(Reuters) - Barnes & Noble Inc said on Tuesday that Chief Executive Ronald Boire would leave the company as the board decided he was not a "good fit" for the bookstore chain operator.
Executive Chairman Leonard Riggio, who was scheduled to retire in September, will postpone his retirement to a later date, the company said.
The company said it would continue to work on its strategic initiatives, which includes winding down its Nook e-reader business and expanding its product catalogue to include hot-selling items such as adult colouring books, art supplies, music vinyls and toys.
Sales at Barnes & Noble have been falling for the past two years as Amazon.com Inc cuts into its customer base with a wider range of offerings at lower prices.
Amazon's Kindle tablets and rich reading content have eaten into demand for Barnes & Noble's Nook. Sales in the Nook business fell 20 percent in the fourth quarter ended April 30, as the company shut its Nook UK, app and video businesses.
Boire, who joined Barnes & Noble from Sears Canada, first became CEO of Barnes & Noble's retail division in September last year and then replaced Michael Huseby as CEO after the company spun off its college books business.
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Riggio, along with other company executives, will assume Boire's duties.
Barnes & Noble said it would immediately begin to look for a new CEO.
(Reporting by Subrat Patnaik and Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)