实体书店难逃停业的命运

MICHELE NORRIS, host: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Michele Norris.

ROBERT SIEGEL, host: And I'm Robert Siegel.

It appears to be all over for the Borders bookselling chain. The company will be liquidated（清偿，停止）, meaning sold off in pieces. The chain's 400 remaining stores will close their doors by the end of September. And almost 11,000 employees will lose their jobs.

美国第二大连锁书店Borders受到出版业迅速转变、电子阅读革命及经济动荡等多种因素影响，无法找到足够的买家，将全面停业。Borders计划将资产出售给代理商。在9月底，Borders剩余的近400家分店将关闭，届时有11000人将失去工作。

The first Borders opened in Ann Arbor, Michigan, 40 years ago. And the company, along with Barnes & Noble, pioneered the book megastore business.

NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports on why one survived and the other didn't.

YUKI NOGUCHI: The vast tracts of retail space that Borders will vacate speak to a gargantuan business that essentially killed itself. At one time, size worked to its advantage. Borders built a reputation on offering a huge variety of books; tens of thousands of titles in a single store. Borders also had the early technical advantage. It had a superior inventory(详细目录)system that could predict what people in different parts of the country would buy.

But in the mid-1990s, Borders lost its technical edge.

Mr. PETER WAHLSTROM (Co-Editor, OptionInvestor, Morningstar): It made a pretty big bet in merchandising; went heavy into CD music sales and DVD, just as the industry was going towards digital. And at that same time, Barnes & Noble was pulling back.

NOGUCHI: Peter Wahlstrom tracks the industry for the research firm Morningstar. Wahlstrom says Barnes & Noble also invested in beefing up its online sales. Eventually, it also developed its own eReader, the Nook.

Borders did not. Instead, it expanded its physical plant and refurbished(刷新，擦亮) its stores. It contracted out its eReader business. And Borders outsourced its online sales operation to Amazon.

Mr. WAHLSTROM: And in our view, that was more like handing the keys over to a direct competitor.

NOGUCHI: Indeed, outside a Borders in Arlington, Virginia, shoppers say they don't buy books the old-fashioned way anymore.

Ms. JENNIFER GEIER: I go to Borders to find a book, and then I'll actually buy it on Amazon, generally.

Mr. TRISTAN ABBY: I come here to see the books. Then if I like them, then I buy them on Amazon.

NOGUCHI: That was Jennifer Geier(ph) and Tristan Abby(ph).

With so many people like them buying from online sellers that don't have to pay rent or have as many staff, Borders lost big. The last time Borders turned a profit was in 2006. In February of this year, it filed for bankruptcy protection.

Those who bemoaned the rise of bookselling giants might see irony in Border's demise. With one of the major players gone, there might be some room, once again, for the little guys.

Again, Morningstar analyst Peter Wahlstrom.

Mr. WAHLSTROM: I think that there are a bunch of different niches around that can still be sustained. But I don't think there's a need for, you know, the mass-book seller to be as prevalent and apparent as they were five, 10 years ago.

NOGUCHI: Wahlstrom says Borders is disappearing at a time when, as consumers, readers are more empowered than ever. Wahlstrom says he still reads paper books, but he also reads on his iPhone, computer or tablet.

Mr. WAHLSTROM: Just as I'm probably device agnostic(a.不可知论的), I am supplier agnostic. I can go online, I can go to Barnes & Noble, I can go to Apple, I can go to Google. Or I can borrow it from a friend or I can go to my library.

NOGUCHI: Dan Raff is a management professor at The Wharton School. He argues that actually there is something lost, especially for smaller-town America.

Professor DAN RAFF (Management, The Wharton School): The big-box store was a glorious thing while it lsted. To people in many parts of America, they were a kind of Aladdin's cave.

NOGUCHI: Where people could access literary variety that only a book megastore could offer.

Raff says with Barnes & Noble staking its future on digital technology, it's likely the big bookstore will live on only in big cities.

Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.