Barnes & Noble Turns the Page Back to Growth

Barnes & Noble (New York) has been opening new bookstores at what it describes as “an unprecedented rate” – no small brag for a company that operated 1300-plus stores in the early 1990s. But after being battered by a variety of factors, most prominently the emergence of online bookselling behemoth Amazon, B&N closed roughly half its outlets.

Then, after opening only one or two new stores each year during the decade after 2009, Barnes & Noble has already opened 16 new bookstores this year and has more than 30 more in development for 2023.

The bookseller disclosed those plans in a recent news release it put out about a new store it opened in the MarketStreet complex Lynnfield, Mass., on Black Friday. That space, at 1115 Market Street, was formerly occupied by Amazon Books. A few weeks earlier, B&N opened another store in a former Amazon Books space, this time in Dedham, Mass. Those additions bring the chain’s current store count to about 600.

“We are very pleased with the two new bookstores we have built in former Amazon Books stores in Massachusetts. Legacy Place in Dedham looks sensational and the new bookstore in Lynnfield is a revelation,” says CEO James Daunt.

In a similar vein, B&N Store Manager Kathleen Murphy noted that the chain’s latest locales are “far removed from algorithms.”