Organization (Notes)	9 Months Ended
Jan. 25, 2020
Organization	Note 1. Organization Description of Business Barnes & Noble Education, Inc. is one of the largest contract operators of physical and virtual bookstores for college and university campuses and K-12 institutions across the United States. We are also one of the largest textbook wholesalers, inventory management hardware and software providers, and a leading provider of digital education solutions. We operate 1,436 physical, virtual, and custom bookstores and serve more than 6 million students, delivering essential educational content and tools within a dynamic omni channel retail environment. Additionally, we offer direct-to-student products and services to help students study more effectively and improve academic performance. The strengths of our business include our ability to compete by developing new products and solutions to meet market needs, our large operating footprint with direct access to students and faculty, our well-established, deep relationships with partners and stable, long-term contracts, and our well-recognized brands. We expect to continue to introduce scalable and advanced digital solutions focused largely on the student, expand our general merchandise e-commerce capabilities, increase market share with new accounts, and expand our strategic opportunities through acquisitions and partnerships. We expect general merchandise sales to continue to increase over the long term, as our product assortments continue to emphasize and reflect the changing consumer trends, and we evolve our presentation concepts and merchandising of products in stores and online, as we improve our e-commerce capabilities through investments we are making in new systems, processes and people. Prior to the fourth quarter of Fiscal 2019, we had three reportable segments: BNC, MBS, and Digital Student Solutions (“DSS”). During the fourth quarter of Fiscal 2019, in an effort to streamline our retail go-to-market strategy, reinforce our company branding, and more efficiently focus our product development efforts, we realigned our business and sales organization into the following three reportable segments: Retail, Wholesale and DSS. For additional information related to our strategies, operations and segments, see Part I - Item 1. Business and Part II - Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data - Note 6. Segment Reporting in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended April 27, 2019.

Note 1. Organization

Description of Business

Barnes & Noble Education, Inc. is one of the largest contract operators of physical and virtual bookstores for college and university campuses and K-12 institutions across the United States. We are also one of the largest textbook wholesalers, inventory management hardware and software providers, and a leading provider of digital education solutions. We operate 1,436 physical, virtual, and custom bookstores and serve more than 6 million students, delivering essential educational content and tools within a dynamic omni channel retail environment. Additionally, we offer direct-to-student products and services to help students study more effectively and improve academic performance.

The strengths of our business include our ability to compete by developing new products and solutions to meet market needs, our large operating footprint with direct access to students and faculty, our well-established, deep relationships with partners and stable, long-term contracts, and our well-recognized brands. We expect to continue to introduce scalable and advanced digital solutions focused largely on the student, expand our general merchandise e-commerce capabilities, increase market share with new accounts, and expand our strategic opportunities through acquisitions and partnerships. We expect general merchandise sales to continue to increase over the long term, as our product assortments continue to emphasize and reflect the changing consumer trends, and we evolve our presentation concepts and merchandising of products in stores and online, as we improve our e-commerce capabilities through investments we are making in new systems, processes and people.

Prior to the fourth quarter of Fiscal 2019, we had three reportable segments: BNC, MBS, and Digital Student Solutions (“DSS”). During the fourth quarter of Fiscal 2019, in an effort to streamline our retail go-to-market strategy, reinforce our company branding, and more efficiently focus our product development efforts, we realigned our business and sales organization into the following three reportable segments: Retail, Wholesale and DSS. For additional information related to our strategies, operations and segments, see Part I - Item 1. Business and Part II - Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data - Note 6. Segment Reporting in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended April 27, 2019.