More on B&N: Wall Street Likes Results, Book Strength

Wall Street approved of Barnes & Noble's first quarter results, which included a 7% drop in sales but a nearly two-thirds cut in the net loss. Yesterday, when the Dow dropped 0.6%, B&N stock rose 3.7%, to $24.09.

In a conference call with analysts, Mitch Klipper, CEO of the B&N Retail Group, said he was "extremely happy" with the general bookselling division's performance, pointing to a decline in sales at stores open at least a year of 0.4%. This is in line, he said, "with the improved trends we have experienced during the second half of fiscal 2014. We remain encouraged by these underlying trends, which continued to show a moderation of the physical book sales decline."

He added that the division benefited from "the continued growth of our juvenile book business and the improving trends of the adult trade business, both of which have benefited from movie tie-ins such as Frozen, Divergent and Gone Girl. We also continued to see our sales lift as a result of Amazon's dispute with Hachette. Additionally, our toys and games business continued to outperform growing 19.5%."

Klipper said that B&N is "excited about the title lineup that will lead us in to the holiday season, including Edge of Eternity, the final book in Ken Follett's epic Century trilogy, the as-of-yet untitled biography by George W. Bush of his father, George H.W. Bush, Bill O'Reilly's Killing Patton and John Grisham's Gray Mountain, to name a few."

The three-week Get Pop-Cultured campaign this summer, a nationwide celebration of popular entertainment that included Batman Day and a James Patterson Day, also helped, he said, to drive "traffic, sales and new customers to our stores and reinforced Barnes & Noble as an entertainment destination."

So far, B&N's partnership with Google to offer same-day delivery service through Google Shopping Express in New York City, West Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area is available in eight stores. Klipper said B&N hopes "to expand concurrently with Google's expansion plans" and has "received encouraging feedback from early users."

The launch of the new website, bn.com, originally planned for this summer, has been delayed and won't be ready before the holidays. "Completion is taking longer than anticipated and the holiday season is too an important time to test a new system," Klipper said. "We do expect to launch the website later this fiscal year."

B&N closed three general stores during the quarter, opened 22 college stores and closed 17 college stores.

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