Principles of Accounting

Principles of Accounting

Barnes & Noble is the world's largest bookseller, operating over 793 stores in 50 states in the US. It sells almost 445 million books annually. The company takes more than eight million customer orders a year and fulfills more than 100,000 customer service requests every day. The company's strong brand image and leadership position enables it to stay ahead of peers. However, increasing competition from other retailers could adversely affect its market share and margins.

Barnes & Noble is the world's largest bookseller, operating over 793 stores. Of them, approximately 695 operate primarily under the Barnes & Noble Booksellers trade name in 50 states in the US. The company plans to open between 35 and 40 Barnes & Noble stores in the fiscal year ending 2008 which are expected to average 27,000 square feet in size.

In addition to market leadership, Barnes & Noble also has strong brand equity which allows it to partner with big brands to offer more value added services. For instance, Barnes & Noble bookstores have cafes, for which the Starbucks is the sole provider of coffee products. The Barnes & Noble-Starbucks brand combination drives traffic, retention, brand recognition, and store consistency. The company has been ranked as the top brand for quality among retail brands in America in 2002, 2003,2004,2005,2006 and 2007 by Harris Interactive. The company's strong brand image and leadership position enables it to stay ahead of its peers.

Barnes & Noble is the only bookseller with a fully operational multi-channel strategy - with retail locations from coast to coast and an online subsidiary, Barnes & Noble.com. In the retail segment, the company currently operates two retail concepts: Barnes & Noble superstores and mall based B Dalton stores. Barnes & Noble retail stores average 27,000 square feet and carry up to 200,000 titles. Its stores feature a wide selection and comfortable settings, including lounge chairs and reading tables. They operate seven days a week and also carry selections of music, DVD/video titles and magazines.

Barnes & Noble's online channel, Barnes & Noble.com, offers the largest in-stock selection of in-print book titles with access to approximately one million titles for immediate delivery, supplemented by more than 70 million customer visits annually, ranking it among the top 30 e-commerce sites in terms of traffic, as measured by Comscore Media Metrix. The company's multiple distribution channels allow greater customer convenience and lend flexibility to its operations.

The growth of Barnes & Noble's own publishing program, which offers 'books rarely found elsewhere at prices not matched anywhere', has strengthened the company's operations. For example, the new Barnes & Noble Classics line brings back great literary classics some selling for as low as $3.95. The series, developed with children and the educational community in mind, has also been a success. With the addition of Sterling Publishing, Barnes & Noble has publishing or distribution rights to nearly 10,000 titles. Sterling has an active list of more than 5,000 owned and distributed titles, and annually publishes and ...