The news: Barnes & Noble opened more than 120 stores in 2024 and 2025, and is now preparing for a possible IPO, per Bloomberg Businessweek.

The strategy:

The retailer has gotten much better at knowing what shoppers are looking for. It gives store employees broad autonomy to curate displays and make merchandising decisions at the local level, empowering each store to tailor its book selection and presentation to customers. That’s helped it cut its return rate to publishers from more than 25% to about 8%.

That success is driving it to rapidly expand its footprint. It opened more than 120 stores in 2024 and 2025, with 60 more planned for this year.

The combination of better merchandising and more stores has boosted results. Though the company doesn't disclose financials, sources within the company told Bloomberg Businessweek that Barnes & Noble and UK sister chain Waterstones together generate about $3 billion in annual sales and $400 million in profits.

The company’s success has led owner Elliott Advisors to prepare a possible IPO this year that would include both booksellers and stationery chain Paper Source, per Reuters.

Why it matters: When Elliott Advisors took Barnes & Noble private in 2019, many expected the retailer to disappear. It had cycled through four CEOs in six years; sales were declining, stores were closing, and it had lost more than $1 billion in market value as online competitors chipped away at its business.

The retailer looked stuck. It was a brick-and-mortar retailer in a business where more than 70% of books are purchased digitally, with a majority flowing through Amazon, per Bloomberg. Just 10% of Barnes & Noble’s sales come from its own website.

Rather than compete with online players on their turf, Barnes & Noble rethought the role of the store by turning it into a destination for discovery and experience that Amazon can’t replicate.

That shift started by pushing control to the local level, giving individual stores authority over what they stock and how they display it, instead of relying on centralized publisher deals. The company began staffing stores with book lovers who can run a register and applied that same philosophy to management by rotating leaders from high-performing stores to support others in a hands-on, less corporate way.

At the same time, the retailer tapped into platforms like BookTok, Goodreads, and Reddit, which have made book discovery more social, by highlighting trending titles through displays like “As Seen on #BookTok.”

Implications for retailers: Barnes & Noble’s playbook can be echoed by retailers of all stripes. By localizing assortments, empowering knowledgeable staff, and tapping into digital communities, retailers can give consumers a reason to visit stores, driving discovery and helping them stand out.

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