Borders Files for Bankruptcy: A Historical Perspective
I grew up with Borders. I remember visiting their stores when my family would travel out-of-town, and then I remember when the first Borders opened in the Kansas City area down in Overland Park. My family made the 45-minute drive south once or twice a month to wander around the sprawling bookseller. Over the next ten or twelve years I spent many an afternoon…
Woah, I didn’t see you standing there! Enough with my memory lane- cut to the present! As we reported recently, Borders is in some trouble. This article at CNNMoney.com details a bankruptcy filing that surprised exactly no one. Borders will close 200 stores (just under 1/3rd of its current locations) and reduce overall staff in the re-structuring.
Some chains persist after such drastic cutbacks. Reducing headcount, locations, and geographic breadth can be beneficial. One example is the fast food chain “Rax” that I remember from my youth: they still exist, but in an extremely reduced form (franchise-only) and only in five states.
Other chains, such as Circuit City, can lose their brick and mortar presence entirely over the course of several downsizings. Sometimes bankruptcy is an opportunity to regroup, and sometimes it is the beginning of the end. One thing is for sure: in order to succeed, Borders will need to focus their e-book strategy- that’s a growing field (as we reported some time ago (and for some reason the page is missing so I can’t link to it)).
