I went to the city today, and while there decided to pay a Hastings store a visit. It was then I saw the sign saying they were going out of business. I asked one of the employees and it's not just a local store closing, the ENTIRE CHAIN is going out of business.
I am SHOCKED!!!
It's another deathknell of the retail book industry. They'll have short term deals, but after that, they are gone.
That leaves ONE and only one retail bookstore left in that city (Barnes and Nobles), and a second hand bookstore.
What is this world coming too where there is a noticeable lack of bookstores in our cities.
Never heard of Hastings, but it is sad. Only the giants like Books A Million survive for long in most areas, and it's hard to find a good used bookstore any more.
I imagine it's probably a combo of waning interest in reading and probably more importantly the advent of stuff like kindle making bookstores "obsolete", just like most movie rental places went *poof* after Netflix came out, and brick and mortar video game stores swiftly disappeared with the phoenix rise of computer gaming through Steam.
Bookstores were a lot more entrenched, so it took longer. Problem is I'm a lot more attached to my physical copies of books than my physical copies of video games and movies.
Hastings is the only store in my town where you can still buy new books off the shelf, but in truth most of the stores had largely become toy stores as they began to rely on "collectibles" to offset the revenue loss from video rentals, which had been there bread and butter for years. I hate to see it go, but whatcha gonna do?
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Yep, they had a decent library of older movies that aren't available from Redbox and larger than most libraries.
I heard this news a few weeks back, but I am still sad. Unfortunately, the closest Hastings to me is 45 minutes away in New Braunfels, TX, so I don't go that much. Borders/Waldenbooks is long gone (I dropped many a dollar there in my youth), and Books-a-Million has moved out of San Antonio (at least the nearby store is gone). We have Barnes & Noble, Half-Price Books, and the library if you want to actually hold a book. Otherwise, it's Amazon.
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I used to drive 100 miles from my hometown to Waldenbooks in the late 70s and early 80s. It was the closest one to me. Like you, I spent tons of money there on scifi stuff (specifically Star Trek books). Bought a lot of 2nd edition D&D stuff there, too. Sad that they're gone.
I'm always sad to see the loss of more book stores.
I concur that digital content is a great deal of the loss. Where previously people would buy a paperback and then take it to their used bookstore when they finished it and get something different now those people are buying e-books (or just downloading pirated copies).
I used to purchase 6-8 books per month at B&N. Now I'll pick up 2 if I'm lucky and many times won't pick up any at all. Between the fact that there are fewer books being published in a format I'm willing to purchase (barring maybe 3 authors I only purchase mass-market paperback) and that B&N started pushing their Nook in stores so hard I find myself going there almost as often for coffee than I do for books.
End of an era.
My wife was working at Hastings's corporate office when we married, and we've friends who've been there up until the end here. Some more to their demise than just the troubles that plague any brick-and-mortar bookstore these days, or so it seemed to us. Terribly run company.
Anyway, hate to see them go. Been shopping at their stores for a long time and in several states. I do most my shopping online these days anyway, but we still liked to drop in now and then. Mostly for used goods. Hard to buy a lot of new products from them, but that's just the way of things for a poor chump like me.
Man this sucks
When I was in school in Laramie, Hastings was the the only source in town for pretty much ANY media. If it wasn't at Hastings...you had to drive an hour to either Cheyenne or Fort Collins. They had a huge Pathfinder section as well, and a really good selection of horror on DVD. Probably half of my DVD collection if not more was purchased via Hastings.
Yep there is a hastings in my town going out of business. That's it for retail book stores, not counting the college book store.
Nearest bookstore proper will be an hour and a half drive.
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The Hastings here in Conway AR is kinda bad with the liquidation sale. I know the company that bought out their debt sets the sales, but 10% off after a couple weeks is not really good. Rpg books were 30 percent and board games were 20 % (picked up a pf munchkin), but the list of ten or so new books I want to get is not shrinking while they're still over 20 bucks a pop.
They did drop some used stuff down to 40% this week though.
At least we have an flgs that has managed to stay open past a year now (cough magic), so my rpg browsing won't completely vanish.
The Hastings here in Conway AR is kinda bad with the liquidation sale. I know the company that bought out their debt sets the sales, but 10% off after a couple weeks is not really good. Rpg books were 30 percent and board games were 20 % (picked up a pf munchkin), but the list of ten or so new books I want to get is not shrinking while they're still over 20 bucks a pop.
They did drop some used stuff down to 40% this week though.
At least we have an flgs that has managed to stay open past a year now (cough magic), so my rpg browsing won't completely vanish.
You're in Conway? I'M in Conway! Wow, talk about a coincidence!
Yeah, we have a couple of FLGS' here in town, Mizewell and The Bat Cave. I've not done much business with Mizewell, but have with The Bat Cave and have always had friendly and fairly knowledgeable service there. Their PF selection is always pretty low, and even worse now that 5e is out.
Conway. Huh.
Never been to the Bat Cave, not being much into comics I never figured it was more than a comic shop with some Magic posters on the windows.
They do quite a bit of comic business, but also a lot of card and boardgame sales, too. They even have a few tables for games, as well. I wish they supported PF more than they do now, as I have to either order my new books online or drive to The Game Store in Jacksonville (which is a really good and large store, if you've not been). In fact, it took over the space where the Jacksonville Hastings used to sit, but that one closed several years back.
Waldenbooks vanished from my area long ago, which saddened me... it was where I shopped for books back then. I've never heard of Hastings or Books a Million. Its B&N nowadays for me. I have several nooks sitting on my desk (different generations) and buy 3/4 of my books as digital now. But there's a few series I still collect the paperbacks for (Pathfinder Tales, books by Illona Andrews, Kat Richardson, Raymond Feist, Brandon Sanderson, Beth Bernobich and Mercedes Lackey) and only William Gibson's for hardbacks. Mostly, anyway. Everything else these days I buy for nook-reading.
Its been sad seeing most of the bookstores go away though. And the used-bookstores along with them, it seems like.