Barnes & Noble acquires Borders’ customer lists

October 10, 2011

In May 2010, The Deal Pipeline quoted me saying that Borders could use its customer list as a springboard to increased sales of digital books.  To see how Borders was actually using its list,  I signed up as a Borders customer and for Google alerts about Borders.  I watched and waited for Borders to focus on sales of digital books through its frequent marketing emails.  It didn’t happen.

Clearly, however,  Barnes & Noble also saw value in the list.  B&N acquired the 45,000-member list during Borders’ bankruptcy proceedings.  As a result, as a “subscriber,” I received an email from B&N notifying me of the  acquisition and offering me an an opportunity to opt-out of receiving marketing emails.

I hope that Barnes & Noble will make better use of the names than Borders did.