Shoppers were busy before and after the big Eastern snow storm.
Although general retail sales fell 12.6% last Saturday compared to the same day a year ago, sales from Friday through Sunday fell just 2.1%, according to ShopperTrak, as reported by the New York Times. The biggest decline--17.3%--was in the Northeast, but sales were also down in parts of the country with pleasant weather.
Saturday sales at shopping malls were down "in double digits," according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, which continues to predict a 1% rise in sales during November and December.
---Another Barnes & Noble shareholder has been buying big in the bookseller, whose stock price closed yesterday at $19.03: during October and November, Aletheia Research & Management more than doubled its stake in B&N to 10.8%, according to Reuters, based on an Aletheia filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Aletheia was founded in 1997 by former Bear Stearns managing director Peter Eichler.
Last month Yacaipa Companies, controlled by Ronald Burkle, more than doubled its stake in B&N, to 18.3%, which prompted the company to adopt a poison pill provision that goes into effect when any person or group obtains a stake of 20% of the company without board approval (Shelf Awareness, November 17, 2009). B&N chairman Len Riggio remains the single-largest shareholder, with a 28% stake.
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"Fewer than 20" Waldenbooks stores scheduled for closing early next year will be kept open, a Borders spokesperson told the Express Times in a story about the Walden in Palmer Park Mall, Easton, Pa., whose death sentence was commuted this week.
Borders announced last month plans to close about 200 Waldenbooks, Borders Express and Borders Outlet stores, which will leave it with about 130 mall-format stores (Shelf Awareness, November 5, 2009).
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The Bookseller had more on the final days of Borders U.K., most of which closed yesterday. The remainder will have their last day of business today.
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Booksellers who have been working for decades to make customer
service a top priority may be amused to discover that high-end
retailers like Lord & Taylor and Bergdorf Goodman are currently
adopting some revolutionary sales techniques--i.e., customer
service--to cope with the flagging economy.
"With signs that
this holiday shopping season will not be much better than the last,
retailers of all stripes are looking for new ways to make shopping more
pleasant," the New York Times reported.
"As
the business gets more challenging, customer service is one of the
first places we're going to look to improve," said Brendan L. Hoffman,
Lord & Taylor's CEO. "It's kind of like mom and apple pie."
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Seattle
has once again topped the list of America's most literate cities, but
this year Washington, D.C., edged traditional literate city powerhouse
Minneapolis as a surprise runner-up. The annual study by Jack Miller,
president of Central Connecticut State University, "focuses on six
indicators: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library
resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and
Internet resources," USA Today reported.
America's most literate cities for 2009:
- Seattle
- Washington
- Minneapolis
- Pittsburgh
- Atlanta
- Portland, Ore.
- St. Paul
- Boston
- Cincinnati
- Denver
American Booksellers Association staffers continued a tradition of working a few days at member bookstores during the holiday season, which Bookselling This Week chronicled. Our favorite accompanying photo shows ABA COO Len Vlahos sweeping the floor in Mrs. Nelson's Toy & Book Shop, La Verne, Calif.
A nice side note from the story: the Book Stall at Chestnut Court, Winnetka, Ill., has sold more than 350 copies of Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (Knopf), which was owner Roberta Rubin's pick of the year. (Reported by guest worker Oren Teicher, ABA's CEO.)
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BTW also listed 10 bricks-and-mortar stores and one online store, all members of the ABA, that opened since the beginning of October.
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The Ink, the blog of the University Press Club at Princeton University, recommended Glen Echo Books as a fun place to buy gifts in a town that is "a little too 'tasteful.' " Owned by Deb Hunter, bookstore empress, Glen Echo is "less a 'Used Book Store' than an 'Old Book Store'--the perfect place, as some random lady on Yelp notes, to buy 'gorgeous, mid-century editions of classic literature' on a budget. So if your friends have some favorite old-timey authors, go in and buy them a handsomely bound tome. It'll really class up their dorm room, and maybe provide some reading pleasure besides."
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Opening with a quote from Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian--"Men are born for games.... Every child knows that play is nobler than work''--Forbes
showcased its choices for best sports books of 2009, observing that
great sportswriters "even get non-sports folks interested, which is no
mean feat."
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For aficionados of the grape, the Los Angeles Times
offered wine book recommendations, noting that 2009 "was a very good
year for the printed word in wine, and having sifted through several
heavy tomes, here are a few to consider in your holiday gift giving."