Photo: Barnes & Noble

If, for whatever reason, you still didn’t think eBooks and e-readers were here to stay, here’s a shock to your system: Barnes & Noble Inc., the US’s biggest books retail chain, has just put itself up for sale. The real kicker is the growing sales of digital books are partly to blame.

For sale sign erected

After continued pressure from shareholder activists Barnes & Noble Inc. has put itself up for sale, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. The company announced that a continuously falling stock priced forced the group to think through all alternatives, ‘Including a potential sale’.

The primary reason for the somewhat unexpected yet not-altogether-surprising sale is the meteoric rise of digital books and their respective e-readers as a viable platform, as well as more and more book lovers ordering their titles online. This meant that foot traffic to the stores declined steadily, putting revenue pressure on the group in step. Effectively, as has been evident for years but has only really come to fore recently, Amazon has wrecked their business.

Potential buyers

With Barnes & Noble Inc. having 720 stores across the United States, 637 stores on college campuses and a grand brand name, the company is attractive to various suitors. Leonard Riggio, the group’s founder and chairman, may be forming a group of investors to purchase the company, and a multitude of private equity firms are expected to be in the running, too.

What’s the benefit?

What do potential suitors stand to gain? A fair amount, actually. The aforementioned brand pull and reach of the group is a great motivator, as is the promising Barnes & Noble Nook e-reader platform. Sure, Amazon has trail blazed ahead and has put some distance between itself and competitors, but the Barnes & Noble Nook (and the iPad) have confirmed that Amazon is not the de facto e-reader yet.
What matters in this story is that eBooks and e-readers are big, big business. Big enough, in fact, to force the hand of America’s biggest books chain.