Argh
Oh my godding God but this makes me angry.
HMV goes low brow with 30 Waterstone’s closures
Which shows you where all my priorities are.
Tsk.
And that’s all I’m saying. I’m too busy blowing my nose and coughing to actually, you know, think of things to say or anything.
March 16th, 2007 at 9:47 am
* joins Reed in the angry corner
First of all the barstewards make life so difficult for the small independent bookshops that they’re put out of business.
Then, having captured the monopoly they decide to withdraw the service.
Yes, ok - there are online retailers who would be able to supply specific books - but browsing books online is not the same as being able to touch, pick up and actually read a few pages when one browses in a proper shop.
And then there are the happy accidents that happen in a real bookshop - coming across a publication you didn’t know you wanted until it was sitting there on a shelf in front of you.
Three-for-twos or not - I’ll be thinking very hard about spending any money in Waterstones in the future.
March 17th, 2007 at 8:45 am
Argh. Grrr. How very annoying. Surely this will hurt them? If one of their major rivals is the new trend for supermarkets to sell the top 20 or sopaperbacks at stupidly cheap prices, then how is increasing the amount of space they devote to such titles going to help? We can buy the latest thriller for £3.73 at our local retail behemoth, but we can’t get those texts on psychology, business studies, literary criticism or whatever elsewhere. Even t’internet normally sells academic texts at full price.
Having said that, I know nothing of business, nor have I seen detailed sales breakdowns, so I could be talking absolute nonsense.
April 4th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Yes indeed, Dan Brown and Tom Clancy will save the world (may they be eternally shat upon from above).
May 9th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
The reasons for the closures is simple. Not so long ago, HMV bought the Ottakars bookshop chain, thus eliminating their main high street rival, and ended up with more than one shop in several towns, where one would be enough. Close the unneeded shop and the competition is gone.