Barnes and Noble

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Barnes & Noble, Inc.

logo
legal form Incorporated
ISIN US0677741094
founding 1873
Seat New York City , United States
management Demos Parneros, CEO
Number of employees 23,000
sales 3,662,000,000 USD
Branch Publishing, retail
Website www.barnesandnobleinc.com
As of April 28, 2018

Torrance, California branch
Manhattan branch

Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the largest US book retailing company and is based on Fifth Avenue in Lower Manhattan , New York City . Barnes & Noble today has more than 630 stores in all states of the United States. Barnes & Noble currently (as of 2010) has a market share of 20 to 22 percent of book sales in the United States. In addition to books, Barnes & Noble offers entertainment games and electronic reading devices in its bookstores. In larger bookstores there are cafes operated by the Starbucks chain . Barnes & Noble also sells other consumer products such as: B. Godiva Chocolatier . Each bookstore also has freely accessible WiFi.

Barnes & Noble has a few subsidiaries:

BN.com operates online sales via the Internet . In addition to the distribution of traditional books, this is also responsible for the distribution , logistics and customer service of electronic reading devices (Nook 3G / Nook Wifi / NOOKcolor), electronic books and magazines . In addition, text books (traditional and e-books) are loaned out. Furthermore, PubIt is offered, a tool with which anyone can create their own books as e-books and sell them online with BN.com . BN.com is headquartered in New York City with development in Palo Alto , California . The production of the Nooks takes place in the People's Republic of China .

Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, Inc. is an affiliate based in Basking Ridge, New Jersey . This has bookstores at more than 630 institutes and high schools .

history

The following important information is missing from this article or section:
Company history before 2010
Help Wikipedia by researching and pasting it .

The company was founded in 1873 as the Arthur Hinds & Company book printing company by Charles Barnes in Wheaton , Illinois . In the 145 year history of the company, Barnes & Noble has grown to become the largest bookseller in the United States. In early 2010, major investor Ronald W. Burkle tried to take over Barnes & Noble. This was successfully fended off by the management of Barnes & Noble. In December of the same year, Bill Ackman , the owner of Pershing Square Capital Management and shareholder of Barnes & Noble competitor Borders , offered to take over the majority of the shares. Due to falling book sales and great competition from internet trading, sales have been falling for years. While sales in 2012 were $ 7.1 billion, they dropped to $ 3.7 billion in 2018. In 2018, the company posted a loss of $ 118 million.

NOOK e-book reader

NOOK 3G / Wifi and NOOK Wifi

Internal cover name Bravo . Since the beginning of 2010 (announced on October 20, 2009) sells Barnes & Noble its own electronic reader ( e-reader ) under the name NOOK ( portmanteau consisting of Noble and Book; Barnes could not be used because it give Facebook again would; in addition, nook is the word for hiding place in English). Barnes & Noble is the second major book seller alongside Amazon to launch its own (or licensed under its own name) e-reader.

The NOOK is equipped with a combination display, i.e. it has a reading surface in e-ink technology and a color touchscreen underneath. It is also internet-enabled via a cellular connection (either UMTS or via WLAN ) and connected to the Barnes & Noble shop. The NOOK was offered in 2010 as a combination of 3G / WLAN or just WLAN (launched in May 2010). The NOOK (3G / Wifi, Wifi) was sold more than a million times (as of June 2010).

NOOK Simple Touch

NOOK Simple Touch

On May 24, 2011, Barnes & Noble announced a successor model with the name NOOK Simple Touch . The previous Nooks were renamed to NOOK 1st Edition . The new NOOK Simple Touch only has one screen, a touchscreen E-Ink Pearl display with a resolution of 800 × 600 pixels. The NOOK has an external microSD card, a battery life of 2 months (manufacturer information) and an 802.11b / g / n WiFi connection. Advance sales started on the same day, and the first deliveries to customers were announced for June 10th. The retail price at the time was US $ 139 (excluding tax), somewhere between that of the Nook 3G and Nook Wifi 1st Edition. On the same day, the prices for the Nook 1st Edition were reduced. Amazon countered the next day with the start of sales of the Kindle 3G with advertising at a reduced price.

NOOK Color

Internal cover name Encore (encore). The NOOK Color tablet computer was announced in New York on October 26, 2010 . It has a 7-inch touchscreen - IPS LC display (17.78 mm) and a resolution of 1024 × 600 with 169 pixels per inch ( PPI ). Only one WLAN version is currently available. The NOOK Color has an automatic change between portrait and landscape format, a built-in (8 GB ) and an external memory ( microSDHC ). The operating system is based on Google's Android and is currently installed in version 2.1 with Barnes and Noble's own platform version 1.0.0. The first update (1.0.1) was installed on December 19, 2010, the second (1.1.0) in mid-January 2011.

The delivery of the NOOK Color began on November 15, 2010. At that time, tens of thousands of devices had been pre-ordered. In addition to a new developer platform, a marketplace for own apps has also been announced.

The first reports appeared in mid-January 2011 describing the rooting of the NOOK Color. On February 1, 2011, the first reports were published in which the Google operating system Android 3.0 was successfully installed on a rooted NOOK Color, one day before the new operating system was officially presented by Google.

On April 25, 2011, an operating system update was carried out to version 1.2.0, which is based on Android OS 2.2 / Froyo . This makes it possible to use Adobe Flash Player products. With the update, Barnes & Noble is also introducing its own NOOK App Store, in which applications for the NOOK Color can be purchased.

By April 2011, more than a million copies of the NOOK Color had been sold.

NOOK tablet

On November 7, 2011, the tablet computer NOOK Tablet (internal cover name Acclaim ) was announced in New York . This is a further development of the NOOK Color with a faster processor , more memory (16 GB internal, 32 GB on microSD memory card) and a built-in microphone. The tablet is lighter and a little thinner than the NOOK Color. According to the manufacturer, the battery lasts 11.5 hours (WiFi switched off). The brightness of the screen has been increased by a special lamination and now achieves HD quality. Netflix and Hulu are installed as apps . In June 2013, Barnes & Noble announced that the company would discontinue production of its own Nook HD tablets; the devices should instead be manufactured by other developers and marketed by Barnes & Noble with the Nook logo.

PubIt

In PubIt (Publish it - publish it) is a self-publishing , publishing where anyone can sell e-books and on BN.com. After setting up the user account , documents can be uploaded in various formats . These are automatically converted to EPUB format and listed on the BN.com website. The price of the e-book is specified by the user, the proceeds are divided between the publisher and BN.com according to a specified key.

The relatively open structure of this self-publishing system means that many books are offered several times by different publicists , especially by popular authors whose copyright has expired. It is also possible to publish books in languages ​​other than English. An example are books in German by Karl May , Kafka and Charles Dickens . Pubit currently supports Microsoft Word , HTML , RTF and text files .

LendMe

This service allows the owner of e-books to lend the e-book to a second person for a period of two weeks. During this time, your own access to the e-book is blocked. The publicist must have consented to this service. Currently, Mac OS , Microsoft Windows , iPhone , iPod touch and BlackBerry cell phones supported.

Market position and marketing

Since Barnes & Noble does not publish sales data for e-book readers , third-party estimates and press releases must be used. For the Nook 3G / Wifi version, the estimates for the end of 2010 are almost two million devices, for the NOOKcolor by the end of 2010 (from October 26, 2010), over 650,000 devices have been sold. According to an article in Publishers Weekly, 18,000 units are produced daily and shipped to the US by air. Since Barnes & Noble only sells its e-readers in North America (since December 2009), one can assume a market share of more than 50% for 2010 in the 7 inch e-reader class. Marketing for the e-readers takes place in Barnes & Noble Book Stores, on the web (BN.com), Wal-Mart , Best Buy , Overstock.com and other retail partners. Devices returned by customers are also sold as Certified Pre-Owned at reduced prices via eBay . B. Thanksgiving 2010 for $ 99 for the wifi and $ 119 for the 3G version. E-books are sold via apps on iPad, iPhone, PC, Android mobile phones and other e-readers. Barnes & Noble claims to sell more than two million different titles as nookbooks . Further products in E-format are nooknewsstand ( magazines and newspapers ) and nookkids (children's products).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Barnes & Noble 2018 Form 10-K , accessed August 12, 2018.
  2. ↑ Fox Business - Announcement ( Memento of December 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ sueddeutsche.de March 5, 2018: The last major bookseller in the USA perishes
  4. ↑ Live From the Nook Launch The Wall Street Journal
  5. ↑ Engadget report on the Nook press launch
  6. ↑ CNN report on the NOOKcolor press launch
  7. ↑ Barnes & Noble gives up its own Nook tablets . heise online. June 25, 2013. Retrieved June 25, 2013.
  8. ↑ Barnes & Noble nook LendMe feature is severely limited, assumes you have friends
  9. ↑ CNN report sales data Nook
  10. ↑ PW article

Web links

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