Target

Barnes & Noble had a rough holiday season: Same-store sales fell compared to a year ago and revenue from sales of the Nook tablet stalled. Despite a heavy investment in the Nook business, Barnes & Noble is expected to have a three-year cumulative loss of more than $700 million, according to Barclays Capital -- an indication that the bookstore's multi-front war with online retailer Amazon.com doesn't seem to be working.

A new partnership from txtr and ReaderLink will let retail chains and outlets like Target, Walmart, Costco and Stop & Shop sell ebooks through their websites. txtr says the partnership could provide an alternative to Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
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In an attempt to compete with Amazon and Barnes & Noble, Berlin-based ebook company txtr and U.S. print book distributor ReaderLink have partnered to sell ebooks through new outlets: grocery stores, mass merchants, warehouse clubs, drugstores and department stores.

Ah, two can play this game! There's a lot of noise in the news feed today about Barnes & Noble's earnings report (share price down, but down significantly less compared to last year, retail sales flat, Nook sales up). But what's "interesting" (read: annoying, for journalists anyway) is that B&N is playing the same game Amazon plays with Kindle sales: Nook sales "doubled" over Black Friday weekend. But how many units does that represent? B&N's not telling.

—Brian Howard

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is America's top businessman, at least according to Fortune's Magazine. Bezos beat out Apple's Tim Cook, Comcast's Brian Roberts and Steve Burke, eBay's John Donahoe and Larry Page it the magazine's annual Businessperson of the Year issue. He's a guy who took his love of books and turned it into an online empire, taking on the seemingly impervious retail book world. Now try to find a Barne's and Noble today.

 ‘Tis the season for brick-and-mortar retailers to freak out. Target is rolling out QR codes so shoppers can scan and buy toys on their cellphones. Walmart is dabbling with same-day service while Toys R Us and Best Buy are introducing their own tablet products all in the hopes that consumers won’t treat their stores as three-dimensional catalogs for Amazon.

Just as mobile is changing the media and advertising landscape, it’s wreaking havoc on retail as well.

Amazon prides itself on unraveling the established order. This fall, signs of Amazon-inspired disruption are everywhere.There is the slow-motion crackup of electronics showroom Best Buy. There is Amazon’s rumored entry into the wine business, which is already agitating competitors. And there is the merger of Random House and Penguin, an effort to create a mega-publisher sufficiently hefty to negotiate with the retailer on equal terms. Amazon inspires anxiety just about everywhere, but its publishing arm is getting pushback from all sorts of booksellers.

While no publisher can realistically abstain from the online retail behemoths when it comes to book selling, there is no reason why selling directly to consumers cannot be a viable option, especially if publishers work to build relationships with readers. In the tips below from five different publishers on how they have found success with direct selling, certain themes recur: building trust with readers, smart audience targeting and cultivating an overarching brand sensibility.

Content Marketing Institute (producer of the celebrated Content Marketing World conference), Target Marketing and Publishing Executive magazines are proud to announce that PR Newswire has signed on as the Gold Sponsor of their exclusive one-day eventóContent Marketing World NYC.

The day-long workshop event will focus on strategies for creating exceptional content to engage audiences and promote business growth. Leading the workshop are premiere content marketing experts Joe Pulizzi (founder of Content Marketing Institute) and Robert Rose (founder of Big Blue Moose).

 Target is gearing up for the holiday season with a mobile-based program designed to foil the practice of “showrooming.” Starting Oct. 14, customers who visit the stores will see a showcase of the top 20 toys of the season each of which will sport a QR code that lets consumers buy them online and have them shipped. Though the retailer spun the program as an “added convenience” for shoppers, Target has been aggressively battling showrooming since last holiday season.

Content Marketing Institute (producer of the celebrated Content Marketing World conference) has partnered with Target Marketing and Publishing Executive magazines to produce an all-new, exclusive one-day event—Content Marketing World NYC.

The day-long workshop event will focus on strategies for creating exceptional content to engage audiences and promote business growth. Leading the workshop are premiere content marketing experts Joe Pulizzi (founder of Content Marketing Institute) and Robert Rose (founder of Big Blue Moose). They’ll focus on topics like story generating, developing pillars of content, story mapping, and content marketing campaign execution.