Barnes & Noble Could Succumb to the Retail Apocalypse

The rise in e-commerce outlets like Amazon makes it hard for traditional retailers like
Bookstore, electronic stores, department stores, grocery stores, and other stores hard to attract
customers threatening their existence (Taylor et al., 2018). For instance, the rise of Amazon
made it impossible for well-known retailers like Toys R Us and others disappear. Critics are
quick to point out that, Barnes & Noble troubles arise from Amazon competition, making it
struggle for many years closing some of its stores (Streitfield, 2017).
Barnes & Noble must deal with competition from Amazon to avoid going out of
business. Barnes & Noble’s e-commerce sales peaking years ago does not march Amazon cost
advantage due to its superior scale. Also, Barnes & Noble’s faces decline in sales, revenue,
profit, and company store sales, foot traffic, and rise in debt. Barnes & Noble needs a viable
strategy to deliver sustainable and profitable growth to compete Amazon. It becomes challenging
to Barnes & Noble as Amazon plans on further expansion on brick and mortar book chain.
Therefore, Barnes & Noble has to solve the Amazon problem to avoid failure.

Problem Statement

Barnes & Noble’s book store must address the advent competition from Amazon to defend its
Bookstore business from closing and Amazon taking over.

Potential Solution
For Barnes & Noble’s book store to defend its business from closing it will need to
diversify its business and product. The business has an opportunity to diversify its products into
Toy selection business. The US market has a huge opportunity in Toys especially educational
toys as the market has a gap since Toys R US was closed(Knowledge at Wharton, 2019).Also, it
can diversify its business by offering cozy places for people and family by making the
bookstores a place people can meet, work, socialize and eat. By diversifying its products and
business, it will make the store gain a new market share preventing its business from closure as it
will have found new niche in the Amazon driven retail market.
Besides, the Barnes & Noble book store can hold more authors and publishers by
contracting as many authors and partnering with many publishers as possible. Kahn as cited by
Knowledge at Wharton (2019) she argues that holding more authors by Barnes & Noble is one
way a bookstore can do away with Amazon as it cannot match the Barnes & Noble bookstore.
Also, she notes that the bookstore can partner with publishers who will offer books to Barnes &
Noble bookstore exclusively for a certain period making the books available in these stores only.
It will be an advantage to Barnes & Noble book store as it will have contracted many authors and
publishers than Amazon.
Lastly, the Barnes & Noble book store can engage with other players in the market
through joint ventures. Wimer as cited by Knowledge at Wharton (2019) he argues that Barnes &

Nobles can partner with Lego a favorite kids brand besides setting part of its stores as children
playing areas. Besides, it can collaborate with schools in events involving Legos. Through the
joint venture with Lego the company will be able to drive sales up preventing Amazon takeover
resulting to its business closure.

Recommendation
The best solution of Barnes & Noble dealing with competition from Amazon is by
partnering with publishers and contracting many authors than Amazon. It is the greatest strategy
that retailers have used before, and they have been successful. For instance, being the bookstore
than exclusively sells new books of Michael Lewis or Malcolm Gladwell it can be an advantage
to the bookstore as compared to Amazon. In the past, Barnes & Noble was able to gain an
advantage by selling Michelle Obama’s memoir which was bestselling adult book since 2015.
The advantage of this method is that the Barnes & Noble bookstore already has a great
brand name. Therefore, Barnes & Noble will only need to have favorable best authors and
partner with the best partners in the book market.

Performance Measures
An intermediate performance metric in determining the effectiveness of partnering with
publishers and contracting many authors is increasing in-store traffic. The Book store will have a
contract with bestselling books thus improvement in-store traffic leading to rise in-store sales. It
will show an early indication of success as the customers are getting these books exclusively

from Barnes & Noble book stores. The exclusivity of the books being found from this store only
will drive comp store sales that will make customers leave other retailers both online and brick
and mortar to shop only with Barnes & Noble book stores. Therefore, the exclusivity will drive
comp store sales up in Barnes & Noble bookstores.
The other performance metric is further growth in the brand image. Barnes & Noble book
stores will be having a contract with a strong line up of best publishers and authors thus
bestselling books will be in these stores. Since the stores will have best-selling books exclusively
in the store creating its brand image. Therefore, as compared with Amazon the company will be
associated with best-selling books in its stores thus good brand image as compared to Amazon.
The final metric that will show the effectiveness of the solution is customer loyalty. The
customers will be loyal to the brand of Barnes & Noble book stores. The exclusivity will allow
for the growth of brand image then raise customer loyalty. The resulting customer loyalty and
good brand image due to exclusivity will presumably reduce Amazon ability to compete in the
market, thereby taking the market share from Amazon.
What I have learned from the Critical Analysis
Amazon is the greatest challenge to Barnes & Noble book stores existence since it is taking over
the bookstore market share apparently without necessary steps B& N is doomed to failure.

Bibliography

Knowledge@ Wharton (2019). What’s the Next Chapter for Barnes & Noble? Retrieved from
https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/whats-next-chapter-barnes-noble/
Levine-Weinberg, A. (2019). Barnes & Noble Could Succumb to the Retail Apocalypse. The
Motley Fool. Retrieved from https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/03/11/barnes-noble-
could-succumb-to-retail-apocalypse.aspx
Streitfield, D.(2017). Bookstore Chains, Long in Decline, Are Undergoing a Final Shakeout. The
New York Times. Retrieved from
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/technology/bookstores-final-shakeout.html
Taylor,K.,Hanbury,M.,&Green,D.(2018). Amazon’s growth could threaten these 10 industries.
Business Insider. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-is-killing-
these-7-companies-2017-7