Fighting For Survival, Borders All-But-Abandoning E-Commerce
Written by Evan SchumanFebruary 4th, 2009
When Borders announced Tuesday (Feb. 3) that it was reorganizing and "consolidating" various business areas, it marked a dramatic reversal for one of retail's most aggressive merged channel advocates.
The change in heart, driven by new CEO Ron Marshall, will almost immediately force Border's E-Commerce team to halt additional investments. Although the move certainly reflects a new top management strategy that does not see E-Commerce making much money for the company anytime soon—a regrettably realistic assessment—it also is part of a pragmatic strategy of pouring every possible resource into the brick-and-mortars while simultaneously implementing chain-wide—and very deep--budget cuts.
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One Comment | Read Fighting For Survival, Borders All-But-Abandoning E-Commerce
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-Christine
February 5th, 2009 at 7:40 am
“Excessive investment” in e-commerce. If that’s an issue at Borders it doesn’t show (on their site). The major reason for Borders to abandon e-commerce is pretty simple — it’s Amazon. They lost that fight a long time ago. While it’s virtually impossible for any business not to have a web site, Border isn’t going to generate much business regardless of what they do. On the bricks and mortars side, they have ceded the lead to stores like Barnes and Noble. Their “loyalty” program is convoluted (or useless), their inventory management is poor, and their in-store experience is virtually non-existent. In our area the only reason to shop at Borders is if Barnes and Noble doesn’t have a book that you need (B&N is always cheaper) or you don’t want to wait a day to get it from Amazon.
I hate to see Borders go. I used to live in Ann Arbor MI (the home of Borders) and the downtown store was a show case. However, overtime they lost whatever competitive edge they had. On the bricks and mortars side, I don’t think their problems are insurmountable but in this economy they may not have enough time.