Browsers don’t buy. (Boston Globe, 7/20/2011)
Borders to BPL
Excerpt: It’s an all too familiar scene: customers browsing at bookstores, but not buying what they read.
As she perused selections at the massive Borders outlet in Downtown Crossing yesterday, Brookline resident Tanya Duncan, 48, said she often shops for books for herself in the store, then gets on the Internet to buy the digital version when she gets home. Duncan downloads the books to her iPad and reads them on the train ride to work.
“It’s nice to be able to touch, feel, and hold the books before you look online,’’ she said.
Customers like Duncan may explain why Borders bookstores across the country will be liquidated, beginning as soon as Friday. The store’s parent company, Borders Group Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February. At the time, the chain had 23 stores in Massachusetts. Now only 14 remain open, and the rest could be gone by the fall.
About 20 people, many dressed in business attire, flipped through magazines on the first floor of the Downtown Crossing store yesterday. Eric Peterson, 24, of the North End, leaned against a wall and read Golf Digest while on his lunch break.
“I’m very disappointed,’’ he said. “This location is where I come almost every day to read a magazine or book.’’
BPL to Borders. (But no time for lunch.)
1 comment:
The Chinatown public library setup was a better success operated outside our Boston Public Library system than the usual other branch public libraries. The bureaucracy of our Boston Public Library system needs an overhaul with respect to customers services and the resources for front line staff.
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