Скачать или смотреть The Collapse of Borders Books: How America's Favorite Bookstore Lost to Amazon

July 2011. Across suburban America, lights go out in once-bustling buildings. Heavy glass doors are locked, and behind them are only empty, dusty shelves. The largest book empire, Borders, announces its complete liquidation. Overnight, 650 superstores disappear and 11,000 employees find themselves out of work. Wall Street and millions of readers are in shock: a cultural giant with billions in revenue has simply been wiped off the face of the earth.

How did a company that effectively invented modern book retailing find itself on the brink of destruction?

Founded in 1971 by brothers Louis and Tom Borders in Ann Arbor, Borders revolutionized the industry. While others sold books “by eye,” the brothers developed the Borders Management System, software that predicted demand better than any expert. By the mid-1990s, Borders had become a “cultural cathedral”: 1,200 locations around the world, comfortable armchairs, the smell of Arabica coffee, and endless rows of knowledge. Borders was the “third place” — not home or work, but a space where people lived, fell in love, and discovered the world.

But success turned into arrogance. While Borders was building huge “palaces” out of brick and concrete, tying itself to 20-year leases, the world began to move online. Management made a fatal mistake — a “deal with the devil” — by handing over all of its online sales and customer data to its main competitor, Amazon. They believed that the internet was just a passing fad and that people would always come for the “smell of paper.”

The 2011 crisis was no accident. It was the result of strategic blindness: the company ignored e-books when the Kindle was already taking over the market and replaced experienced “book lovers” with low-paid staff in order to save money. Borders survived only until its debts exceeded $350 million and its shelves began to empty due to supplier mistrust.

This is a story about how the world's most powerful book empire collapsed under the weight of its own walls, making the most spectacular mistake in business history: they entrusted the keys to their future to their own executioner.


Translated with DeepL.com (free version)