E- Business Paper

E-Business Paper

Amy Strohn

Cito Vanegas

ACC 340

February 15, 2015

Introduction

Barnes and Noble was formed in the 1970’s by Leanord Riggio. When Mr. Riggio gained ownership of the Barnes and Noble name it was attached to a store on Fifth Avenue in New York. “Within a few years, Mr. Riggio transformed the Fifth Avenue store into "The World’s Largest Bookstore," with 150,000 textbook and trade titles.” (Barnes, 2015) Barnes and Noble has been a leader in innovative technology advances from the beginning. The company had the first television advertising for book sales. They were also the first in the book selling market to sell at discount rates. They expanded and purchased additional chains that gave them a start in mail order. Barnes and Noble was not afraid to experiment trying to find the right size store and the right set up for optimal customer satisfaction. They finally settled on the superstore strategy. “In the early 1990s, the company refined its superstore concept and established the modern generation of Barnes & Noble superstores, which today represent over 96 percent of our retail sales.” (Barnes, 2015) Barnes and Noble also has departments for children’s books, college books, music, games, as well as café settings.

E-Commerce

Barnes and Noble tested E-commerce in the 1980’s when they paired with Sears and IBM to try an experimental book selling website. It was not until 1997 when they launched their official BN.com website with America Online. Currently the website is the largest of any bookselling website. The advantages of going online for Barnes and Noble are that they have a larger customer base. They are also able to offer hard to obtain books my pairing with other accredited book dealers. One of the disadvantages that Barnes and Noble faces in the online book sales is that online customers do not get the actual bookstore experience. With the technological advances that emerge almost daily the benefits of starting an E-commerce...