Among the early browsers in the new Borders book supermart on Michigan Avenue one weekday morning was a “mole,” to loosely borrow John le Carre’s term for spy. Wearing a natty business suit, bookish glasses and a bemused expression, the spurious shopper was obviously less interested in books than the floor plan of the store, the traffic flow, the deployment of the cashiers and clerks . . . as if he were casing the joint.
That’s precisely why Philip Downer was in the bookstore, 830 N. Michigan Ave. As vice president of Waterstone’s, the British bookseller whose Chicago branch is just a scone’s throw from Borders, he’d come to town to penetrate the enemy lines and check out its vast stockpile of ammunition, not only books but also compact discs, videos, coffee and muffins, computer games, and show windows onto Michigan Avenue.
“Let’s just say I was not wholly impressed,” Downer reported the next day, his British accent reinforcing the Le Carre connection. While suggesting that it wouldn’t be cricket to denigrate the competition, he did refer to the new Borders as “this week’s bookstore,” and proposed that the ambiance was generic enough that “if you took all the books off the shelves and replaced them with Tylenol, you’d have a big drugstore. It ought to be more special.”
A British transplant stationed in Boston, Waterstone’s U.S. home office, Downer looked and sounded so chipper that it would’ve been hard to guess that he was the standard-bearer for a besieged outpost in the booksellers’ empire. For two years, Waterstone’s had enjoyed a position of supremacy on Michigan Avenue, north of the Water Tower, with only phantom competition from Rizzoli and Coopersmith’s, both in the upper reaches of nearby malls.
But Waterstone’s lost its dominance literally overnight. When Borders opened for business at 8 a.m. on the last Saturday in February, there was a line outside the door, like those that form for tickets to Aerosmith concerts. Ever since, according to Karen Allen, head of Borders children’s department, “books have been flying out the door.”
Even allowing for hyperbole, there’s no doubt that Borders got off to a flying start. With 10 exterior signs and 40,000 square feet on four floors, the bookstore is an imposing megalith at Michigan and Pearson, threatening Waterstone’s not simply with dramatically lower revenue but with total annihilation in the latest and most upmarket campaign in Chicago’s superbookstore wars.
If there is a war on, you’d never know it from the smile-button face of Leah Vaselopulos, community relations coordinator for the new Borders, as she recited company homilies in the bookstore cafe. Contrary to its image as a predator among book supermarkets, Borders is not preying on Waterstone’s, she insisted, only trying to raise literacy levels along North Michigan Avenue and the Gold Coast.
“That’s not our style,” she said, dismissing the notion that Borders would engage in crass commercial warfare, even if it is a K-mart satellite. “This is about books and music. Of course we’re interested in other booksellers and how they’re doing, but our real focus is what’s going on right here, how we can better do our jobs.”
Great expectations
Previously assigned to the Borders outlet in Deerfield, Vaselopulos could speak firsthand about the elasticity of the market. “We had three major bookstores on the same intersection, Borders, Crown and Barnes & Noble, and as far as I know, everybody’s surviving beautifully. It seems as though the more bookstores there are out there, the greater interest people have in books, which is actually very wonderful and encouraging.”
While it was surely a little harder for him to put on his corporate smile, Waterstone’s Philip Downer also endorsed the principle that more bookstores make for a livelier, if not a merrier or more lucrative climate. “Sure, Borders is selling more books than we are,” he said, “but any drop in sales is only temporary. They’re drawing a lot more book buyers to our end of the Mag Mile, and we’ll be part of that.”
The week after Borders opened, Downer added, Waterstone’s sales were $4,000 “under expectations, which is not a great deal under any circumstances. It’s an insignificant portion of our average weekly sales-and of what Borders is hoping to sell. They’re sitting on some very big real estate.”
With its main entrance around the corner, off Michigan on Chestnut, Waterstone’s real estate is considerably smaller and less conspicuous than Borders’. But the British firm recently increased its visibility by erecting a marquee over the main entrance, belatedly concluding, Downer said, that discretion is not always the wiser course for booksellers.
In the months before Borders’ debut, Waterstone’s also tried to deflect its competitor’s punch by installing a coffee shop on the first floor, adding a music department on the second, and downloading most of its books to the basement. According to Downer, the reconfigured Waterstone’s makes more attractive and efficient use of its floor space, which still holds 130,000 books, only a “negligible” 10,000 fewer than Borders.
If Waterstone’s can nearly match Borders for the volume of books and the size of its discounts, it clearly comes up short on CDs, audio and videocassettes, listening stations, reading chairs and general loitering zones, among the other byproducts and conveniences that have become standard features in book supermarts. Waterstone’s can also expect rapacious competition from Borders when it comes to booking the more stellar authors for guest spots in the store.
Different strokes
Even though outnumbered and outflanked on most fronts, Waterstone’s won’t be outclassed, Downer said. The company is banking on the cozy, library-like intimacy of the bookstore to give it an edge with more discriminating shoppers, those who might be turned off by the blue-light push and bustle of Borders, which shares the former I. Magnin building with Filene’s Basement and Victoria’s Secret.
That was the reason Julia Antonatos was shopping in Waterstone’s on a recent weekday afternoon. “It’s warmer here and more conducive to browsing,” said Antonatos, a resident of the Water Tower neighborhood. “I’ve been into Borders and I felt like I was in a shopping mall. I’m worried that Waterstone’s is not going to survive.”
For another neighbor, Tara Pearl, Waterstone’s was the store of choice for its “warm environment” and its selection of books on antique banks. Flipping through one in the coffee shop, Pearl also confessed a preference for Waterstone’s carrot cake (which, at $2.50, is a dollar cheaper than Borders’).
A trip to Borders also turned up plenty of partisans, wandering among the book bins and CD gondolas or hanging out in the cafe. Among the latter was Solomon Bogale, who had good words not only for the quantity of books, the quality of the coffee and the view of Seneca Park, but also for the policy that lets customers take books into the coffeeshop.
“I like it that there’s no pressure to buy,” said Bogale, an American Airlines flight attendant, who had no intention of buying the guide to Peru, from which he was copying information into a notebook, preparing for a trip to Machu Picchu. But he did indicate that he planned to buy the cookbook that was also on his table.
Bleak house
While the mood was mostly polite and upbeat in the vicinity of Water Tower, there was little but gloom and foreboding at Stuart Brent Books, a few blocks south on Michigan Avenue. Menaced by discounters for more than a decade, Brent publicly advertised his distress by putting the blowup of a “Dear Friends” letter in his store window, reminding customers of the importance of quality and individuality in bookselling.
“It’s raining in the republic of letters,” said Brent, lamenting not just the 30 percent plummet in his sales since Borders opened but also the number of independent booksellers obliterated in the crossfire between the supermarkets. “They’re determined to hurt everyone in the struggle. I’ve had all kinds of stormy days, emotional and financial, but this is just unbelievable.”
Now in his 80s and not in the best of health, Brent denied persistent rumors that his store could join the casualty list at any moment. “That would be the cowardly way out. I hate to start fighting the dragons all over again, but I’m determined with my whole heart and soul to stay the course.”
Brent may need stronger weapons to withstand the latest onslaught. And the war of words and numbers, music and espresso could get even hotter if that other superpower, Barnes & Noble, should open an outlet on or near Michigan Avenue, partly to retaliate for Borders muscling into its territory in the Diversey-Clark neighborhood.
“We have no plans to open a store on Michigan Avenue at this point,” said Lisa Herling, Barnes & Noble’s vice president for corporate communications. Not at this point maybe, but no smart bookmaker-or book reader-is likely to give odds that it won’t happen soon.
