Is Border's cutting back?

[talon]

Two of my favorite manga, Blade of the Immortal and Blood Alone, are no longer in any Borders or Barnes & Nobles that I've been to recently (Let's say 5 stores in Chicago and SoPo), and I see no mention on Wikipedia of them being discontinued. Are they cutting back on older series and keeping the newer ones? Any opinions?

[Archimer]

The one in Bangor looks like it has no intention of scaling down its Manga.

Then again, there have been many times in the past years that I have gone to Borders looking for manga and it hasn't been there. I think that their selection has always been a little on the trim side. I bet you can order those titles online easily, though, even from the Borders website.

[KoinuSephiroth]

I haven't noticed it in southern New Hampshire. So I don't think it's everywhere, but some could be.

[Knarpulous]

The Borders in Bangor moved them around, and I think it was to get more space, but they haven't really restocked in a while...

[Armgnawer]

The Borders at South Portland is rearranging again, but I really didn't notice any lack of manga when I was there last week...it's the american TPB's that've taken a cut.

If you don't see what you want on the shelf, you can always ask to have your titles special ordered.

[Knarpulous]

I usually buy a lot of my manga online anyway if I can find it cheaper...

[The Golux]

Their selection during the Con actually seemed bigger than it did the last time I was there, though some of that may be because it was rearranged...

[Armgnawer]

I usually buy a lot of my manga online anyway if I can find it cheaper...

Yeah, personal preference.  Unless it's something that I *cannot* get locally, I prefer to pick it up in my hand rather than trusting the shipping companies not to run over my box with a forklift.

[kawaiinekonya]

At brunswick the borders manga seems to have doubled in size o.o

[Moritani]

In my area Borders doesn't seem to be scaling down, but they do have a nasty habit of hiding all the manga behind a wall of Twilight books so every time I want a manga, I have to pass by a bunch of squealing girls. And I also noticed that some manga gets put in the young adult section for reasons unknown to me. Those are just minor annoyances, though. Barnes & Noble's section actually seems to be growing a lot, though. And the used book section also has quite a few manga.

[atemulover]

have you checked the website? sometimes there's stuff online but not in stores? IDK

[Hawkstra]

I'm not really sure if the Portland Borders is exactly cutting back but there do seem to be certain titles that they don't continue. Saiyuki Reload, for example... Nine volumes in and then it's just... Gone. It seems that they're favoring lots of different serieseseseses over the full range of a few.... Which is okay, I guess... Unless you don't want to order, which I usually don't because it's kind of a pain... They've also grouped it with the anime and the young adult books. So

In my area Borders doesn't seem to be scaling down, but they do have a nasty habit of hiding all the manga behind a wall of Twilight books so every time I want a manga, I have to pass by a bunch of squealing girls.

is exactly what seems to be going on...

[okapirose]

I work at B&N and it all depends upon the sales of a series. Both in the store and in the general market of the business. If it doesn't sell, odds are its not staying in the store for long.

Your best bet is to order them through the store nearest you or online. Or wait for your next convention and check out the manga available in the Dealer's Room. There's usually some really awesome discounts and deals. For example at Anime Boston 2010 there were a couple manga dealers and one of them had "Buy One Get Two Free" for their manga.

Hope that helped C:

[Akane]

I work for Borders so maybe I can shed some light on this as well.  As a company, we're definitely not cutting back.  It just goes in waves and depends on the volume that the individual stores sell.  My store has a pretty big manga selection because it moves (in that people come in and actually purchase the books).  I know we have all of Blade of the Immortal, but it varies store to store. 

The best way to get your store to carry is to continue to purchase.  If you only go to the store and use it like a library and never actually pay for your books, then they see no reason to carry them (and I'm not saying you do).  Let's face it, Borders is a retail entity and does things to make money.

If you want something that your individual store doesn't carry, there's an in store guarantee, which means that if we don't have it (and it's still in print and available through the distributors) the store will get it for you (and usually ship it to your house for free.  If you're a rewards member there's almost always a coupon, which makes it comprable to prices you'll see online especially for new releases.  Several times during the year we also have "Buy 3, Get 1 Free" sales, which are an awesome way to catch up.