It'd been well over a decade, perhaps closer to two, since I last stepped foot inside a…read moreBooks-A-Million. I didn't know these stores still existed, but I hadn't thought about it either. The one in my hometown (High Point, North Carolina) closed a long time ago. I remember enjoying my visits there as a kid. This Books-A-Million in Statesboro appears to be alive and well, for the most part.
When Three Tree Coffee Roasters closed early, we headed here. There's a cafe inside called Joe Muggs (the Books-A-Million cafe chain). Joe Muggs has indoor and outdoor covered seating and the bookstore has free Wi-Fi. In order to connect to Books-A-Million's Wi-Fi network, you have to log in using a social media account. I logged in using my Twitter account. This is the first public network I've connected to that required a social media account for connection purposes. They must want my data. The Wi-Fi signal at the cafe was good and the speed was sufficient for general web browsing and music streaming. I didn't try to stream any videos, but I did upload some photos and those took a lot longer over Books-A-Million's Wi-Fi than my considerably faster home internet connection.
We stayed at the cafe for a few hours in the afternoon. The store saw a steady, but slow, stream of business. A lot of the employees just hung out behind the registers due to a lack of customers.
There were a couple books we were interested in getting for my nieces, but sadly, Amazon had them at lower prices with free (Prime) shipping. It's this very reason why I wonder how brick and mortar bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million have survived for as long as they have. Then again, they seemed to thrive in the 90s with business models that allowed customers to spend hours inside their stores reading books and magazines and not having to pay a dime.
Wanting to give Books-A-Million our business, we asked the staff if they would price match Amazon. They said they couldn't price match in-store, but we could price match with Books-A-Million online. Why would we spend our time doing that (setting up a Books-A-Million account online and going through the price matching process) when we already had Prime accounts set up through Amazon? With just a few taps on the Amazon app, we'd have the books sitting on our doorstep in a couple days.
The store itself was nice. It was well maintained and organized and had an up-to-date and well-stocked inventory of books, toys, games, and gifts. The men's restroom was clean. The staff was polite.
While it has some things working against it, overall, I think this Books-A-Million is a fine place to come to to browse, shop, meet, hang out, and/or get some work done. Both the bookstore and cafe have a quiet, relaxed, and comfortable atmosphere.
This Books-A-Million is located in the Statesboro Crossing shopping center with other national retail and restaurant chains like Hobby Lobby, Olive Garden, Petco, TJ Maxx, and Ulta Beauty. It's not far from Statesboro Mall and the Walmart Supercenter.