Sunday, June 06, 1999
No deal for Barnes & Noble: Book sellers happy
BY DAVID ECK
Enquirer contributor
Independent booksellers in the Tristate are cheering Barnes & Noble Inc.'s decision last week to abandon plans to buy Ingram Book Group.
The $600 million deal would have united the world's largest bookstore chain and the No. 1 book wholesaler. It collapsed because of federal antitrust objections that such a combination would give Barnes & Noble an unfair competitive position.
Local booksellers, already locked in combat again the massive Barnes & Noble chain, applauded the failed deal. Their lives are tough enough already, they said.
“It could have been devastating,” said Gene Jestice, owner of Dickens' Book Shop in Lebanon. “Ingram probably supplies me with 80 percent of my inventory.”
Trade officials feared that a merger could cause Barnes & Noble to discriminate against rivals, slow delivery of hot titles to competitors, raise prices and eliminate such perks as free shipping.
“They would have access to all my purchase records,” said Mr. Jestice, who has owned his store for nine years. “One thing that could happen is that Barnes & Noble could dry up my source for best sellers. I wouldn't be able to get them. If they own the company, they could take all the resources.”
Big bookstore chains and the phenomenal growth of online bookselling have doomed many independents. The Barnes & Noble deal could have made things worse.
“For an independent bookstore, it's a difficult thing to compete as it is,” said Howard Cohen, marketing manager for Joseph-Beth Booksellers, which has stores in Norwood and Lexington, Ky. “To have the largest chain purchase your main distributor was certainly something that didn't seem as though it was going to make life easier for us.”
Pricing and replenishment issues topped Mr. Cohen's worry list. His company works with Ingram on a daily basis.
“There was definite concern on how we were going to continue to do business effectively,” he said. “For this not to happen seems like better business for everyone.”
Crazy Ladies Bookstore in Northside doesn't use Ingram, but store manager Laura Smith worried that the merger could have set a precedent.
“Just to have Barnes & Noble, which is already a big powerhouse, to have a direct link to a supplier, it just would be an unfair advantage in the marketplace,” she said. “They definitely would have been able to get their supply in a way that we wouldn't have access to.”
A secondary concern is that a merger could have hurt the public by limiting the books that are published. If Barnes & Noble controlled the largest distributor, publishers might be apt to publish only mainstream books favored by the chain, Mr. Jestice said.
“I'm much more concerned about the availability of literature to the public at large. I think it could have had a stifling effect on the young up-and-coming authors.”
Sheri Hill, manager of Blue Marble, a children's bookstore in Oakley, also worried that a merger would favor the giants.
“We have to always be watching to see a level playing field for the independent stores,” she said. “You have to be vigilant. Generally, when those big mergers happen, they don't benefit the small guy.”
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