Barnesandnoble A Good Decision

barnesandnoble.com a good decision? Explain your opinion.

After a slow and fraught-filled start with order fulfillment glitches and Barnes and Noble grossly miscalculating the importance of creating ties between their physical stores and online stores, I do believe they made the right decision to have an online presence. However, I think the actual physical stores need to be where their “bread and butter” is at. When they first created Barnesandnoble.com they received a lot of criticism for their lack of ingenuity when it came to meeting their customer’s needs. The site was slow and hard to use, and they had a lot of missteps when it came to filling their customer’s orders, but over time they resolved some of their issues and in 2001, thanks to their efforts to exploit all the sales channels they increased their revenue 23%.

That is why it is so important to have physical stores. Even with today’s technology, people still like to have a choice and I for one, prefer to go to a store, browse through the aisle and select my books. For those who prefer the convenience of ordering online, but want instant gratification, they have the option of purchasing a book online and picking it up at the store. Also, Barnesandnoble.com only has a 10% profit return, which is no-where near where it needs to be and proves there is a lot of work to be done in this area. They seem to be behind the times. For example, when they came out with their free shipping promotion, it was one month after Amazon’s