Our local Barnes & Noble is my final stop for holiday shopping every December. The festively decorated store is the perfect destination for last-minute gift ideas, from books to calendars to LEGO sets.
But what attracts me is not just the fact that I can cross those items off my gift-giving list. The store is one of the few places I think still has a festive vibe, packed with shoppers excitedly combing the aisles looking for that perfect little something, often with a peppermint mocha or hot chocolate in hand.
In short, Barnes & Noble stores are a destination worth savoring, sharply contrasting with big-box retail chains like Walmart, which feel more like a “get in, get out” trip.
Despite its appeal, Barnes & Noble has not had an easy time of it over the past 20 years. The rise of e-commerce championed by chief rival Amazon dented sales, and a shift toward strip malls and open-air centers from indoor malls caused the company to significantly restructure, eventually shuttering all of its B. Dalton Booksellers locations (the last one closed in 2013).
“It is clear the World Wide Web, with its profound possibilities, will become a major component of the future of bookselling and publishing,” correctly predicted former Barnes & Noble CEO Leonard Riggio in 1999.
The chain still faces challenges, and Amazon remains a fierce rival, but fortunately for fans, the beloved retailer is enjoying a quiet comeback to capitalize on a U.S. book retail market still valued at $44 billion, according to IBISWorld.
Barnes & Noble has a storied 139-year history
Barnes & Noble was founded 139 years ago as book retailer Arthur Hinds & Company in 1886. Gilbert Clifford Noble was hired there as a clerk that same year and made a partner in 1894, leading to the store changing its name to Hinds & Noble.
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Noble partnered with William Barnes and bought out Hinds in 1917, resulting in the use of the Barnes & Noble brand name ever since, including after Noble sold his stake to the Barnes family in 1930.
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The retailer changed locations over the years and even launched a publishing business. It opened additional locations in the 1940s and 1950s; however, the company was sold to Amtel in 1966 and floundered.
It wasn’t until Leonard Riggio bought it in 1971 that the real roots of the Barnes & Noble we know and love today formed. Riggio took what had dwindled to one store on Fifth Avenue to a sprawling national bookseller.
Under Riggio’s guidance, Barnes & Noble operated 1,011 stores in 1998, according to annual reports, including 528 of the ill-fated 797-store B. Dalton bookstore chain it bought in 1986 for about $275 million.
Barnes & Noble closed 100s of stores as customer behavior shifted
Barnes & Noble’s growth hit a significant snag with the rise of online shopping, spearheaded by rival Amazon, which initially launched as an online book seller before expanding to sell just about everything to seemingly everyone.
Coupled with the internet bust’s impact on the economy, the Great Recession, and the shift away from indoor malls, e-commerce’s rise and indoor malls’ struggles contributed to Barnes & Noble undergoing a seismic restructuring that included closing hundreds of stores from 1998, including all of its B. Dalton-branded locations.
Still, in fiscal 2002, Barnes & Noble remained the nation’s second-largest bookstore chain behind Borders, even as its store count was shrinking.
Altogether, Barnes & Noble operated 896 bookstores (down from over 1,011 in 1998) and 1,038 video-game and entertainment-software stores, thanks to its acquisition of retailers Babbage’s and Funco, which it rebranded as GameStop.
Barnes & Noble store count in 2002:
- 591 Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Bookstop, and Bookstar trade names
- 305 B. Dalton Bookseller, Doubleday Book Shops, and Scribner’s Bookstore stores.
- 1,038 video-game and entertainment-software stores as of February 2, 2002, under the GameStop, Babbage’s, Software Etc., and FuncoLand brands.
- Source: Barnes & Noble’s 2002 SEC annual report filing.
Altogether, those stores hauled in $4.87 billion in sales for the retailer in fiscal 2001.
By 2019, when Elliott Investment Management took the company private in a $683 million deal, the retailer looked quite different.
GameStop was spun off to shareholders in 2004, and all of its B. Dalton locations had been shuttered. At the time of its acquisition, Barnes & Noble only operated 627 stores, was barely breaking even, and had just laid off 1,800 employees the previous year.
“Barnes & Noble has been experiencing declining sales trends primarily due to lower store traffic,” acknowledged management in the company’s fiscal 2019 annual report.
Barnes & Noble store count in 2019:
- 627 bookstores under the Barnes & Noble Booksellers name, down from 648 in 2015, and 1,011 in 1998.
- Source: Barnes & Noble’s 2019 SEC annual report filing.
In fiscal 2019, revenue totaled $3.55 billion, and net income was a tepid $3.8 million following a massive $125 million loss in fiscal 2018. Sales had been nearly $4.3 billion just five years earlier in 2015.
Still, that was better than its chief rival, Borders, which declared bankruptcy and closed all its stores in 2011.
Barnes & Noble launches quiet comeback
Barnes & Noble pivoted in the 1990s toward larger superstores, some as big as 60,000 square feet, that embraced a community feel, encouraged lingering with chairs, drinks, and food, and often hosted events, including book signings.
“Barnes & Noble has revolutionized bookselling by making our stores public spaces and community institutions. They are places where every kind of customer, young and old, may browse, find a book, relax over a cup of coffee, talk with authors, and join discussion groups,” wrote management in the 1998 annual report.
The company hasn’t strayed from that community-first attitude, providing individual stores with the freedom to adjust to meet the demands of their local customers.
After closing a dozen stores following the acquisition, Barnes & Noble has found its footing under Elliott Investment Management and veteran bookselling CEO James Daunt, who also serves as CEO for Waterstones, a British book retailer with over 300 stores.
The company has recently acquired popular local bookstore chains, and according to Placer.ai, more people are shopping at its stores this year.
Barnes & Noble has enjoyed steadily elevated foot traffic throughout 2025, with both visits and average visits per location up year over year.
Placer.ai
In 2024, Barnes & Noble bought the four-store, Colorado-based Tattered Cover bookstore out of bankruptcy and, rather than closing the stores or rebranding them, chose to run them independently as its own brand.
It embraced a similar strategy with its acquisition of the seven-store, 174-year-old San Francisco-based bookseller Books Inc. in 2025. Books Inc. was also bought out of bankruptcy and will be run independently.
“This agreement will ensure that Book Inc.’s legacy will continue for the foreseeable future,” said Books Inc. CEO Andy Perham.
Barnes & Noble isn’t only growing because of acquisitions, though. After years of shrinking its store count, it’s also opening more locations, including 57 stores in 2024.
In 2024, Barnes & Noble opened more new bookstores in a single year than it had in the whole decade from 2009 to 2019.
Barnes & Noble
The renewed interest in Barnes and Noble is evident in Placer.ai’s foot-traffic data.
“Some of the most successful brick-and-mortar retailers today are tapping into consumer desire for experiential retail and community – and Barnes & Noble is no exception,” wrote Placer.ai.
Overall, total visits were up 7% in August, and visits per store were up 4.2%, leading Placer.ai to conclude that “existing stores are thriving.”
Those tailwinds appear to have emboldened management to push more aggressively into more markets, given Barnes and Noble’s plans to open 60 stores in 2025.
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