Borders or Barnes & Noble?
After a long day of projects, stress, and the fast-paced world that we have grown accustom to, I like to find time to go up to a bookstore to read and enjoy a large cup (or two) of hot chocolate with caramel, whipped cream, and many great unnecessary and unhealthy toppings. No matter where I have lived or visited, I have found that there was always either a Borders or Barnes & Noble bookstore nearby. In most cases, both were within reasonable driving range. To give you a brief background on my experience with both, Borders actually was the first of the two that I visited as the nearest Barnes & Noble bookstore (at the time) was over thirty miles away, so I learned my way around the local Borders store. After Barnes & Noble opened a store within ten minutes of my residence, I tried it out and enjoyed the time there.
As a writer, I then was hearing that it would be easier to get my book on the shelves of local Barnes & Noble Stores because Borders was not doing so well financially and was rumored to be out its way out. However, both still operate storefronts, both online and off. Both even are book-reader friendly, providing accommodating areas to drink, eat, and read, all without directly buying a book or even requiring the reader, you, to buy from their overpriced café. Both Borders and Barnes & Noble are now offering their wi-fi services for free, something that they used to charge for. I must say that Barnes & Noble has upset me when their café took the Godiva hot chocolate off the menu, and I was pleasantly pleased to see that Borders’ café (Seattle’s Best) has happy hour pricing at the nearby location.
As you can see, they all offer added value to their customers, knowing that they might offer some small level of loyalty to their companies when they want to purchase their next book. Then again, maybe not, but their actions are not hurting, and doing anything less will just drive the potential customers away to the next competitor. So, which bookstore is doing things right? In the end, both offer similar perks and added value, but which one is really excelling the most at the moment? Or, do you just go to these bookstores to read and purchase your next book on Amazon?
