November 3, 2009
Goodbye Borders
The UK branches of Borders are closing down. Once a vital source of magazines – from UK and abroad – the flagship Oxford Street store closed a few months ago and it looks like the others are now following (Fulham branch above).
Find other places to buy magazines in London on the magCulture map (and don’t forget you can add your own favourites too).
UPDATE: Apparently only six stores are closing.
UPDATE II: From ‘soon-to-be-gone-bookseller’… ‘The closures mean there are about 20 branches left, possibly less. Difficult to keep up with it as I think the Books etc stores are closing too. The news didn’t surprise us and I don’t think it has much to do with the recession. I think the store has lost sight of its identity – we’ve watched our ranges, multimedia in particular, halve and halve again to make way for concessions such as GAME, paperchase and Starbucks. A good 30% of the shop floor is now filled with cheap tat that should have stayed buried with Woolworths. Every new person hired, if there’s money to hire them, works significantly less than the person they replaced. I suspect I’m on a sinking ship..
It’s still a good stop for periodicals though! Better than our nearest generously sized WHSmith and for many people, the only place they can go to without having to resort to travelling to Manchester city centre’.
4 Comments
Comment on November 3, 2009 by Michael says:
Yikes! Are they going to leave at least one? There’s loads of em in Melb, surely we could give one up for London. :)
Comment on November 3, 2009 by Bookseller says:
6 branches are closing down in and around London. The rent became astronomical in a difficult time for all booksellers. Other branches aren’t in danger as far as we know.
Comment on November 4, 2009 by Tweets that mention magCulture.com / editorial design -- Topsy.com says:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jason Dike and ojaggregator, Adib Jalal. Adib Jalal said: 6 branches of Borders UK closed.. http://bit.ly/vKFWz [...]
Comment on November 9, 2009 by Alan says:
Good grief I hope they don’t go under, the Borders in Norwich’s Chapelfield has the best/widest selection of magazines I’ve seen outside of London and it’ll mean the end of many a wasted lunch hour for me if they close!
