EXCLUSIVE: Barnes & Noble’s CEO On New Store Strategy And Rewriting Retail By The Book Amazon should have wiped Barnes & Noble out. And at one point, it looked like America’s biggest book chain might indeed be going the way of megastore rival Borders — into the great archive library in the sky. Instead, Englishman James Daunt is talking to Bisnow about bookselling, expansion and soaring readership. The bookseller has turned bestseller, opening stores in new and old locations, and as a dish served cold, some of those sites have been at vacated Amazon Books stores too. With around 600 Barnes & Noble bookstores across the U.S., plus an online platform, Nook e-books and audio books, SparkNotes and publisher Union Square & Co., Daunt as CEO presides over a literary emporium that also encompasses 293 Waterstones and Blackwell’s stores in the UK. The group has been owned by hedge fund Elliott Advisors since 2019, and Daunt has been entrusted with reshaping and expanding the company, including in New York, where Barnes & Noble's huge and iconic Fifth Avenue flagship closed in 2014. He gave Bisnow an insight into where the company is heading and how he is turning it around. 
Chapter 1: Data Be Damned“We are looking at between 13 and 14 more new stores in 2023 across a large range of sizes and types,” Daunt said. “We've got one that's 30K SF opening in New Jersey, we've opened up some 25K SF-type stores, but we've also got some really quite…  Read the full story here. | 
