Next Step in Guided Reading Barnes and Noble
Thanks to the pandemic, a surprising number of consumers are once again devouring books — in impress — and Barnes & Noble is cashing in.
The 125-year-old chain, taken individual two years ago for $683 one thousand thousand past billionaire Paul Singer's hedge fund Elliott Management, has reported double-digit sales growth in books this yr so far compared to 2019, before the coronavirus outbreak.
Even more surprising to skeptics who had watched the chain wither in the face up of Amazon's rising, the retailer says teenagers and tweens are helping to fuel the surge. Sales of Manga, or graphic novels, at Barnes & Noble are upwards by every bit much every bit 500 percent at some stores where young adults are crowding in the aisles on Friday and Saturday nights.
Industrywide, US sales of books are up 12 percent so far this year through Baronial compared to the same flow a twelvemonth agone — and up twenty percentage from 2019 over the aforementioned fourth dimension menstruation, according NPD Group, a market research company.
"Double-digit growth in books has non happened since Amazon came forth," Barnes & Noble Chief Executive James Daunt told The Post in an interview.
Those kinds of numbers are encouraging for Elliott, a fund known for taking big positions in public companies and agitating for change: In this example, it bought B&Northward whole every bit a fixer-upper. A source familiar with the matter says Elliott is about halfway through its plan that would eventually spin the bookseller back onto the public markets — or sell it to another private buyer.
Daunt, who ran Elliott'due south UK-based Waterstones book concatenation earlier he was tapped to run B&Due north, says he'southward already seeing the fruits of his changes, including an interior overhaul of the concatenation's 600-plus stores and a new direction philosophy that empowers local bosses to make more decisions well-nigh which books they'll stock.
Barnes & Noble is also moving away from its signature green colour scheme, which in older stores dominates the carpet, wallpaper and even signage on the book shelves. Revamped stores are brighter with abundant overhead lighting and more than open floor space.
Barnes & Noble's total sales are up around 6 percent from 2019, Daunt said, and that'due south with fewer stores — 605 compared to 628 in 2019. He declined to give an exact dollar amount for revenue or turn a profit.
Elliott portfolio director Paul All-time, who is the firm's European head of private equity, said Barnes & Noble is now "more than profitable" than it was.
"It was going through a prolonged menstruation of decline in both revenues and profits — for a decade at to the lowest degree," he told The Post. "Two years in, the team has halted the decline and now has a base from which to grow revenues and profit."
B&Due north's Daunt plans to open every bit many equally 12 new stores in February and March solitary — after having opened eight and also endmost some stores in 2020 and 2021. Some of the new stores volition as well be almost the quarter of the size of the typical 25,000 square foot location, Daunt said, calculation the chain can now drive the same volume out of a 8,000 square foot store as a 25,000 foursquare foot store.
"Nosotros are gear up to open up a lot of new stores," he said.
A source familiar with the matter says Elliott has been enthusiastic most funding the bookseller's growth and that the business organisation is assisting. It had gone through a "long period" of decline in both revenues and profits, the source said, but in the concluding 2 years under Elliott, the declines accept been halted.
Nigh of the growth is coming from increasing human foot traffic in the stores — not online sales, Daunt said.
"I'm certain Amazon is doing very well, and the independent booksellers, also," Daunt said. "The pie is very much larger."
Publishers are noticing B&N's turnaround, too.
"We are seeing the positive furnishings of better store layouts, recommendations, refreshed selections, and livelier merchandising and display, and operational improvements, all of which are leading to increasing sales," Hachette Book Group CEO Michael Pietsch said in an email.
Whether volume sales remain stiff afterward the pandemic is over is the big question.
"Everyone is wondering whether this is a permanent shift or how long it volition stick, merely correct at present almost every category is up," book publishing consultant Jane Friedman told The Post.
At B&North, big rectangular tables that held stacks of books — sometimes on deep disbelieve — accept been swapped out for small round ones that Daunt says are more conducive to browsing — and buying. (And the disbelieve books were moved to the dorsum of the shop, freeing up valuable real estate up front end.)
Once cluttered with not-volume-related items –such as batteries, Vera Bradley handbags and warm bottles of Republic of the fiji islands water — the stores are now configured by managers who are expected to reflect the tastes of their local communities.
At the White Plains shop in Westchester, that meant moving Spanish-language books to the front end of the store from a corner in the dorsum to entreatment to the community'southward big bilingual community, shop manager Sean Carroll told The Postal service.
At the Cortlandt Manor shop, managers decided to motion amusement biographies — which were outselling other biographies.
"If you're excited about the new Julie Andrews book, you lot are not looking for something on presidents, so we pulled all our entertainment books from the other biographies and put them in the movie department," store manager Allison Demato said.
Those types of changes would have been forbidden under the old B&N style whereby edicts as granular as what books could be displayed and where they were to be displayed, were passed down from headquarters. But it's the blazon of buying that Daunt says he encourages.
To exist sure, Barnes & Noble has plenty of hurdles alee, not least of which is the cratering of its buffet business and newsstand sales.
Magazine sales are off "slightly" from 2019, Daunt said, while the cafes have struggled to retain both staff and customers as the Delta variant makes sitting for hours in a restaurant less appealing. Music likewise is a declining segment, co-ordinate to a person familiar with the thing.
"There is work still to do and there are parts of the stores that are not where they need to be," the person said.
Source: https://nypost.com/2021/09/19/covid-has-sparked-a-book-craze-and-barnes-noble-is-cashing-in/
0 Response to "Next Step in Guided Reading Barnes and Noble"
Post a Comment