[78-L] Bye Bye, Borders

[David Breneman]

--- On Wed, 2/16/11, David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca> wrote:

> As I was saying two years ago, when I
> stepped inside a location that looked as 
> if it had been looted...

It's always sad when a business fails (unless it's run
by jerks) but try as I might, I have a hard time getting
upset about this.  Borders forced a lot of full-service
Mom-N-Pop book stores out of business, and now Amazon
(with better prices and selection) is forcing Borders out.
You can always order a boot from Amazon and have your latte'
somewhere else.  Borders' business model of supplying
a low-margin product, with a lot of overhead, in buildings
on very expensive land (usually near malls or downtowns)
was obviously more prone than many to losing money in
economic downturns.

What I find genuinely depressing is that last week,
Powell's in Portland announced that they were laying
off 15 employees due to slow sales.  One of the great
cultural benefits of living in the Northwest is Powell's
"City of Books", three or four new and used book stores
scattered around downtown Portland, all an easy walk
from the train station.  My wife and I used to ride the
Amtrak Cascades train down just to spend the day wandering
through the truly immense main store (although she usually
lost patience when I wanted to spend a lot of time in
Powell's Technical Books a few blocks away).  The loss of
an institution like that would be a true tragedy.