Are Books-a-Million Bookstores Going To Franchise?

Strange things are happening with bookstores these days. (Besides that fact that lots of them seem to be closing up shop.)

Take Books-a-Million for instance; they seem to be sneaking into several old Border’s stores…almost overnight.

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First off, I can’t believe that I just wrote “old Border’s stores.” That’s really weird.

Second of all, why would another bookseller want to move in to these massive retail stores, and take their chance in a rapidly-changing industry?

Even if they’ve received sweet lease deals from the commercial real estate brokers that were involved in the transactions, the overhead still has to be huge.

So, what gives? Am I missing something?
 

Are they thinking about franchising?

Maybe. If any bookstore is going to survive now-chains…even independents, they’re going to need to be super-innovative.

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Like Books-a-Million, who just last year bought a 40% interest in a start-up franchise, Yogurt Mountain, for $3 million. According to this post on Seeking Alpha, they’ve also committed to provide a $1.5 million credit line.

Are you interested in eating some Yogurt Mountain frozen yogurt in a bookstore setting?

Of course, it’s possible that frozen yogurt franchises are cooling off  just like retail bookstores, and if that’s the case, talk about a possible double-whammy…

Even if this bookstore chain, (which is currently a family-owned one) didn’t actually become a franchise business, but just started adding Yogurt Mountain franchises in all 200 of their stores, would it be enough to turn the retail bookstore business model on it’s head?

Selfishly, I hope so; I really want to see my new franchise book on a bookshelf near you.

(And, near me, too!)

So, what do you think of a bookstore+frozen yogurt? Could it work?