Arnie,
I hadn't check this board for a few days, but
it looks like we've found a great franchise here.
Every little bookshop in the country is putting
their inventory on the Web, and you can bet that
Borders will have a very strong, very competitive
presence. Interesting that you asked me about
their management. My father has sold out-of-print
books mail order for over twenty years, has sold
millions of dollars worth of used books and knows
used book values like the back of his hand. I
grew up in a small Michigan town called Howell,
and one evening the two guys who started Borders
came to our house to buy books from my father's
library. Borders, of course, started in Michigan.
Just last week a called the second biggest chain
of bookstores in our city (Kalamazoo), which I
thought was a Borders store. They told me that
they are no longer a Border's store, but that for
the serious buyer of books, Borders stores are
far superior (selection) to B + N, which is more
a best sellers store. I believe the Borders mgmt.
might even rival a Dan Akerson, which would indicate
a pretty sure double here. I'll never forget
reading a Morgan Stanley research report on NXTL
as I was flying to Las Vegas in '94 to try out for
the U.S. Pingpong Team! You are a man of refined
tastes, Arnie. By the way, I sold a copy of Ravi
by Wodehouse (on the net) for my father today.
Mike |
