Most of Barnes & Noble's 627 stores are closed to the public, and the remainder are likely to close soon, but they continue to offer BOPIS (buy onine, pick up in store) via curbside pick-up where permitted. As a result B&N has closed stores and laid off staff with less than six months of employment and furloughed most of the rest in a move that CEO James Daunt called "a brutal process and something that we hope will be of the shortest possible duration."
The "small silver lining to this calamity," Daunt continued, is that B&N is using the period to renovate most of its stores, a project "we had otherwise intended to work through over the next 18 months to two years." This includes moving bookcases and furniture and "improving visually our stores with better fixtures." In addition, teams of booksellers are being brought back to "work through all our book categories. We aim, to the best of our abilities, to direct an appropriate allocation of space and the best possible backlist assortment. This is an exercise in bookselling curation that is very long overdue and which we hope will improve dramatically the quality of our bookstores."
The "small silver lining to this calamity," Daunt continued, is that B&N is using the period to renovate most of its stores, a project "we had otherwise intended to work through over the next 18 months to two years." This includes moving bookcases and furniture and "improving visually our stores with better fixtures." In addition, teams of booksellers are being brought back to "work through all our book categories. We aim, to the best of our abilities, to direct an appropriate allocation of space and the best possible backlist assortment. This is an exercise in bookselling curation that is very long overdue and which we hope will improve dramatically the quality of our bookstores."
