Barnes & Noble tries to capture some indie-bookstore magic to compete with Amazon

Using the oldest trick in the book… to sell books. Barnes & Noble, once viewed as the ultimate corporate bookstore bad guy, now faces the same challenges of the small shops it overtook: competition with a juggernaut (Amazon). Since being acquired for $475M by activist hedge fund Elliott Management in 2019, B&N has shifted its strategy away from mass-appeal uniformity, becoming more like a collection of indie bookshops.

• Localized: Store managers now have control over book purchasing, placement, and pricing, with the idea being that shoppers in LA have different tastes than those in Cleveland, and managers should have the flexibility to adjust for that.

• Cover shopping: A $4M renovation at an NYC store has new wood floors, cozier colors, and displays optimized for browsing and discovery.

• Self-helped: The strategy is paying off. Since the acquisition, B&N’s return rate (unsold books sent back to publishers) has dropped from about 25% to 9%.

Tapping into the “shop local” boom… One reason B&N may be looking for inspiration from indie booksellers: they’re thriving. Membership in the American Booksellers Association (a trade org for independent bookstores) rose to ~2.2K businesses last year, a more than 20-year high. 200 additional indie bookstores are expected to open in the next year. An added benefit of being small is agility: they can adjust for fast-changing #BookTok trends. Rising e-comm platforms like Bookshop.org and Libro.fm — which launched internationally last week — have also boosted online sales for independent stores by 580% since 2020.