Megan McCardle asks, “Why is Barnes and Noble getting out of the bookstore business?”
From her post at The Atlantic Wire: “But the sad fact is that Amazon is crushing the margins of physical retailers, including bookstores, in two ways. Fewer customers are coming to the stores, as people let their fingers do the walking instead. And Amazon’s low prices have forced retailers to cut their prices to stay competitive. As a result, many stores are unprofitable, borderline profitable, or experiencing declining revenue. It’s true that having a physical bookstore around probably means that more books get sold. But it doesn’t seem to be true that those extra book sales produce enough revenue to cover the cost of all that lovingly organized and curated real estate.”
