are knowledgable about them. The people who work in most chain stores are good at looking it up on the database..
My other favorite place to look for books is at the dealers room at conventions. (meaning science fiction conventions). Fandom is heavily literate and while the predominant genre you find is sf, there are lots of others since people tend to read a lot of subjects because we tend to read a lot. Half the enjoyment of the dealers room is chatting with your fellow shopers and the sellers about little known treasures which tend to show up somewhere in the room.
I think another reason that bookstores are having a hard time is that people just aren't spending money if they don't have to. Can't spend what you don't have.
There's also ABE books online when looking for hard to find used books. I have 2 used bookstores much closer to me than Borders. One of them put me on to ABE.
Nothing can beat browsing, reading jackets, back covers, and flipping pages, though.
Mostly I use libraries. Lately I've drifted back to reading 4-5 books a week, too expensive to buy them all. BTW, if you're a heavy reader, check out your state interlibrary loan system.
Borders is having a "buy four romances; get the fifth free" sale. I decided to go to my local store this evening one last time before the liquidation sale begins and the hordes of vultures being descending. I spent $64.96, including the scary California and L.A. County sales tax of 9.75% ($5.77), and this is without any coupons. The equivalent books on Amazon would have cost $74.68 even with free shipping and no sales tax. (It helps that I bought "100 Ways to Cook Chicken" that was marked down to $5.99 from $8.95; this was full price at Amazon.)
Among other things, I bought four Harlequin Presents. Amazon's full price for a physical book is $4.75; for Kindle the price drops to $3.40. Even if I had bought those books on my Kindle, the Amazon bill still would have been $69.28.
What an interesting comparison! If Borders hadn't had their romance sale, Amazon probably would have come out ahead. However, then I'd still have to wait for the shipment, and I wouldn't save that much - partially because of the "agency pricing" that the publishers have placed on e-books, even the older titles that have been out for a while. I, for one, refuse to pay full price for an e-book, especially one that was released a few years ago!
Amazon doesn't always save its customers money; my experience this evening has proven that. It's too bad that I'll now have to drive twelve miles to prove that in the future.
True. I'm also realizing that with the eventual closing of more of those "bricks and mortar" [as they say] stores that Amazon and places such as that are just starting to salivate at the thought of adding/increasing any fees associated with their sales. To keep the competition alive and prevent that from happening, can't we support both?
I notice from that list that quite a number are situated in malls. That may be one reason for closing down underoperating stores in those type of locations as often B&N also have stores in the malls.
The Borders closest to me is in a strip mall type location and isn't on the list.
The two Border's stores within a 40 mins drive from my house are not located in a mall . One is closing, the other is staying open.
Some malls do rather well depending on the stores and locality and pleasing architecture, oh, and have to add management.
Why do you prefer Borders to B&N? To me they are pretty similar.
Because I used to work for B&N. It was not a pleasant experience to say the least. They don't treat their employees well, and they were a VERY predatory company. I felt like I was working Attila the Hun --- only Attila had more honor.
That being said, this was 15 or so years ago. Maybe things have improved.
Borders Group has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (reorganization), and as a result they're closing 200 stores, reducing them by a third.
Don't worry, it's just a way to get rid of store related debt. They'll continue to sell books via the web. If a store was not profitable they can get rid of it now and keep the profitable stores open.
The decisions to close which stores is ridiculous. From what I've read, it's all about the lease price vs. store profitability. Geography has nothing to do with it, so in the San Fernando Valley, we're going to be left with two stores within five miles of each other in the west Valley and nothing elsewhere. This is also why all three Borders in Austin, Texas are closing! Uh, guys, wouldn't you want to leave one of them open to absorb the business from the other two? Honestly, it looks as if this bankruptcy is being managed as incompetently as every other aspect of their business!
I was at BN the other day, and the same book at the store was cheaper online. The store is practically empty, and they don't have any place to sit. I like Borders better, and definitely the nieghborhood one. I guess my issue, is that I just don't have the money for books. Or even time to read much. A sign of the times. How long will it take before we buy a "Nook" for the local library and can just check books out electronically?
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It's too bad that I'll now have to drive twelve miles to prove that in the future. 
Honestly, it looks as if this bankruptcy is being managed as incompetently as every other aspect of their business! 
