ble offer recreational shopping throughout the country as they have added stores in locations where bookstores were previously unavailable.
The industry as a whole has been expanding rapidly during the 1990s, particularly in the area of superstores and discount chains. Some industry analysts and independent booksellers have expressed concern that the market is becoming saturated, but chain superstores have only a 22 percent penetration of the market. Barnes and Noble is typically viewed as the most aggressive company in terms of expansion, but its expansion has slowed from 33 percent annually during the early part of the 1990s to 20 percent in 1996. Borders continues to add 40 new stores annually, which results in a lower percentage boost in the number of new stores each year. Books-A-Million, Crown and Media Play have slowed their expansion rates as well due to poor performance.
A number of the larger companies in the industry have closed mall locations in recent years, a move which has enhanced the profitability of the remaining stores. Barnes and Noble and Borders, the nation's primary mall store operators, have benefited from this trend and have see strong financial performance in their mall locations in recent years.
The 1990s has also seen the introduction of on-line bookselling with Amazon.com leading the market penetration, but with Barnes and Noble recently entering the market aggressively. While on-line retailing of books can at first seem to be at cross purposes as book purchases are often associated with browsing and scanning contents of various books, the industry recognizes that the Internet is a valuable marketing tool. Consumers who live in remote locations lacking convenient bookstores are able to purchase books through the Internet that would otherwise go unsold. Similarly, retailers such as Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble are able to sell to the international community through the Internet, increasi...