Borders.com and the Downfall of Brick and Mortar Books Stores

I recently read that Borders, having had its stock price fall to .39 cents, is going to have to declare bankruptcy. That's sad news, or is it? A few years ago I was skeptical of eBooks but now, they are more common than the household fly. Libraries prefer digital books as they are 1) much cheaper than large tombs of bound paper and C) cost less to put back on the shelf and store each day. Even our schools are starting to prefer the cheaper cost and easy updatability of e-textbooks. How about the students? They prefer the ease of carrying around an iPad rather than a duffel bag the size of steamer trunk. I know of one school that has mandated every student have an iPad for just this reason (okay, maybe not that reason). So why is Borders failing? Inefficiency. Let me explain.

I recently decided to use some border.com bonus bucks before the company's impending implosion. I went online to borders.com and attempted to log on. I tried my usual array of passwords but alas I couldn't remember the proper one. My account was locked out. Usually, that's not a big deal. You click the "forgot password" icon and a temp password is emailed to you. Not in this case, I had to call their customer support center ... in India. After the polite Indian woman from
"Outsourced" read her script and asked me about my phone number, email address and blood type I was put on hold. After two minutes she came back on the line and told me my account had been reset. She then proceeded to give me a six digit incident report number and wished me a pleasant day. So, to reset a password it cost me about five minutes of time while the company had to pay for me to call someone across the world in India to do it. Talk about inefficient! Granted it is still cheaper than using a US worker as the US Government has yet to lower corporate taxes to compete with other countries or INSTEAD charge the outsourcing corporations that do. And just to let you know, all the money paid to the Indian workers does not go back into the US economy, OUR economy (not that I have anything against Indian workers. The chick below is pretty hot even WITH a microphone on her head).

If a company doesn't even have the brains to allow their customers the ability to reset their accounts themselves online then surely they have no reasonable hope to make a decent profit. Okay, maybe that statement was a "little" bit over the top and doesn't add anything at all to my argument but one day I see eBooks taking over everywhere. The libraries will do little more than house a reading room full of pink cupcakes for children on one side of the building while the other has a huge bank of Commodore 64 computers so the poorest people in America (someday the entire middle class) can access the internet.

First came digital music. Next will be digital movies & tv. And finally, in America, we'll all read eBooks until we run out of fossil fuels that make our power plants function. Personally, I own stock in the ever expanding B & O Railroad, which uses this new invention called a steam engine to power its trains. I can't wait until I can collect rent on all four properties!