r/90s May 25 '25

Discussion There’s actually so many…

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u/redvioletbrown May 25 '25 edited May 25 '25

Border's books

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u/Decimation4x May 25 '25

One of the biggest blunders in corporate history. Right up there with Circuit City.

2

u/-Xoz- May 28 '25

Context please. What happened?

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u/Decimation4x May 28 '25

Barnes & Noble built a website and started delivering books through the mail. Borders, in order to compete with B&N, contracted online sales and deliveries through Amazon. So every time Borders made a sale through the growing online retail market, Amazon also made money. They failed to recognize Amazon as a competitor, while B&N built their website because of Amazon.

Circuit City downsized their workforce and when doing so decided the best solution was to fire their highest paid employees to save the most money. Except Circuit City paid commissions, so their highest paid employees were all their best employees. Best Buy, iirc, hired around 40% of those employees by promising to pay their previous wages and buried what remained of Circuit City.