Borders Flagship Store to close

Claire Kirch of Publishers Weekly reports that Borders 'stunned' Chicago's bookselling community with announcements of its plans to close its flagship store in the city in January 2010. The store opened in 1995, and with 49,881 square feet, is the largest store in the chain.

The demise of Borders has been in the news quite a bit in the past year. The original Borders bookstore opened in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1971 by brothers Tom and Louis Borders during their undergraduate and graduate years at the University of Michigan. The first Borders bookshop sold used books and was located in two rooms at the first floor. From there the brothers soon moved to a tiny ground floor plus mezzanine unit. Borders was acquired by Kmart in 1992, but was unable to manage it. Borders bought itself out in 1995 (the year Amazon.com launched its online bookstore). In 1997, the company established its first international store in Singapore, with 32,000 square feet (3,000 m2) and has since then opened another 41 stores in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. The Australian, New Zealand and Singaporean stores were sold in June 2008 to Angus & Robertson to pay off debts.

So is this really the end? Perhaps, they expanded too quickly. Perhaps, they didn't study the market enough. Or people simply got carried away with the glamour and greed. The Malaysian Borders started as a franchise. But I wonder if they have now become entirely independent of the group -- suppliers say that they now have to invoice Berjaya Books. Who knows, a Malaysian might end up buying the chain.
 
Publisher's Weekly