Retail Karma

Despite the liquidation sales going on in their stores, Borders continues to post various updates on their Facebook page. This in turn spawns comments from a mix of fans, detractors and soon-to -be-former employees. As a former employee, the ones that particularly irritate me are those that imply that Borders demise represents some sort of karmic payback for supposedly driving all the independent bookstores out of business. That song was already old and tired when I worked for them in the mid-90s. It was a ridiculous and simplistic view then, and it's only gotten more so in intervening years.

First off, unless there was some super-secret corporate plan that was never shared outside the highest levels, Borders didn't set out to destroy independent bookstores. In its heyday, it was out to be the best bookstore possible - and it really was. In any case at the store level, we never viewed the independent bookstores as the enemy and didn't hesitate to call the store up the road, even if it was a Barnes and Noble (who was more likely to be viewed as the enemy). The bottom line was customer service, and it was something that the Borders of the 1990s succeeded at more so than a lot of other stores.

As many have observed, the nature of business is that the market evolves and if you don't evolve with it you're toast. That a once innovative company like Borders is now demonstrating that principle due to a failure to innovate effectively is certainly sad and ironic. Calling it karma, though, is deeply uninformed and hugely insensitive to the many people who once did their best to make Borders the best.