Barnes & Noble buying college stores
Barnes & Noble is buying hundreds of college stores, including one at Washington University’s medical school and one at St. Louis University.
Those stores already go by the B&N name but were privately owned by a company called Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, says Publishers Weekly. B&N now apparently plans to add more “trade” books to the college stores (by trade, think general interest fiction and nonfiction, as opposed to textbooks). The sale was announced Monday (Aug. 10).
The Washington University store, which is at 4905 Children’s Place, is down the road from independent bookseller Left Bank Books, 399 North Euclid. Here’s what the PW post said:
“B&N CFO Joe Lombardi said that while there will be some cost savings from the deal, the main driver was the chance for B&N to bring its expertise to the college store area to help college bookstores sell more trade titles, to improve their Web sites and e-commerce operations. Lombardi sees more opportunity in taking on the operation of bookstores from colleges who are looking to outsource those operations; B&N said its new contract pipeline should add $53 million in annualized sales.”
Barnes & Noble College Booksellers was owned by B&N founder Len Riggio. PW says: “B&N is valuing the purchase at $596 million, or $460 million after including B&N’s cash on hand. The college operation had sales of $1.8 billion in the fiscal year ended May 2 with comp sales growth of 1.0%, and although profits were not broken out ….”
The College Booksellers company runs 624 stores across the country, including several in Missouri and the two in St. Louis, according to its website.
College textbooks are a rip-off business. They were when I went to SLU in the mid-80’s and they’re even more outrageously priced now.
I suggest to all college students to check out college textbox rentals at a site like chegg.com. I suggested it to my cousin’s oldest who is heading off to college (am I that old
)?
- Bill
Can someone please correct the link to this story on the main page? Seems sad a story about a book store has such horrible grammar in it. “They including one”?
1UP: For any students who will be attending Mizzou this fall, check out 1Up Books. It’s owned and operated by two MU students who felt that the campus bookstore was unduly expensive for college students. They sell lower than the campus store and buy your text books back at a better price than the University. They definately “1 Up” the competition! Aaron and Brandon have been so successful that they’ve even branched out to U of I and KSU! They’re online sellers, and they also set up a store front at the beginning and end of each semester near campus. 1up.com. On Facebook & MySpace too. Best deals for text books by far.