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Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026 | 2 a.m.
Editor’s note: “Behind the News” is the product of Sun staff assisted by the Sun’s AI lab, which includes a variety of tools such as Anthropic’s Claude, Perplexity AI, Google Gemini and ChatGPT.
Barnes & Noble is in the middle of a major physical-store revival, using strong recent sales and BookTok-fueled demand to justify opening 60 more U.S. stores in 2026 while positioning its shops as community “third places” built around books, cafés and social discovery. [1] At the same time, it is operating alongside a still-robust digital reading ecosystem rather than replacing it, suggesting that print and digital are now complementary rather than directly zero-sum.
Expansion plans for 2026
Barnes & Noble plans to continue its momentum on top of opening dozens of locations in 2024-2025, after nearly two decades of net store declines. [1] Confirmed 2026 leases are in California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, Washington state and Washington, D.C., with multiple openings expected through mid-2026. [3]
The company says strong sales at existing locations and the success of a “local bookstore” strategy — giving more autonomy to individual store managers — are driving the renewed brick-and-mortar investment. [2] The chain opened more new stores in 2024 alone than in the entire decade from 2009 to 2019, and only in 2023-2024 did it begin opening more locations than it closed. [2]
Leadership changes and strategic shift
Elliott Advisors acquired Barnes & Noble in 2019 and installed James Daunt, known for turning around U.K. chain Waterstones, with a mandate to treat stores as real bookstores rather than generic retail boxes. [4] The new leadership explicitly abandoned the idea that success came from corporate uniformity and instead framed the goal as “operating really nice bookstores,” aligning strategy with a long-term books-first model. [5]
Before the leadership change, headquarters micromanaged layouts and promotions: stores followed strict planograms and were told exactly which titles to feature and where to place them. [5] Daunt dismantled this model, ending rigid planograms and encouraging each store to curate sections, displays and emphases based on local demand, effectively turning managers into mini indie-bookstore owners. [6]
Previous leadership relied heavily on co-op payments from publishers to buy front-of-store space, which skewed what customers saw toward whoever paid most rather than what might sell best locally. [4] Daunt cut back on these pay-to-play arrangements, using front tables as editorial real estate controlled by bookstores rather than marketing real estate sold to publishers. [6]
New leadership invested in store-level careers by adding more promotion tiers and raising the share of full-time staff, with the explicit goal of building experienced booksellers who know customers and backlist deeply. [5] That cultural reset — valuing bookselling skill and local judgment — helped shift internal identity from “big-box retail worker following orders” to “professional bookseller.” [7]
Store redesign and layout
Older stores were known for forest-green carpets, dark wood and heavy fixtures; remodels replace this with light wood floors, warmer neutral walls and more open sightlines to make the stores feel airier and more inviting. [8]
New fixtures are modular: shelves with adjustable depths and movable sections let managers reconfigure displays quickly around themes like BookTok, seasonal picks or local authors instead of fixed, uniform rows. [10] Many stores now use numerous smaller display tables up front, showing hardcovers face-out and allowing more titles to “shine” visually, a change executives explicitly link to improved sales and browsing. [11]
Redesigned stores break up long aisles into thematic nooks and alcoves, encouraging lingering and serendipitous discovery instead of just list-driven shopping. [9] Bulky promotional islands and nonbook fixtures have been reduced so that line-of-sight is more open and books, not gift clutter, dominate the visual field. [12]
The chain now opens and redesigns spaces across a much wider size range — from 5,000-square-foot mall locations to larger 30,000-plus-square-foot boxes — and tunes design elements to each context. [5] This flexibility lets Barnes & Noble enter smaller trade areas and urban niches that a one-size-fits-all big-box format previously couldn’t serve profitably. [13]
New and revamped stores are designed to feel closer to independent bookstores, with more localized curation and flexible display space. Barnes & Noble locations now emphasize not just books but also toys, games, gifts and media, creating a modern general-interest cultural space rather than a pure bookstore. [3]
Role of BookTok and social media
BookTok — the books community on TikTok — helped sell an estimated 20 million books in 2021, about 2.4% of total book sales, and has since remained a powerful driver of backlist and frontlist titles. [14] Barnes & Noble has leaned into this by creating in-store BookTok tables, themed displays and flexible merchandising that allow local staff to quickly spotlight viral titles. [15]
The viral nature of BookTok turns niche or older books into sudden bestsellers and pushes fans to visit physical stores to browse curated sections, hunt specific editions and share content from stores themselves. [16] Surveys cited in industry analysis show many TikTok users report reading more overall, in some cases up to 60% more books than before, and a share of that demand is landing in physical formats rather than solely on e-readers. [16]
Sales rebound and print resurgence
Sales at Barnes & Noble have been rising in the midsingle digits since a 2019 takeover and strategy reset, reversing years of decline tied to Amazon and the early e-book boom. [14] Analysts point to digital fatigue, postpandemic nostalgia for tangible experiences and demand for third spaces where people can linger as reasons more consumers are deliberately choosing physical books over screens. [16]
From the early 2000s through the late 2010s, thousands of U.S. bookstores closed as Amazon undercut prices, online ordering displaced browsing and e-books surged, especially in genres like romance and sci-fi. [14] This period also saw the collapse of chains like Borders, leaving many communities without large bookstores and reinforcing the perception that brick-and-mortar bookselling was structurally doomed. [30]
Third place strategy and café appeal
Many stores include cafés and comfortable seating, encouraging lingering, browsing and socializing — part of the “third place” strategy to make the store a regular hangout rather than a quick-transaction venue. [21] Sociologists describe cafés, bookstores and similar spaces as “third places,” informal public spots separate from home and work where people build social ties and a sense of belonging. [17]
Cafés in bookstores function as neutral, semipublic gathering spots where people can read, work or meet without the pressure to vacate quickly. [3] The sensory mix of coffee, book displays and quiet activity offers a slower, analog experience that contrasts with always-online life and appeals especially to younger readers seeking offline rituals tied to reading. [14]
Research on café behavior shows that ambiance — lighting, music, seating and the smell of coffee — strongly influences whether people want to return, which aligns well with bookstore cafés’ focus on cozy, quiet, aesthetically pleasing spaces. [18] A bookstore café offers a multisensory experience that many people find more restorative than scrolling or ordering books online. [19]
Many modern bookstore cafés intentionally brand themselves as safe, inclusive spaces where people feel seen and represented, especially through curated sections and themed book clubs. [20] Regulars often develop relationships with staff and other patrons, turning events and even casual visits into a recurring community ritual rather than one-off shopping trips. [21]
Bookstores host author talks, signings, panels and book clubs that give readers a direct connection to writers and to fellow fans, deepening loyalty to both the store and the books. [22] Events make book-buying feel like participation in a shared cultural moment, which encourages impulse discovery of new titles and repeat visits beyond what a recommendation algorithm provides. [23]
Food and beverage sales also help diversify revenue and make stores more resilient to fluctuations in book margins or specific category trends. [3]
Digital and print coexistence
Industry data and Barnes & Noble’s strategy suggests that print and digital have settled into coexistence: e-books dominate convenience and some genre niches, while print leads for gift-giving, children’s books and aesthetically valued titles. [16] For many readers, digital and print are situational — e-readers for travel and commuting, physical copies for favorites, annotation or display — and the same consumer now often participates in both markets. [16]
Retailers like Barnes & Noble compete on the experiential side — browsing, events, spaces — while also selling online and via apps, effectively straddling both ecosystems rather than choosing one. [2] Physical stores are positioned as experiential and community anchors, while digital channels complement them. [24]
Nevada locations
The Barnes & Noble expansion won’t include Las Vegas because there are already three locations here, including at Town Square Las Vegas. The other locations are at the Rainbow Promenade off the 215 Beltway in the southwest valley, and at the Crossroad Commons on Charleston Boulevard in Summerlin.
Potential for recovery of brick-and-mortar stores
Barnes & Noble’s recent strength suggests that physical bookstores can be viable again, but it points more to a selective, experience-driven brick-and-mortar revival than a broad return to old-school retail.[27]
Surveys and trade groups report that around 70% of consumers shop in physical stores at least weekly, and 79% prefer to shop in-store, underscoring the continuing appeal of in‑person retail.[28]
Physical retail is evolving rather than simply “coming back”: successful stores blend digital and physical (“phygital”) experiences, emphasize community and events, and act as experiential hubs rather than just inventory warehouses.[29]
Bookstores’ growth, including Barnes & Noble’s repositioning plus indie expansion, is best read as evidence that well‑curated, experience-heavy brick‑and‑mortar concepts can thrive alongside e‑commerce, not that traditional mall-style retail broadly is returning to its pre‑Amazon model.[27]
Sources
[1] https://www.mytotalretail.com/article/barnes-noble-to-open-60-new-stores-in-2026/#:~:text=Credit:%20Getty%20Images%20by%20aluxum,with%2060%20new%20stores%20planned.
[2] https://www.thestreet.com/retail/formerly-troubled-retail-chain-opening-60-new-stores-in-2025
[3] https://www.foxla.com/news/barnes-noble-open-new-stores-2026
[4] https://www.fastcompany.com/90834188/barnes-and-noble-brand-makeover-comeback
[5] https://www.modernretail.co/operations/barnes-noble-ceo-james-daunt-has-mastered-the-art-of-the-bookstore-turnaround/
[6] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-barnes-and-noble-made-a-comeback-by-revitalizing-its-philosophy
[7] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/barnes-nobles-localized-comeback-lesson-david-edelman-y8tle
[8] https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/wsj-the-future-of-everything/science-of-success-how-barnes-noble-is-redesigning-the-bookstore-chain/d17f6f4e-c0c8-42e0-8c6e-ccee582a2dd2
[9] https://www.npr.org/2023/03/07/1161295820/how-barnes-noble-turned-a-page-expanding-for-the-first-time-in-years
[10] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/17/style/barnes-noble-redesign.html
[11] https://www.shelf-awareness.com/theshelf/2020-09-21/james_daunt_on_remaking_barnes_noble.html
[12] https://www.ilovetheupperwestside.com/major-changes-coming-to-uws-barnes-noble/
[13] https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/16/business/barnes-and-noble-is-back-again
[14] https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2025/01/31/booktok-drives-growth-at-barnes-noble
[15] https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/16/business/barnes-and-noble-is-back-again
[16] https://www.rivaliq.com/blog/barnes-noble-booktok/
[17] https://www.transitioningyourlife.com/disthird-place-connect-from-home-and-work/
[18] https://www.menutiger.com/blog/book-cafe
[19] https://freshcup.com/the-enduring-significance-of-bookstore-cafes/
[20] https://resistbooksellers.com/community-activism-bookstores/
[21] https://bookriot.com/book-centered-spaces-as-third-places/
[22] https://studio.zebralearn.com/author-central/major-impact-of-events-book-signings-and-conferences-on-sales
[23] https://spines.com/book-signings-and-events-connecting-with-your-readers/
[24] https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcast/knowledge-at-wharton-podcast/whats-next-chapter-barnes-noble/
[25] https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/store/3508
[26] https://www.yelp.com/biz/barnes-and-noble-las-vegas
[27] https://apnews.com/article/independent-bookstore-membership-a3cf736b52684d9b95dda3b1ed97d0cb
[28] https://www.occupier.com/blog/2024-retail-trends/
[29] https://www.mastercardservices.com/en/industries/retail/insights/retail-industry-trends-2024
[30] https://www.npr.org/2011/07/19/138514209/why-borders-failed-while-barnes-and-noble-survived
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