Barnes & Noble vs. Amazon: Long Tail Wins Everytime!

It was with mild amusement that I read Barnes & Noble’s 2nd quarter profits were down 15% blaming it on sluggish consumer spending. The amusement came from Amazon’s announcement in July that their 2nd quarter sales were up 41%.

Why?

It wasn’t that long ago that Barnes & Noble was tearing through the countryside opening up store after store while leaving a bloody trail of mom and pop Book shops in their wake.

Don’t get me wrong, I am for big business as much as the next guy, and I applaud any company that can build itself up from one store to ten stores to one thousand stores and so on. I mean that’s what the American success story is all about right? Companies like Wal-Mart, Starbucks, and Home Depot all started from a single location.

So throughout the 80’s and 90’s the book retailer grew rapidly and it seemed as if nothing could stop it. Then along came Amazon. Amazon took the long tail approach to books that no brick and mortar seller could even consider. But I am certainly not telling anyone reading this post something they don’t already know. The point to this post is this.

Grow or die!

Barnes & Noble got fat and lazy, giving away the low ground to Amazon and allowing the online giant first mover advantage which B&N have yet to recover from. Banes & Noble have been playing follower the leader ever since. This brings us to their weak-ass excuse for bad Q2 earnings.

What’s my point?

That fantastic quarter that Amazon had in the face of “sluggish consumer spending” came from an increase in media to 31% and to 58% in electronics and other general merchandise so people are buying other things besides books. Maybe you should check it out.