Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) reported some pretty lousy holiday sales results yesterday, but they were good enough to send the stock up 12%. Ah the glory of low expectations! Overall sales were down 5.2% and comparable store sales fell 7.7%.That's not so bad given the trouble that retailers and the book industry at large are facing, but the 11.0% decline in BN.com sales is more of a cause for concern.
In the press release, the company added that it had "experienced diminished traffic, and as a result, diminished sales, due to the unprecedented fall-off of retail shopping during the last quarter of the year. After a slow start to the holiday season, our store performance improved and we were able to post comparable store sales increases during the last two weeks of the season, enabling us to meet our sales guidance for the period to date."
But what about the internet sales? Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) reported record sales and according to data gathered by Geezeo's Main Street Spending Index (MSSI), a 17% increase in per customer sales.
Given that the future growth in the bookselling industry seems likely to focus on e-commerce, Barnes & Noble is going to have to do a lot better online.
Luckily, the company seems to recognize that: On the same day it released its holiday results, it named former HSN.com boss William J. Lynch president of Barnes & Noble.com.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-10-2009 @ 1:48PM
Julia said...
I would have bought Christmas presents at Barnes and Noble, but when I went there I felt unwanted by their obvious aversion to mentioning Christmas as anything other than "the holiday." I left and bought my Christmas gifts elsewhere. In fact, I only bought Christmas presents in stores that didn't consider Christmas too unpolitically correct to mention and then only items that weren't green and red "holiday" items. My gifts either said Christmas or they were everyday items not related to "seasons" or "holidays." I will continue to shop this way in protest of retailers morphing Christmas into the most stressful time of the year (not so long ago people didn't give each other gifts, but we're now Scrooges if we don't spend, spend spend) and then adding insult to injury by refusing to name the holiday (Christmas: the celebration of the birth of Christ) that puts them in the black every year.
2-10-2009 @ 11:18AM
David said...
You know what I'm sick of? Intolerate 'Christians' who try and shove their personal religious views down other people's throats. Wishing someone a "Happy Holiday" is polite and includes everyone in the Holiday Season (Christians, Jews, Black folks, everyone...). I'm sick and tired of the rude obnoxious Christians stomping around and demanding special treatment as if they are a persecuted MINORITY in the United States. Newsflash: The Freedom of Religion is also the Freedom FROM Religion. Christians are in the Majority, and are NOT persecuted, they PERSECUTE other religions. As an Atheist here is my prayer, "Dear Jesus Christ, please protect me from your followers that have no clue what you preached, don't read their own Bible, or even understand the basic tenents of their own Religion" Thank You and HAPPY HOLIDAYS! Atheist Dave...
3-04-2009 @ 12:04PM
H415J said...
Well, sales will drop at most stores as their intilectual standerd of manangment drops. With cheaper labor they will get what they are paying for. Manangment is as strong as its weakest link. I suggest seeing for yourself. Try the Princeton N.J. store. Maybe they are up to Wal-mart's standerds but to me Barnes and Noble should be held at a higher level. The store has really let me down over the last few years.
3-10-2009 @ 9:29PM
outlaw415hj said...
But there cafe sure does sell good french fried taters ummhum ! Intilect don t mean nothing its retail. You don t have to know how to read books to sell books.You can tell just by walking in one of the stores.