Maria Fitzsimons is hardly visible. She is flipping furiously through an issue of Entertainment Weekly searching for an article on the latest pop princess, her head practically in the magazine that is almost dipping into her overflowing glass of diet coke.
She is sitting comfortably by the bar at Trident Bookstore located on 338 Newbury St. As her pile of books and magazines grows so does her apprehension.
“I wish this place didn’t close so early, there are hardly any fully stocked bookstore cafes in Boston,” says Fitzsimons. “I love that you could read all you want drink coffee and still have the magazines to browse through.” Trident is open daily from 9 a.m. to midnight.
Fitzsimons’ search for a bookstore to accommodate her needs is nothing new. The recent closing of the Spencer’s Mystery Bookstore on Newbury Street, is a ringing reminder of the sad reality of most small bookstores. They are in competition to stay alive against the giants of book selling such as Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com.
Exploring Boston’s most youth-based neighborhoods, books are sold everyhere -- from the Virgin Megastore to Urban Outfitters. But bookstores that cater to the reader and make them feel at home is hardly a business that is profiting. Visiting bookstores all over the local Boston area made one thing apparent, local book retailers don’t just sell books anymore, they sell art, food, and the business itself.
Before jumping into the nitty gritty of how these small bookstores stay open, we have to look at why they are having a problem. It is recognized by readers all over the world for its green lettered logo and very extensive stock of, well, books. You guessed it, Barnes & Noble.
Barnes and Noble is the competition to beat. Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the #1 bookseller in the United States with no surprises involved. According to Hoovers.com, Barnes & Noble operates 690 stores in 49 states under names such as Barnes & Noble, Bookstop and Bookstar. It also operates 260 mall stores using the name B. Dalton, Doubleday and Scribners. If that is not enough to understand why bookstores are closing; there is more.
B&R has a video game chain under its belt. Gamestar a subsidiary of Barnes & Noble and is the #1 U.S. video game retailer. There is also a little company -- BarnesandNoble.com. Barnes & Noble, Inc. now owns 75% of the web site and plans to buy the rest of the shares and take the company totally private.
“So what’s wrong if the country has 158 neighborhood California Pizza Kitchens instead of one or two?” Virginia Postrel inquires in her In Praise of Chain Stores essay (Postrel 348). In rebuttal, I plan to answer her question with more reasons than one. However, the responses I intend to offer apply not only to the CPKs of America, but for all the national retailers, big box stores, chain stores, and the like. National retailers destroy the local character of small towns. Chain stores should be limited to only run in a few highly populated urban areas. Furthermore, the costs saved in the convenience and familiarity of chain stores do not outweigh the negative economic impact and damaging effects that they can have on a community’s well-being.
Did you know Panera Bread is one of the fastest growing franchises in America (Panera Bread Franchise)? The restaurant must have great qualities for people of all kinds to love it as much as they do. Visiting Panera Bread I had an awesome experience mainly because of its physical environment. Panera Bread has a great environment which is ideal for encouraging consistent business.
Over the years, the American department store has developed and evolved as not only a commercial business but also a cultural institution. While it has weathered many storms and changes since its inception and throughout history, its most predominant enemy has been a change in the lifestyle of the American people (Whitaker, 2013). As the customer’s needs and wants have shifted, department stores have struggled to keep up with demands. It has been argued that the decline of the department store has been ongoing for the last 50 years (Whitaker, 2013). This dissertation aims to understand how the department store has historically played a role in consumer culture and spending, and additionally, how this has evolved and changed in today’s retail market. Although department stores may not be able to take all the credit for inventing modern shopping, they certainly made its conventions and conveniences commonplace. They set a new standard for the way the consumer should expect to be treated, the type of services that should be provided, and the convenience that should attend the process of acquiring the necessities and niceties of life all in one place. They made shopping into a leisure pastime. This environment meant shopping was a means of freedom to look around, pick up objects with no obligations to buy. As one historian remarked, department stores: “encouraged a perception of the building as a public place, where consumption itself was almost incidental to the delights of a sheltered promenade in a densely crowded, middle-class urban space” (Whitaker, 2006). Although this perception and view of the department store has changed over the years, this paper aims to follow the trail of how and why that happened.
Norton, Anne. "The Signs of Shopping." The Signs of ShoppinG in the U.S.A. Sixth ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2009. 101-06. Print.
Harry Gordon, as a good entrepreneur, invested about £400,000 in a business opportunity never noticed before. In 1906, while spending his holidays in London, he noticed the absence of department stores adapted to the latest selling ideas used in America. Promoting shopping for pleasure rather than necessity and named after its founder, Selfridges & Co. became an exciting shopping experience, enabling people to experience new releases whether it was an aeroplane displayed in the store or the opening of the biggest bookshop in the world. “I am prepared to sell anything from an aeroplane to a cigar.” (Harry Gordon Selfridge, 1910)
Another acquisition would occur in March of 2013 when Amazon would announce its intentions to purchase the book social networking website Goodreads.com. While the amount Amazon paid for the deal was not disclosed it adds a new layer to Amazon’s e-book services. The Goodreads website allows its 16 million members to review and catalogue books and creates a social environment in which book lovers can interact. Like many of the other social networking sites users can create friends lis...
According to Wheelen & Hunger (2010), Panera management believed that its specialty bakery-café concept had significant growth potential, which it hoped to realize through a combination of owned, franchised, and joint venture-operated stores. Franchising was a key component of the company’s growth strategy. (p. 29-10).
Technological factors. This is very important factor for Amazon therefore the success of the business depends on that. Amazon has to face a lot of technological challenges and to find a way to be ahead of the competitors.
Starting out as solely an online bookstore, Amazon has become the largest online retailer in the world.
Pahl, Jon. (2003). The Mall as Sacred Space. In Behrens Laurence & Rosen Leonard (Eds.),
Cigarette smoking is very harmful for both smoker, non- smokers and the environment. People who smoke in just show how inconsiderate they are towards others. Even the people who do not smoke in public places are selfish. They do not consider the affect smoking might have on them and how that will affect their family and the environment. Cigarettes cause hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths each year and that is why cigarettes need to be made illegal.
The main challenge is to determine how Panera Bread can continue to achieve high growth rates in the future. Panera Bread is operating in an extremely high competitive restaurant market which forces the company to improve and to grow steadily for staying profitable. The company’s mission statement of putting “a loaf of bread in every arm” is just underlying Panera’s commitment for growing. They are now in a good financial situation and facing growth rates of up to 20% per year in a niche market that has a great growth potential. In the next 7 years the fast-casual market is expected to grow by 500% in sales to a total of $30 billion.
The Panera Bread Company began in 1981 as Au Bon Pain Co., Inc. Founded by Ron Shaich and Louis Kane, the company thrived along the east coast of the United States and internationally throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s and became the dominant operator within the bakery-café category. In the early 1990’s, Saint Louis Bread company, a chain of 20 bakery-cafes were acquired by the Au Bon Pain Co. Following this purchase, the company redesigned the newly acquired company and increased unit volumes by 75%. This new concept was named Panera Bread. Top management chose to sell their previous bakery-café known as Au Bon Pain Co. due to the financial and managerial needs of Panera. In order for Panera to become the success top management visualized all resources needed to become available for Panera. Panera Bread is now the most successful bakery-café in the category in which there are currently 1,777 bakery-cafes in 45 states and in Ontario Canada (Panera Bread).
is a global company that offers internet retail shopping services. Amazon was an online book retailer established 21 years ago during the 1994s, and has grown exponentially in sales and size as the years have gone by. Jeffrey P. Bezos started it in July 1994 and has led to its success. It was possible because of the strategies Amazon used. Emerging of online banking on the internet gave rise to the idea of online shopping. To become a competitive firm strong strategies are to be made. Amazon positions itself as a low-cost retailer and offers a wide range of products and services via online which is unique in the internet retail business. Amazon competes healthily and preserves its competitive advantages as it constantly upgrades itself in the dynamic market. It also shows that Amazon can continue to grow and achieve it mission and vision of being "earth's most customer centric
From the consumer side, Amazon provides services like Amazon Prime, which delivers free two-day shipping on retail purchases, on-demand video streaming and a free access to the Kindle library, everything for an annual