Will Barnes & Noble become "Starbucks with books"?

The New York Times ran an article earlier this week about Barnes & Noble's decision to close its bookstore across the street from Lincoln Center in New York City. The article said that many people in the neighborhood who didn't buy anything there are sad that the store is closing, and that the store is at least as important as a social meeting place as it is as a bookstore.

With that in mind, what will a typical Barnes & Noble store look like ten years from now? (I realize that I'm making the assumption, not altogether defensible, that Barnes & Noble will still be in business in ten years.)  First of all, there will be far fewer stores than there are now, and the ones that remain will be much smaller and will look more like oversized Starbucks than bookstores. The cafe will dominate and will take up the largest amount of floor space. There will be a display space for demonstrating and selling whatever the nook eBook reader turns into ten years from now.

Some print books will still be on sale, but only a very limited selection of bestsellers. For everything else, there will be one or more touchscreen kiosks at which customers can browse tens of thousands of titles. Customers will be able to purchase any of them as eBooks and immediately download them to their eBook readers or tablets, or order physical copies for home delivery. They'll also be able to "rent" them for reading on their eBook readers or tablets while they're in the store.

Barnes & Noble may also place its kiosks into a big-box retailer such as Wal-Mart, Target or Best Buy, just as Wal-Marts have Redbox DVD kiosks inside their entrances. The combination of downsizing and using kiosks to sell books could reopen a niche for independent bookstores that actually stock a wider variety of titles, for those customers who still want to look through physical books on shelves before purchasing and are willing to pay a higher price for that privilege.

Like video rental stores before them, book superstores such as Barnes and Noble and Borders are becoming dinosaurs. They'll have to evolve into social meeting places that also sell books, or even just automated kiosks in big-box stores and coffeehouses, if they want to survive.

The Search for Value Creates New Leaders

Earlier today, I was sitting in a local Dunkin' Donuts, drinking coffee and watching CNN on a Samsung television. It wasn't that long ago that Samsung was all but unknown in the U.S.; now they're one of the market leaders in flat-panel TVs, DVD players, cellphones and other products. Samsung got where they are by offering high-quality products that could rival Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, Nokia, Motorola and others, at highly competitive prices.

Earlier this week, U.S. auto sales for January were reported, and only three companies reported improved year-to-year sales: Subaru, Kia and Hyundai. Hyundai grew more than 14%, not by offering ever-larger cash-back deals and financing discounts, but by simply agreeing to take back cars in the first year after purchase from buyers who lose their jobs.

Through a combination of good value and innovative marketing, these Korean companies are coming out ahead...as is Dunkin' Donuts, which is kicking Starbucks' butt with good coffee at a lower price. It seems that people are willing to trade off comfy chairs and cachet to save some money. And, Wal-Mart is just about the only retailer that's continuing to grow; it's taking even more market share away from competitors with its low-price strategy.

It's impossible to say whether these trends will hold once the economy recovers, but it seems unlikely that we'll go back to "business as usual". Consumers will continue to demand more value for their money, and the companies that can't, or won't, provide it won't be around much longer.

A few kudos...

I've been "off the air" for a while, while I was finishing work on MRG's biannual IPTV Forecast and client presentation. They're finally done, so I can catch up with a few topics that I've wanted to write about.

When I was in London not long ago for IPTV World Forum, I found out the hard way that the charger for my new Remington cordless shaver was 120 volts only. Two days before my trip was over, my shaver ran out of power, and I had no way to recharge it and no place to get a replacement charger. I ended up having to buy a replacement shaver (the cheapest decent one I could find was another Remington.) While I was in London, I emailed Spectrum Brands, the company that owns Remington, and complained about getting a 120 volt-only charger on a product that was clearly designed for travel use.

I expected them to, at best, send me a dual-voltage replacement charger, but instead, they asked me to return the entire shaver, replaced it at no charge with a new cordless shaver with a dual-voltage charger, and compensated me for shipping the old shaver back to them. I'm still stuck with the cost of the cord shaver that I purchased in London, but I'm very happy with their response. (By the way, I originally purchased the cordless Remington for travel, since I use a (very expensive) Braun Pulsonic at home, nearly lost it in travel once and didn't want to risk losing it again. The Remington, which costs less than 1/3rd the price of the Braun, gives me every bit as good a shave.)

Also, I want to give a shout out to Nespresso. If you're not familiar with the name, it's a line of capsule-based coffeemakers and coffee sold by Nestle. They're very popular in Europe, where I and my fiancee (Caylia) first came across them. Caylia teaches music in the public schools in Marin County, CA, and she has to get up very early to get to class. As you might expect, she needs a lot of coffee to get going. The Nespresso machines are great, in that it only takes a minute or so to make a cup of coffee, they can make both espresso and coffee, and they're very easy to clean and maintain. Also, the capsules aren't cheap ($0.50 or so), but they're a small fraction of the cost of a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So, I bought her a Nespresso machine for the holidays.

Now, I haven't been a coffee drinker. Typically, I'd have a cup every week or so. However, when I tasted the coffee from her Nespresso machine (one of the best cups I'd ever had,) she went out to Macy's and bought me a matching machine. I now have a cup of coffee every day, and I'm hooked. (Caylia typically has three cups a day, but she's not jumpy at all. Really. You can trust me on that.)

One final endorsement, if you want to call it that: I've started using the Zemanta plug-in for Firefox to help me create my blog entries. As I've been writing, Zemanta has been identifying links and tags for terms that I've been using, such as IPTV and Nespresso. With a couple of clicks, Zemanta inserts some or all of the links and labels for me, automatically. If you have your own blog, give it a try.