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A comment on Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive. Parent comment

Re:Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive by bluedino on Monday July 11, 2022 @12:57PM (#32058656)
How are they still in business, by the way? It seemed like they were just a Starbucks location with a ton of overhead, I thought we'd seen the last of them when pandemic shut everything down.

I loved B&N by the way, more computer-related books than WaldenBooks, but not as many as Borders.

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Re:Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive by munificent on Monday July 11, 2022 @01:33PM (#32059090)
> How are they still in business, by the way?

They've broadened out into being general "gift stores". My local Barnes and Noble has a large toys section (mostly LEGO and educational stuff), board games, puzzles, music (lots of vinyl), stationery (fancy journals).

It's essentially "stuff introverts like" in a nice space.

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Re:Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive by jabroni_salad on Monday July 11, 2022 @04:17PM (#32061224)
Around the time of the pandemic they implemented a strategic change to have local management arrange the store rather than auctioning shelf placement to publishers like most other retailers do. This has actually made B&N pretty nice to browse compared to a few years ago.
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Re:Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive by bombcar on Monday July 11, 2022 @01:27PM (#32059020)
Because "Starbucks with overhead" is a surprisingly effective business model apparently; though if you go into one you'll notice that there are a lot more chotchkeys for sale near the front of the store (even LEGO lol).
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