The Future of Barnes & Noble
The future of Barnes & Noble booksellers is questionable. They are facing several pressing issues that must be dealt with delicately and efficiently. As highlighted in the first paper, a major problem for Barnes & Noble is their declining profits caused by decreasing sales of physical books and printed information. Another issue affecting the success of their future is the lack of organization and ability to make decisions of the top management.
In my opinion, the issue of their aging technology and decreasing profit is the most urgent and complicated. Barnes & Noble is losing money on its physical retail stores because of decreasing market demand for printed books and information. The company needs to take serious action to improve this significant issue. With regards to the rapidly advancing technological world, the company has done well producing new technology to compete in this growing online market. Ironically though, a major source of declining profits from 2010 to 2011 was the costs associated with the marketing of Barnes & Noble’s NOOK eReaders and tablet. A portion of the losses was also associated with the Barnes & Noble College segment. Government funding for colleges has decreased which means fewer students, and in turn fewer textbooks being purchased. I believe the company is in for some major change in it’s future.
There are several options for Barnes & Noble to pursue in order to combat this issue of declining profits. The company is considering breaking off the growing NOOK and online bookstore from the aging physical locations. This could be beneficial for their online future, but will undoubtedly elicit failure of the physical retail locations. I do not think this option is a sensible idea and should not be carried out because the physical locations are highly unprofitable without the boosting growth of the online segment. Also, this would eliminate a huge area for marketing the NOOK and ebookstore. The physical locations are what
In my opinion, the issue of their aging technology and decreasing profit is the most urgent and complicated. Barnes & Noble is losing money on its physical retail stores because of decreasing market demand for printed books and information. The company needs to take serious action to improve this significant issue. With regards to the rapidly advancing technological world, the company has done well producing new technology to compete in this growing online market. Ironically though, a major source of declining profits from 2010 to 2011 was the costs associated with the marketing of Barnes & Noble’s NOOK eReaders and tablet. A portion of the losses was also associated with the Barnes & Noble College segment. Government funding for colleges has decreased which means fewer students, and in turn fewer textbooks being purchased. I believe the company is in for some major change in it’s future.
There are several options for Barnes & Noble to pursue in order to combat this issue of declining profits. The company is considering breaking off the growing NOOK and online bookstore from the aging physical locations. This could be beneficial for their online future, but will undoubtedly elicit failure of the physical retail locations. I do not think this option is a sensible idea and should not be carried out because the physical locations are highly unprofitable without the boosting growth of the online segment. Also, this would eliminate a huge area for marketing the NOOK and ebookstore. The physical locations are what