Borders vs Amazon
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
3 comments
We have talked much about eBay vs Amazon, Yahoo vs Google, Netflix vs Blockbuster.
Yesterday, while walking around in Union Square, looking at the lights on the Macy’s windows, we also walked into the Borders bookstore opposite Saks Fifth Avenue.
This, below, is a camera-phone capture of a shelf that attempts a brick-n-mortar version of Amazon’s famous recommendation system.
Wonder if this works at all …
I think it’s a very nice idea…
Could have been a classic b-school case study in the late-nighties…. Brick& Mortar vs Internet… Traditional model vs new rules of business..
Internet has come a long way now and Amazon is now a established player… The numbers tell the tale.. Amazon recent quarter showed a net income of $80 million while Border is going down with a loss of $161 million. Excluding the one time charge of $116.5 million, Border is still losing money big time.
Saw this news article recently on Borders teaming up with Sony and launching an e-book download webstore.
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/CLTH08720122007-1.htm
Frankly Borders’ strategy leaves me confused. They are on obvious path of competition with Amazon but for Borders.com, they have partnered with Amazon to run their site. Not sure on how much revenue the site earns for the company, but the partnership presents an entry barrier for Borders in executing a web strategy which will complement their stores and in turn take on the likes of Amazon
The latest move seems a move by 2 desperate players, Sony which has not seen much growth in their ebook “Reader” product and Borders struggling to get into black
You bring up a very good point – that of Borders using Amazon for their website and fulfillment.
I agree with you, that this puts them at Amazon’s mercy as far as an online strategy is concerned.
Sramana