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Non-Tech : Borders Group (BGP) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zakrosian who wrote (314)	4/23/1999 11:32:00 AM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 411

I usually know what I want, too. But I still read the reviews. AND Amazon does suck me in by telling me what other people buying the book I want are reading -- I will often just look at that list for fun, get sucked into the reviews, and sometimes buy something I didn't go there for at all in the first place. A recent study showed that 45% of all supermarket buys are impulse buys. I don't know what the corresponding number is for the web, but it's certainly something, and that's where you can make your profits. Occasionally I just want a slam-bam-thank-you-Amazon purchase. For that their one click shopping is perfect. Hit the site, search and find, one click, leave. They're very good at that. But more often, I want my web shopping time to be fun and pleasant. I want something more than "give me the book, ma'am, just the book." The web is an interactive media--there are times when I want to interact! And Amazon is much better than Borders at that.

To: Zakrosian who wrote (314)	3/31/2000 1:17:00 PM
From: Zakrosian	Respond to of 411

cbs.marketwatch.com An interesting article on what may be Borders overall attitude to its web presence. I've never been too enthusiastic about Borders' investing much in developing their web presence, and it's nice to see that the company may have the same attitude. If you can't beat 'em, why bother? For book sellers, cyberspace isn't the only way to make money (oops...lose money). In fact there is money to be made selling books in the real world, and Borders (BGP: news, msgs) is doing just that. At the Money.com Web site, David Futrelle says Borders appears to have decided not to even bother trying to horn in on Amazon's (AMZN: news, msgs) online business. Instead it's concentrating on bricks and mortar, and concentrating on trying to write a better chapter for its stock. Borders thinks its own stock is undervalued in the market and recently announced plans to explore options, from recapitalization to a leveraged buyout in an effort to increase shareholder value. As for its online presence, it pales in comparison to the efforts being mounted by Amazon rival Barnes and Noble (BNBN: news, msgs). Says Futrelle, why waste money fruitlessly chasing the market leader in the online world when there are much better opportunities in the real world? Online book sales totaled just $1.6 billion last year; that's only a little more than half of Borders' revenue alone. So instead of colonizing cyberspace, Borders is busily colonizing Great Britain, Australia and Singapore. There are still lots of people buying books in stores, and Borders appears to be attracting a lot of them. Sales at Borders domestic superstores increased 20 percent last year and earnings per share rose 44 percent. But Futrelle says investors these days seem far more interested in bargain books than bargain stocks. And the hired hands from Merrill Lynch (brought on to help explore strategic alternatives for Borders) have their work cut out for them.