It's sad when a business fails, especially one that has been around for quite a while like Borders Books.
Since the company could not find the proverbial "white knight" to buy them and stay in operation, liquidation proceedings have begun.
Of course this means some great bargains along the way for the savvy shopper.
The projected closing date for the stores is sometime between mid to late September.
The individual locations will still be receiving product (new books) until sometime in August between the fact that a lot of merchandise had to be ordered in advance and that the warehouses need to be cleaned out too.
For those interested, below the cut, I will be keeping tabs on what is going on, and how much the discounts are.
I personally have been a Borders customer for a mighty long time. I am/was a member of their rewards program, receiving coupons via e-mail all the time and earning what were called Borders Bucks along the way that could be used towards future purchases.
Needless to say, being the bookworm that I am, both came in handy for some often judicious shopping.
The closest Borders to me is/was an Express, less than 5 miles away round trip. With them shutting down, the next closest bookstore with a physical presence (a Barnes and Noble) is over 40 miles, one way!
Ain't life in New England grand?
It's a safe bet that after my local Borders shuts its doors, I will be on Amazon a lot more.
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As of July 22, 2011
We are at the start of the liquidation process, so while everything must go by the end of the event, it is all on a sliding scale.
At the moment, that scale ranges from 40 % off the news stand section (magazines, periodicals, and regular comic books if your Borders still carries them, mine doesn't) to just 10 % on practically everything else, including: science fiction, fantasies, and mysteries, along with an additional 10 % off anything that was already marked for clearance before the liquidation process began.
The Performing Arts selection is at 30 %, with graphic novels and magna starting at 20 % off.
Unsure of when the discounts will actually increase, but not before next weekend at the earliest.
At an Express, the CD and DVD selections were very limited, with no video games at all.
There was a full service Borders near the aforementioned Barnes and Noble, but it was closed earlier this year as part of their cost cutting measures to try and stay in business.
Thankfully the same mall that has the Express also has a Games Stop, so I'm covered in that area.
Unless they go out of business. :(
I went to Borders yesterday hoping to pick up some graphic novels and/or D&D sourcebooks. So far, the going-out-of-business prices aren't better than what I can get at my comic shop or Barnes & Noble (respectively) with my member discounts (not to mention the discounts I could get from Amazon), and the prices DEFINITELY weren't good enough to merit waiting in the checkout line that stretched all the way to the back of the store.
I may go back in a few weeks if the discounts are increased. Of course, by then there's a good chance what I want will have been picked over, but that's the risk you take, right?
When they shut down the Borders near me, they started with 10% off. It was really odd -- if they had had a 10% off sale normally, not many people would have come. But because it said, "Store Closing" it was packed. And for a lousy 10%.
You could still get some bargains on good books when it hit 30% off and even 40% off if you were there the first day they lowered it. After that, it was a lot of garbage.
As previously mentioned, the previous closing was of selected locations. It was easy for the Borders warehouses to just divert shipments to other locations because the company was basically still in business.
Now everything is closing down, starting with the warehouses, that will continue to ship good until sometime in August, whenever their storage shelves are cleaned out.
Hopefully this will make the odds better as the discounts increase, but I do agree with the theory as to not waiting too long once they do.
I did buy the first two Green Lantern trade paperbacks from the current series at 20% off each, but only because I did not start reading the Geoff Johns written series until the prelude to The Blackest Night.
There are a few other things at my local Borders Express I have my eye on, but right now they're still at only 10% off.
Will just have to wait and see what happens.
The Borders in Nashville, Tenn., closed a few months ago. This follows the closure of Davis-Kidd last December. I'm told this leaves Nashville -- a city with about 1 million people in its metro area -- without even one bookstore that specializes in new books. All we've got now are used-book stores.
Of course, we can always go to Wal-Mart and buy the latest screed from Glenn Beck ...
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