Borders Bankruptcy Liquidation

[RedTonic]

Crossposted from CM:

Borders bookstore chain has entered Chapter 7 bankrupty. They are liquidating all inventory and fixtures. Currently, their stock is discounted between 10% and 40%, and fixture prices are negotiable--so if you want to buy shelving or that sweet espresso machine, name a price. I just bought the 4e core + DMG2 at 10% discount; all RPG materials are 10% off and all sci-fi novels are 10% off as well. DVDs are also awesomely discounted (bought the entire Tudors!).

At our store, the RPG materials were D&D 4e, Exalted, Pathfinder, new WoD, Gamma World, Munchkin, some Star Wars thing, & Anima (@__@). They have a small selection of accessories as well.

I don't know what this means for Walden Books. Basically, it's a sad finale for a 40 year old company that wound up being rather poorly managed in the end.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Too bad there isn't a Border's around here anymore. Ours closed months ago.

 

[Spatula]

I will miss the store, especially the one in San Diego's Mission Valley. But I don't expect to visit the store before it closes. When our downtown Borders liquidated some months ago, we went when everything was 20-40% off. I looked at some D&D books that were on my wishlist, and then left them on the shelf. There was no point in buying them there, as they were still a lot cheaper online.

As much as I love bookstores, the chain stores, at least, are probably all on their way out.

 

[Mark CMG]

When the Gamers Paradise Chicago gamestore chain went under a few years ago, they moved all of their stock to three of their dozen or so stores and closed the rest. Then they ran sales for two months starting at ten percent off and raising the percentage by ten percent each week until it was 90% off the last week before the final three stores closed. That was a sale that had me going to all three stores, several times each, as the prices dropped.


When the local Borders closed less than a year ago, they ran a 10% to 40% sale with very little being less than 10% off in actuality. They had some sixteen month calendars they were clearing out more substantially, but they did that every year anyway. It is sad that they are going under but they are not enticing me with discounts that don't even rival online prices. As for game books, my FLGS keeps a card on each customer and gives a ten dollar gift certificate with each hundred spent, and an extra ten if you spend four hundred in six months. That's a little better than ten percent and they aren't closing. I'd like to keep it that way by steering most of my business their way.

 

[NewJeffCT]

When they went through their first round of closings a few months ago, I bought one of those Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms books for like $3 right before the store closed. I also got a few D&D miniatures in a bin near the registers.

The trick is, the discounts get bigger the closer you get to the actual closing... but, you also risk the item you want not being there - the kids stuff went really quickly at the Borders closest to us. There was almost nothing for kid's books, toys, etc the last 3 weeks of the Borders in Simsbury, CT. Gaming material generally went pretty quickly, too.

 

[BriarMonkey]

The last time I went into the Borders near me, a couple months ago - so before this Chapter 7 deal, they didn't even have any RPG material on the shelves. There was no D&D, no Pathfinder, nothing. I left without buying anything.

 

[Croesus]

I will miss the store, especially the one in San Diego's Mission Valley. But I don't expect to visit the store before it closes. When our downtown Borders liquidated some months ago, we went when everything was 20-40% off. I looked at some D&D books that were on my wishlist, and then left them on the shelf. There was no point in buying them there, as they were still a lot cheaper online.

As much as I love bookstores, the chain stores, at least, are probably all on their way out.

Here's a good article suggesting that this is just the beginning, that many stores will become little more than showrooms for items that we purchase online. The author probably overstates things, but still interesting.

Books, Borders and Beyond: How Digital Tech Is Changing Retail - Derek Thompson - Business - The Atlantic

 

[El Mahdi]

...I don't know what this means for Walden Books. Basically, it's a sad finale for a 40 year old company that wound up being rather poorly managed in the end.

Not from a news site, but this is what the Waldenbooks entry at Wikipedia says:

Waldenbooks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On July 18 2011, Borders Group filed for liquidation to close all of its remaining Waldenbooks and other stores. Liquidation commenced on July 22, 2011.

 

[RedTonic]

Ah, around here, Borders was the closest to a FLGS that I've found in town. I don't like to buy off Amazon very often, personally, or other e-tailers generally speaking.

Thanks, El Mahdi, for the link!

I was also interested to see that they're selling 30 stores to Books-A-Million. When I was in high school, that chain always carried scads of D&D books and was always quite friendly to my gaming groups, allowing us to play in the store. (I think that changed some time after I graduated; some people couldn't resist shoplifting. :/ )

 

[GrayLinnorm]

There was a Borders in Carousel Mall (aka "Destiny USA"), but that closed a few months ago. The Waldenbooks in Great Northern Mall, which had been there since it opened in 1989, closed in January 2009. Now neither mall has a bookstore (other than a comic bookstore).

I still go to Great Northern, but it's not the same anymore. B. Dalton, which I used to go to often when I was a kid, is gone too.

There's a Barnes & Noble near Great Northern, which I hope stays open. The main problem with just getting books online is that there's no joy of discovery -- no chance you'll find something you didn't know you wanted.