B&N encompasses: superstores, mall stores, online sales, publishing, and video game and software enterprises.
B&N leader in sales and market share for offline book sales, but lags far behind Amazon.com in online book sales.
Industry trends show declining book sales in offline outlets with increasing book sales for online outlets.
Strong video game sales and an upswing in book sales due to September 11, 2001, gave B&N a quarterly profit for the first time in eight quarters.
Barnesandnoble.com continues to be an unprofitable enterprise, losing more than $43 million annually.
539 Superstores; 339 Mall stores; 978 Game & Software stores
#1 U.S. and World Bookseller; #1 U.S. video game retailer; 1995 Sales: $1,622.7 million
Growth of online book sales, 5.4% annually
Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the world’s largest bookseller. With nearly 1,000 book stores and 1,000 video and entertainment stores, the company maintains a presence in all 50 states and the District of Colombia:
Barnes & Noble’s Chairman Leonard Riggio owns approximately 23% of the company, whose 1995 sales were $1,622.7 million (Hoover’s 5). Barnes & Noble also owns mall-based stores B. Dalton, Doubleday, and Scribner’s. The company went online in 1997 with a 36% stake in Barnesandnoble.com. In addition to its publishing and superstore subsidiaries, the company owns video game and software entertainment firms Babbage’s Etc., FuncoLand, Gamestop, and Software Etc. Despite more than $43.6 million of red ink for Barnesandnoble.com last year, increasing book sales and video and entertainment sales saw Barnes & Noble, Inc. exceed analyst predictions for the final quarter of 2001 by earning $83.9m, or $1.09 cents a share (Valkin 20). Despite such numbers, this was the first quarterly profit reported by the company in eight quarters.
Barnes & Noble, Inc. encompasses retail bookselling, electronic commerce and publishing, video and entertainm...