Borders Blanchardstown Closing Down - 50% Off Everything!

Cringer

athtrasna wrote: »

Normally open til 9...tonight they said it was volumes. I know the staff aren't happy at losing their jobs and the numbers tonight were unexpected... but rudeness wasn't called for.

Were people rude to the staff?

athtrasna

No the staff were rude to people, no not the staff in general but the manager as quoted above, I think she was the same woman I encountered earlier. Also the security guy wasn't exactly pleasant.

Who would have thought. We're in a recession and a shop has a security guard to keep customers OUT!

Cringer

Yeah, and the way we were all buying up books it was like there was no recession at all! €200 worth of books for €100 - and all books I wanted to get at some stage anyway... Delighted.

One piece of advice to people going in there tomorrow, pick up a basket if you can... There were none around when I was there, and carrying those books sure got heavy after a while.

robo

Just back also and there is still a lot of stock, but depends on what you are looking for. New releases in books, CDs and DVDs are almost gone, but loads of other books and CDs...queued for an hour and three quarters. And heard the staff discussing the issue about the queues and people paying when the shop closed at 8pm, and they went up to the manager and security to suggest closing the doors before 8pm...this was around 6:40pm. Then I walked up to the door about 5 minutes later and saw that they had closed the doors.
I would say that tomorrow will be the same and maybe up to the weekend.

Cody - sorry to hear that you are losing your job. I have always enjoyed browsing around the shop and I am sorry to see that the shop is closing!

CASHUB

This was one of the best Bookstores in Ireland, and closing it is the worst idea that could come into the mind of some lousy scribbler!
I know we're living in tough times of recession at the moment, but I can't imagine that nothing could be done to save the one and only Borders bookstore in the whole Ireland!
This is bad, really bad!

@Codymac14
Just wanted to tell you, that you guys have made a really great job there!
And as I always thought that Ireland is a country of people reading books with passion at any occasion, on the bus, in the park restaurant etc this decision seems even more strange to me...
I just hope you will find something you like soon.
And I wish you all the best to you and your collegues!

brettmirl

+1 to what Cashub said.

I loved going over to Borders, always picked up a book or a mag there...then popped up for a coffee before heading to the main shopping centre.

Always found the staff friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. You'll be missed.

It's a pity there couldn't a management buy out or something to keep it going.

Zaph

Was up there earlier and queued for 55 minutes. The shop was mayhem, I really can't blame them for closing the doors. If they hadn't the staff would probably have been there until midnight. And in contrast to what others have said, the manager and security guard were very polite to me when I was leaving. Of course they could just have been happy to see the back of me.

As regards the store itself, I always found them a little overpriced, but as it's the only decent sized bookshop between here and town I'll definitely miss it.

Rosser

Borders closing is an absolute disaster not least of all for the wonderful staff who worked there, it was one of the very few shops where the staff really knew their trade and were all really helpful.

The range of books was second to none and what really cool was the number of kids with their parents in the childrens section. Blanchardstown Centre is bad enough without loosing this place.

Hope all the staff aren't out of work too long and it would be great if everyone who posts sends a complaint to Borders HQ. Even better Borders UK & Ireland is owned by 'Risk Capital Partners' so maybe a complaint f.a.o. Luke Johnson (the CEO) would make most noise the default mail address is - jacqui@riskcapitalpartners.co.uk

Saruwatari

Man that sucks! My regrets to the staff, who in my experience were always helpful and insightful.
I'm gonna try and head in soon and pick up some things.
Anyone know what the graphic novel/manga section is like? And the world cinema DVDs?

Colonel Sanders

Book lovers should check This site out in future, usually beats amazon by a mile

mobby

Colonel Sanders wrote: »

Book lovers should check This site out in future, usually beats amazon by a mile

Thanks, saved a few bob there.

Cringer

Manga section was full... Actually noticed that as there was no one down that isle... Plenty of books there.

Check this out, a petition to save borders!

ixus

I assume everyone waiting in line to pay just read books while they waited? :pac:

Keep your mits of my investment and markets books. I want them all!

Once this place goes, I'll never shop in Blanch again. Used to leave the gf off shopping and spend my time here..

cashback

Crap, I forgot there was even a Borders there. I'd nearly drive the 50 miles especially.
I used to frequent the Auckland branch a lot as there's f**k all to do in that city.
I wonder why they only ever opened one branch, would have thought a city centre branch would have been popular.

athtrasna

Petition signed and Tweeted!

Victor_M

I don't know if this has been said already, but it's a serious loss for D15, this store was pretty much the only reason I ever went up to the shopping centre, with the kids to pick out a book and have a coffee.

Hopefully Easons or waterstones or the likes will take over and save the store and the jobs.

homer911

Easons already has a place in Blanch, and by the sound of things, they aren't doing too well either. I wish Easons would work out what sort of shop it is - Is it a bookshop thats also a news agents, or a news agents thats also a bookshop?? - seems to be the latter! Hoggis Figgis and Waterstones have got to be better if you are looking for books, particularly if its something obscure

Cringer

athtrasna wrote: »

Petition signed and Tweeted!

Ditto. I hope they take notice of the petition - looks like 90 or so signatures so far... I'm retweeting and suggest others do the same!

LookingFor

The bookstores on dawson street are good enough for choice..but they're all the way in THERE And they're not as nicely laid out or presented as borders is. I think of them as being kind of dark and pokey vs border's light and airy.

Easons in blanchardstown is a joke. I wish they'd take the 'opportunity' to revamp the store into something more serious with lessons learned from Borders. I think for anyone in blanch who used borders, it would be very hard to see Easons as a fitting replacement, to see it in the same way. But if they recognised the loss of their competitor and tried to 'welcome back' borders fans with a rethought store, I'd give them a chance.

edit - it is, in fact, a pity that one of the other bookstore chains couldn't have taken over the borders store and kept it as is, just a different brand.

dereko1969

Are there many history books left? Might be worth popping over if there are as usually takes forever for them to come out in paperback....

Victor_M

LookingFor wrote: »

The bookstores on dawson street are good enough for choice..but they're all the way in THERE And they're not as nicely laid out or presented as borders is. I think of them as being kind of dark and pokey vs border's light and airy.

Easons in blanchardstown is a joke. I wish they'd take the 'opportunity' to revamp the store into something more serious with lessons learned from Borders. I think for anyone in blanch who used borders, it would be very hard to see Easons as a fitting replacement, to see it in the same way. But if they recognised the loss of their competitor and tried to 'welcome back' borders fans with a rethought store, I'd give them a chance.

edit - it is, in fact, a pity that one of the other bookstore chains couldn't have taken over the borders store and kept it as is, just a different brand.

Why don't we all chip in and Buy Borders Ireland!

govinda

LookingFor wrote: »

it is, in fact, a pity that one of the other bookstore chains couldn't have taken over the borders store and kept it as is, just a different brand.

That'd be great.....Barker and Jones in Naas is a very similar type of store to Borders which I've only found recently, I'll travel there in future as Borders was a big draw to Blanch for me.....gotta agree with a lot of other posters that Blanch SC does not need *another* clothing store, going to miss Borders a lot :-(

Rosser

Cringer wrote: »

Manga section was full... Actually noticed that as there was no one down that isle... Plenty of books there.

Check this out, a petition to save borders!

Petition signed, well done Cringer!

laurashambles

Signed that petition. I've never been as it's a bit out of way but I've always wanted to. It's got such a great reputation.

Enii

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055619997

It will be sadly missed in D15.

I was over there this morning. Browsed the Art, Architecture & Crafts section - still a fair selection there and some definite bargains to be had.

However, I started lining up to pay at 9.50am and finally reached the till at 10.30am. The place is mobbed.

Most of the newly published fiction seems to be selling out fast.

M007

Will they still be open on Friday or over the weekend?

Have an old voucher for there I better use asap!

Shzm

Popped in there yesterday arvo about 4ish, place was packed, lined up for the checkout about 5 and didn't get to pay untill 7
They were open till 9 but stopped letting people in at about 6:30 or so cause it was so full.

They're going to be trading until august 8th, but by the amount of books I saw people buying i'd get there sooner rather than later if you're after something specific.

Vojera

Jeez, I can't believe this! I'm in there once a fortnight and spend about €80 each time. It's always busy enough, I can't believe it's closing! It's by far my favourite bookshop. The staff are always so friendly and good for a laugh and really helpful with any enquiries. I don't think I've ever been so sad about a shop closing before. It'll be back to shopping online for me then - Easons can't hold a candle to Borders and I refuse to go back there.

I was in Borders last night, queued for an hour but it didn't seem that long. Don't blame the staff for closing early - it was black with people, they had no choice.

LookingFor

Just had a count of books I've picked up in Borders over the years..got up to 130 before I stopped.

And countless magazines!

I just can't understand. I always got the impression of it as a busy store. I'm wondering how busy the other stores must be if blanch was one of the 5 chosen to be closed!

Mizu_Ger

I was there last night at 6pm. Queued for nearly 2hrs to get to the checkout. It was a bit mental!

Fella at work was there at 11am this morning and said that the queue for the checkout is snaking all around the shop. He didn't bother going in when he saw that!

Jip

Murt10 wrote: »

The only thing that could go someway to compensate for this is if ALDI opened up in its place. There is no ALDI shops in Dublin 15 despite the fact that it's one of the biggest population centres in the Country.

Eh, there's one 2 minutes from Blanchardstown Centre.

Enii

Jip wrote: »

Eh, there's one 2 minutes from Blanchardstown Centre.

This is a Lidl. There is no Aldi near Blacnh.

LightningBolt

Got there at 11.30 today. Picked up a couple of books but didn't purchase them since I had a rough idea of online prices of the books in my hand, wasn't worth the saving to queue that long. It pretty much circled the entire store. There is still some great bargains available in some sections.

Actually does anybody know if audio/language books included?

Jip

Enii wrote: »

This is a Lidl. There is no Aldi near Blacnh.

So it is, my bad. I was always convinced it was an Aldi as there's already a Lidl in the centre, the one which I thought was an Aldi and another Lidl in Tyrrelstown. That's also a Lidl in Clonee isn't it ? There's a bit of an overkill in the area so.

the groutch

LightningBolt wrote: »

Picked up a couple of books but didn't purchase them since I had a rough idea of online prices of the books in my hand, wasn't worth the saving to queue that long

sums up the entire thread imo, you have to weight up whether it's worth giving up 3-4 hours of your day for what you'll save, and for me the answer is NO

Mizu_Ger

I queued for nearly 2hrs last night. The same guy was in front of me the whole time and when he got to the checkout he only bought 2 books. Total price €5.50. I couldn't believe it. He spent all that time to save a fiver!:eek:

NinjaTruncs

Mizu_Ger wrote: »

I queued for nearly 2hrs last night. The same guy was in front of me the whole time and when he got to the checkout he only bought 2 books. Total price €5.50. I couldn't believe it. He spent all that time to save a fiver!:eek:

He probably finished the three other books he was going to buy while queuing.

ceoltoir

A friend of mine maintains that they were just a big multinational like Tesco that gobbled up the smaller bookshops. I quite liked Borders and thought there was enough room for all sizes of shop. You got such a vast selection of books on any subject, something that the smaller shops obviously can't do.

Maybe the problem was that they were in the wrong location. Blanchardstown Shopping Centre is associated more with frenzied weekend shopping and isn't exactly a centre of high art and literature. When they first came to Dublin there was a rumour that they were setting up on Suffolk Street in the old Bank of Ireland building (later occupied by Habitat?). That would have been an ideal location for any bookshop.

Vojera

the groutch wrote: »

sums up the entire thread imo, you have to weight up whether it's worth giving up 3-4 hours of your day for what you'll save, and for me the answer is NO

I saved €80 last night by queuing for an hour. I thought that was worth it, especially since everything I got was part of a few different series' I've been reading and would have been picking up in the next couple of months anyway.

LookingFor

Just popped out to have a look.

Holy crap at the queue. It literally snakes back and forth right around the store, crossing back on itself a number of times, which is saying something given how big the store is. I think you'd be there at least a couple of hours if not more, queuing. Never seen such a queue, not at xmas, not when zaavi closed..biggest I can recall.

I loled at the crowd control barriers outside..from last night maybe? Or in preparation?

Seemed to be mostly moms and kids, and grand parents, perhaps picking up school books and kids stuff. Though from what I could see, the school book section is now STRIPPED BARE. I didn't see a single book on the school book shelves. I don't blame 'em .. september is coming up, I guess book lists are out..if my parents could have got a year's books half price when I was in school I've no doubt they'd camp out as long as it takes to get them

Fiction and kids stuff seemed to be the next areas of most interest.

Scifi, horror, manga, business and computer books seemed relatively 'intact', much to my relief. Art/design..there was still quite a bit of stuff there, but it looked like it had been ransacked.

Despite the lengths of the queues etc. people seemed patient and polite.

I just nipped upstairs to starbucks for a coffee, and to have a good bitch with the staff about the situation and the store closing etc. I can only hope that the queues will die down as the most in-demand stuff is depleted. I can't imagine sticking it out in a queue like that even for 50% off, as much as I'd love to pick up quite a bit of stuff. It surely can't be as mad as this right up to Aug 8.

Rosser

LookingFor wrote: »

Just had a count of books I've picked up in Borders over the years..got up to 130 before I stopped.

And countless magazines!

I just can't understand. I always got the impression of it as a busy store. I'm wondering how busy the other stores must be if blanch was one of the 5 chosen to be closed!

I'm exactly the same, I have spent a fortune in there and every cent was well spend

According to one of the guys on the till the Blanchardstown shop was trading profitably it was just the location was prime so they got a very good offer from the fashion outlet who is taking over the 5 stores. It probably didn't help that it was the only Borders store trading in €s.

It would be nice to think they might reopen in a new site soon. Sign that petition!

LookingFor

Not to mention how much I've spent on the starbucks upstairs. Actually, the borders starbucks kind of got me hooked on coffee to start with! :pac:

I'm disappointed they're withdrawing completely. It would have been nice if one of the other book chains could have outbid the clothes shop on the lease to at least try and preserve the store somewhat. It's nice to think Borders would reopen somewhere in the area..one can but dream.

I don't think I'll set foot in the new clothes store. Every time I pass I'll possibly cry 'bring back borders!'. Possibly.

Laxie

Petition signed and retweet sorted.

Vojera

LookingFor wrote: »

Not to mention how much I've spent on the starbucks upstairs. Actually, the borders starbucks kind of got me hooked on coffee to start with! :pac:

Me too! Not to mention that the Borders Starbucks was the only one that made my strawberry and cream frappuccinos properly

ixus

the groutch wrote: »

sums up the entire thread imo, you have to weight up whether it's worth giving up 3-4 hours of your day for what you'll save, and for me the answer is NO

Agreed, was in there at 11 today. Had 4 books in my hand, looked at the queue and left. I'll check it out next week when the school/kids/new fiction have emptied their part of the store.

karlyk1

Was there this morning too. Queue at about 10 wasn't too bad, but by the time I got my stuff it was right around the store... crazy. Nevertheless, my bargain-hunting instincts took over and I got a rake of DVDs that I wanted, some books, and some great toys for Xmas prezzies for the nephews (pick of the bunch? A giant Indiana Jones remote controlled ant... nice!). Spent 60-odd euro, but saved about 110 euro. Worth the wait? That all depends, I suppose. I ended up queuing for about an hour and 20 mins.
Borders will be missed.

Johnny_Fontane

an hour and 20 minutes - are you nuts?

for a saving of €100........

Doodah7

Johnny_Fontane wrote: »

an hour and 20 minutes - are you nuts?

for a saving of €100........

What's wrong with that?? Seems like an excellent idea to me...

Johnny_Fontane

80 minutes in blanchardstown queueing for €60 worth of goods?

I'd need to be getting 50% off something like a suite of furniture or a 50 inch tv, not a couple of books and dvds that you could find second hand cheaper on amazon marketplace.....

ana ng

Johnny_Fontane wrote: »

80 minutes in blanchardstown queueing for €60 worth of goods?

I'd need to be getting 50% off something like a suite of furniture or a 50 inch tv, not a couple of books and dvds that you could find second hand cheaper on amazon marketplace.....

Jaysus don't be such a miseryguts about it. Was there today, it was pretty mental. Bought over €200 bookds, CDs, DVDs. Might hit it again when the queues calm down as some sections were very quiet.