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Dive Brief:
As part of its continued store expansion strategy, Barnes & Noble plans to open more than 60 new locations in 2025, according to a press release Wednesday.
The company is set to open four new locations this month alone, in Illinois, New York, Florida and Nebraska.
The move comes after Barnes & Noble opened 57 stores in 2024 and acquired Tattered Cover’s four stores in Colorado, the company told Retail Dive via email. Barnes & Noble says this totaled more new bookstores in a single year than the company had opened from 2009 to 2019.
Dive Insight:
Barnes & Noble is focused on physical growth again and attributes its recent success to a strategy of handing “control of each bookstore to its local booksellers,” per its press release.
But many of the new spaces are in areas very familiar to the company.
In November, Barnes & Noble opened a new store in the same space it previously vacated in Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood. The company’s newest location in Naperville, Illinois, is set to open on Wednesday just up the street from its former location.
“We are very happy to return to Naperville, where for 25 years we were a community staple,” CEO of Barnes & Noble James Daunt said in a statement. “Our longtime booksellers are as eager to be back in town as they are to welcome customers into their brand-new Naperville Barnes & Noble.”
The company’s new space in Tampa, Florida, this month is also akin to a re-opening and “marks the return of the bookseller to the Carrollwood community,” according to another Wednesday press release.
Many of Barnes & Noble’s grand openings this year have featured book signings with bestselling authors and ribbon-cuttings.
The book industry has experienced a slew of changes over the past few years, which Barnes & Noble has been a part of.
After years of falling revenue attributed to the pandemic, California-based retailer Books Inc. in January filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in order to reset its finances. Tattered Cover filed for bankruptcy in 2023, after which Barnes & Noble acquired the chain in July. Additionally, Borders closed in 2011 after several turnaround efforts and a bankruptcy filing, which led to a liquidation.
With this upheaval, Barnes & Noble essentially stands as the predominant big book retailer in the United States, with competition mostly consisting of small businesses. Even so, it has struggled itself in the past.
Hedge fund Elliot Management (which also owns major bookseller Waterstones in the United Kingdom) in 2019 acquired Barnes & Noble with the goal of turning around the iconic company’s performance.
