If you wander into a Borders Bookstore (as I did yesterday), you'll see red-tagged 30% discounts on a number of CDs and DVDs.
[UPDATE 3/23/09: I just received a standard customer e-mail from Borders which indicates that this sale isn't happening in certain cities such as NYC and San Francisco.]
Apparently, the chain is delivering on its desire to cut CD/DVD space by 70% (as was recently written about in ROLLING STONE).
[UPDATE 3/26/09: A story here confirms this: http://www.switched.com/2009/03/26/borders-to-quit-selling-cds-and-dvds/?icid=mainhtmlws-maindl4link5http%3A%2F%2Fwww.switched.com%2F2009%2F03%2F26%2Fborders-to-quit-selling-cds-and-dvds%2F]
Given Borders' continued commitment to keeping audiovisual content priced as high as possible (except for sales on older catalog product), one shouldn't be surprised that the available stock will be trimmed.
For the casual customer, this means remaining items will likely consist of what the chain predetermines as "best-selling". And the young staff will be losing their voices repeating the mantra: "We don't carry that in our store. We can special order it--or you can just go on our website."
It's easy to make a paranoid jump (given the company's financial state: http://www.borders.com/online/store/PartnerSiteInvestorsView) that entire sections of books may be next.
Poetry, perhaps?
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