For many store-based retailers, it’s the web side of their business that’s driving growth. That’s not the case for Barnes & Noble Booksellers Inc., as the retail chain reported a 3.1% decline in total sales for fiscal 2016 that included lower online revenue.

The merchant on Thursday did not disclose its e-commerce sales figures, but company executives say those declines are due to lower e-commerce sales and a big drop in revenue from its Nook e-reader business. Store closures also contributed to lower sales.

Barnes & Noble unveiled a website redesign about a year ago, and chief digital officer Fred Argir told investors that the new site has had mixed results. “We’ve had a fair amount of opportunities and challenges with the site,” he said. “Subsequent to the launch, we’ve completed 2,200 fixes to address those opportunities. Additionally, we been focused on new opportunities for on-site search and optimizing the on-site experience in terms of the journey, the hunt, the search and the opportunities for a better digital experience.”

In preparation for the holiday season, the merchant is working on other site upgrades, including more redesign work on its web pages and several strategies aimed at adjusting the multiple versions of its site to the varying demands of the mobile, tablet and desktop shopper. It will reduce the number of apps it offers to streamline them into one app with new features like save-it-for-later capabilities, a shopping cart that syncs between its website and app, and a barcode scanner that can direct consumers to product pages. The Apple iPhone App Store currently offers three Barnes & Noble apps, including the retailer’s primary app, a Nook reader app and an app geared to the retailer’s college bookstores.

Barnes & Noble draws 17 million monthly unique visitors to its website, the merchant says.

For the fiscal year ended April 30, Barnes & Noble reported:

• Total sales of $4.16 billion, down 3.3% from $4.30 billion in fiscal 2015.
• Retail sales of $4.03 billion, down 1.9% from $4.11 billion.
• Net loss of $24.4 million, compared with net income of $36.6 million.

For the fiscal fourth quarter, the retailer also reported:

• Total sales of $876.7 million, a 3.7% drop from $910.1 million in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2015.
• Retail sales of $850.0 million, down 2.2% from $869.4 million.
• Nook sales of $42.0 million, a 19.8% drop from $52.4 million.
• Net loss of $30.6 million compared with a loss of $19.4 million.

At its investor day conference Thursday, Barnes & Noble CEO Ronald Boire told attendees that the book industry has undergone “significant transformation” over the past five years. “The digital book business grew from about $400 million in 2010 to about $3 billion in 2013, essentially at the expense of physical books,” he said. “Since that time, e-book sales have plateaued and physical book sales have stabilized.”

He added that within the U.S. consumer book market, roughly a $19 billion industry, Barnes & Noble estimates that about 85% of sales are transacted in physical stores. The merchant claims it owns 20% market share of store-based sales of books, and 9% of the electronic book market.

Barnes & Noble is No. 54 in the Internet Retailer 2016 Top 500 Guide, down from No. 47 last year and No. 28 the year before.

Favorite