Barnes & Noble lost on the Amazon trail

By Troy Wolverton

Barnes&Noble.com is the latest dot-com company to face delisting from the Nasdaq.

In a regulatory filing on Wednesday, the company said it had received a delisting warning earlier this month from Nasdaq, triggered by the company's stock being below $1 for 30 days.

To maintain its listing, Barnes&Noble.com has until 14 November to have its share price close at above $1 for 10 consecutive days. If a company fails to meet that requirement, it receives a delisting notice, which can be appealed.

Barnes&Noble.com said in its filing: "The company is considering its alternatives with respect to regaining compliance with the rule. The delisting of the company's common stock would have a significant adverse effect on the stock's liquidity."

Company representatives did not return calls seeking comment.

Barnes&Noble.com, the online offspring of book industry giants Barnes & Noble and Bertelsmann, has been one of the leaders in online retailing in terms of sales and customers. But the company has long been in the shadow of archrival Amazon.com, the 800-pound gorilla of ecommerce.

Last year, as Amazon focused on posting a profit, its book sales stagnated and Barnes&Noble.com started to gain some market share from the ecommerce giant in the category, the core product for both companies.

Amazon has since launched a free shipping offer, which it says has helped increase the number of books it has sold. But the company hasn't seen much revenue growth in its books category as a result, and Buy.com has since beaten the shipping offer.

Last month, Barnes&Noble.com announced that it lost $20.6m on $85.8m in revenue in the second quarter. The company's stock closed regular trading on the Nasdaq up five cents on Wednesday to 75 cents.

In recent years, many companies facing delisting have attempted to do reverse stock splits to juice up their share price, but those have often failed.

Delisted last year, Buy.com is among the many dot-com companies whose stocks have dropped off the Nasdaq national market in recent years.

Troy Wolverton writes for News.com