Borders Close Down

I knew the Borders chain in Australia were going to be shutting down soon, but even as recently as a week ago I asked one of that staff at a big branch whether they'd be closing and the girl reassured me they definitely weren't closing down. So even the staff didn't know. All the big Westfield shopping centres in Sydney will be left with huge gashes in them, probably to be filled with horrible temporary displays of Christmas decorations or discount storage. Borders was the only chain of book shops that maintained a large enough stock on shelves to have a good chance of finding what you're looking for (not to mention plenty of those huge coffee table Design and Architecture books with all the cool photos), especially in the suburbs . There are quite a few independent stores if you live in the right "indie" areas. In the city centre there's Kinokuniya (probably the best remaining big book shop) and the main Dymocks branch (the ones in the shopping centres are all very small) but out in the suburbs Borders was the only real choice. And now it's gone. All that's left is a 30-40% off sale to get rid of remaining stock, which will be followed by a clearance sale to get rid of all the shelving and furniture. Still, seeing that the huge sale they're having is only now coming close to the price you'd pay buying it on the UK Amazon (including delivery) it's not hard to see how they couldn't compete. And I'm sure that's the reason the sister chain in the UK and Ireland closed down too. Even with Gloria Jeans cafe's to get people to stay, they just go home and buy it online. I'm convinced there's still a market for bookshops though, and big ones, even if most people start downloading their reading material to tablets. Borders was always full of people who didn't buy anything. People like browsing leisurely around book shops, maybe getting a coffee, and taking their time (like a really nice library). I think you could almost stop selling the books themselves and start charging $1 or something just to enter and stay as long as you want. They'd make more money that way than through selling anything.