Next time you feel stupid…

The Demise of Borders Books: Death by Internet

Although the company used last week’s announcement that they’re seeking a buyout as an opportunity to blame a tight credit market and competition from discount chains like Wal-Mart, Borders’ disappointing performance stems from a failure to take e-commerce seriously.

I used to love Borders. That chain really had everything going for it, except that in the late 90’s they scrapped plans to make an online ecommerce website and redirected their homepage to Amazon.com… which then became my bookseller. It was like Borders threw in the towel before the game was even half over.

The problem was that K-mart bought Borders in order to bail out Waldenbooks, but Borders management understandably left, and Kmart got bored. Borders managed to buy its way back to independence from Kmart, but by that time Barnes & Noble and Crown were everywhere.

There’s room for a parable here about a man who needed to cut some glass, and failed to notice that the tool someone gave him to do it with was a hefty, quality diamond.