Name: 巴諾書店為何要複製它曾威脅過的在地書店 | WSJ The Economics Of (Why Barnes & Noble Is Copying Local Bookstores It Once Threatened | WSJ The Economics Of)
Uploaded: 2024-08-11T07:54:46.000Z
Duration: 6 min 2 s

This Barnes & Noble in Pikesville, Maryland, used to be in a 24,000-square-foot space in this building.

這間位於馬里蘭州派克維爾的巴諾書店曾在這棟建築中佔地 24,000 平方英尺。

Now, it's moved across the street to a space that's less than half the size.

現在，它搬到了街對面，面積還不到原來的一半。

情態副詞

And with the downsizing came a new look, and new books, chosen specifically for this store's customers.

隨著規模的縮小，店面煥然一新，還專門為顧客挑選了新書。

It's all part of Barnes & Noble's strategy to tailor each of the company's more than 600 locations to local tastes.

這也是巴諾書店的戰略之一，即在公司的 600 多家分店中，根據當地人的口味量身定製。

Barnes & Noble is adopting the strategy of independent bookstores that it once put out of business.

Barnes & Noble 正在採取它曾讓其倒閉的獨立書店的戰略。

Here's how the bookseller is implementing its new approach, and why it thinks this new strategy will sell more books.

以下是這家書商如何實施新方法，以及為什麼它認為這種新策略能賣出更多的書。

Barnes & Noble was first founded in 1873.

In 1971, Leonard Riggio acquired the company, which set off a period of growth.

1971 年，萊昂納多-裡吉奧收購了公司，從而開啟了公司的發展時期。

The retailer went public in 1993, in an era when it was opening superstores across the country.

這家零售商於 1993 年上市，當時它正在全國各地開設超級百貨商店。

In the 1990s and 2000s, Barnes & Noble bookstores really looked like large supermarkets filled with books, usually anchoring strip centers in the suburbs or rural areas.

在 20 世紀 90 年代和 2000 年代，巴諾書店看起來就像一個擺滿書籍的大型超市，通常位於郊區或農村地區的地帶中心。

And whether in Phoenix or Maryland or Ohio, the stores had the same books with the same furniture and the same layout.

無論是在鳳凰城、馬里蘭州還是俄亥俄州，這些商店都有同樣的書籍、同樣的傢俱和同樣的佈局。

If it had two, it had enormous escalators going up with this huge sort of open space in the middle to an upper floor.

如果有兩層的話，它有巨大的自動扶梯，中間有巨大的空地通往上層。

That model happened to be extremely scalable.

這種模式恰好具有極高的可擴展性。

They were trying to fill their stores with books and infrastructure at the lowest cost possible.

他們試圖以儘可能低的成本在商店裡擺滿書籍和基礎設施。

So they wanted to order all the same types of bookshelves, the same type of furnishings and decorations and other accoutrements.

是以，他們想訂購所有相同類型的書架、相同類型的傢俱、裝飾品和其他飾品。

Those huge stores carried more books at lower prices than independent bookstores.

與獨立書店相比，這些大型商店的書籍數量更多，價格更低。

We all remember the rom-com You Got Mail.

我們都記得愛情喜劇《你有郵件》。

So many closed when Barnes & Noble came to town.

巴諾書店進城後，很多書店都關門了。

They weren't able to compete with the title selection or prices that Barnes & Noble offered.

在書目選擇和價格方面，他們無法與巴諾書店相比。

But big stores and large inventories weren't enough to save Barnes & Noble from a digital threat.

但是，大店和大量庫存並不足以將巴諾書店從數字威脅中拯救出來。

Amazon was able to offer, kind of like Barnes & Noble had in the past, a huge selection of titles at lower prices than Barnes & Noble could because it didn't have the cost of real estate and other costs that Barnes & Noble was shouldering.

亞馬遜能夠像過去的巴諾書店（Barnes & Noble）一樣，以低於巴諾書店的價格提供大量的圖書選擇，因為它沒有巴諾書店所承擔的房地產成本和其他成本。

And it sunk a lot of money trying to keep pace, particularly in Nook, its e-reader business.

為了跟上步伐，它投入了大量資金，尤其是在電子閱讀器業務 Nook 上。

Take your story wherever you want it to go.

把你的故事帶到你想去的地方。

The company's revenue has declined since 2012.

自 2012 年以來，該公司的收入一直在下降。

Then in 2019, hedge fund Elliott Management Corporation acquired the chain and installed James Daunt, who led British retailer Waterstones and founded his own independent bookstore, Daunt Books, as CEO.

隨後在 2019 年，對沖基金 Elliott Management Corporation 收購了這家連鎖書店，並任命曾上司英國零售商 Waterstones 並創辦了自己的獨立書店 Daunt Books 的 James Daunt 擔任首席執行官。

It felt entirely intuitive to me that you allow each bookstore to run as an independent bookstore.

我完全憑直覺認為，你們允許每家書店像獨立書店一樣經營。

They will create much more interesting, much more dynamic, much more engaging bookstores.

它們將創造出更有趣、更有活力、更吸引人的書店。

And that meant reminding people about the appeal of in-person versus online shopping.

這就意味著要提醒人們親臨現場購物比網上購物更有吸引力。

What you're missing is the opportunity to kind of read the book flaps of all the other books that are there and maybe get recommendations from the local bookseller who's working there.

你錯過的是閱讀其他書籍的機會，也許還能從在那裡工作的當地書商那裡得到推薦。

The company says it wanted to emphasize the experience of visiting a physical bookstore.

該公司表示，它希望強調逛實體書店的體驗。

So its new strategy strips stores of the cookie-cutter look and feel that had helped the chain grow its revenue and store count.

是以，它的新戰略摒棄了曾經幫助連鎖店增加收入和門店數量的 "餅乾切割 "外觀和感覺。

Some locations have moved on from the big box model to smaller stores.

一些地方已從大賣場模式轉向小型商店。

And in these smaller spaces, they are reconfiguring the stores so that they're more of a maze and less of a supermarket aisle.

在這些較小的空間裡，他們正在重新配置商店，使其更像一個迷宮，而不是超市過道。

Plus, the company says each individual store has more autonomy over what books to order and how to display them.

此外，該公司還表示，每家店都有更大的自主權來決定訂購什麼圖書以及如何陳列這些圖書。

Here at the Pikesville, Maryland location, the store manager says that customers like romance, books from Black authors and lots of fiction.

馬里蘭州派克維爾分店的店長說，顧客喜歡愛情小說、黑人作家的書和大量的小說。

So the large romance section is at the front of the store.

是以，大型的浪漫專區就在商店的前面。

And there's a huge display right in the center celebrating Black History Month.

中間還有一個巨大的展覽，慶祝黑人歷史月。

Store managers can also choose how to run promotions, like this buy one get one 50% off deal on specific fiction books chosen by the team here.

商店經理還可以選擇如何開展促銷活動，比如這裡團隊選擇的特定小說類圖書買一送一的五折優惠。

Brooklyn has a very different demographic, a very different set of customers, a very different set of book interests to, let's say, somebody in Alabama, in Georgia.

布魯克林的人口構成、顧客群體、對圖書的興趣與阿拉巴馬州、佐治亞州的人截然不同。

Who is the best person to judge what those particular communities want to buy?

誰是判斷這些特定社區想要購買什麼的最佳人選？

It's the booksellers in those communities.

The company has also been listening to its store managers on wider trends.

公司還一直在聽取商店經理對更廣泛趨勢的看法。

Manga was a small part of our assortment.

漫畫在我們的品種中只佔一小部分。

We had maybe five, six bays of books on manga.

And yet when these booksellers were reorganizing their stores, they were coming back to us saying, we want to do 38.

然而，當這些書商重組他們的書店時，他們又來找我們說，我們想做 38 家書店。

You know, we want to do 42, which was just almost sort of incomprehensible, except that's what they said their customers would respond to.

你知道，我們想做 42，這幾乎有點難以理解，但他們說客戶會有反應。

Dart also used this localizing strategy to turn around British bookstore chain Waterstones, which reported a 42.91 million pound loss across 268 stores in 2012, compared to a 16.32 million pound profit across 278 stores six years later.

達特還利用這種本地化戰略扭轉了英國連鎖書店 Waterstones 的局面。2012 年，該公司 268 家門店虧損 4291 萬英鎊，而六年後，278 家門店盈利 1632 萬英鎊。

The two businesses are on paper identical.

It had had identical histories and had reached an identical point of failure.

它們有著相同的歷史，也達到了相同的失敗點。

That's why Barnes & Noble relinquished some control to individual stores.

這也是巴諾書店將部分控制權交給單店的原因。

But that comes with its own set of challenges for the company.

但這也給公司帶來了一系列挑戰。

You could walk into a bookstore and find out that it's really not doing well.

你可能走進一家書店，卻發現書店的生意並不好。

The manager's choices aren't appealing to customers and books aren't selling.

經理的選擇對顧客沒有吸引力，圖書也賣不出去。

Still, Barnes & Noble says the strategy is promising.

儘管如此，巴諾書店仍表示這一戰略大有可為。

For the first time in more than a decade, the company is planning on opening more stores than it closes in 2023.

十多年來，該公司首次計劃在 2023 年實現開店數量超過關店數量。

We've seen a balancing in which much higher percentage of our sales are coming from books and books are growing really very dramatically.

我們看到，圖書的銷售額佔比越來越高，圖書的銷售額也在大幅增長。

 If you run better bookstores, you sell more books.

如果書店經營得更好，就能賣出更多的書。