Books-A-Million Reviews

Pros

Discount on books, and cafe items

Cons

First of all, everyone starts off at minimum wage....regardless of the experience you have. Management does not care where you worked before! They just want you to sell the discount cards! I worked in a hospital before I worked here that was high pressure and really stressful and you know what!? This place was more stressful! I went home crying everyday because it was horrible. So much pressure to sell cards and half the time you are the only one at the register when its slammed. I sold cards and was just barely below my percentage every week yet somehow the woman who has work there for 15 years and hasn't sold a card in MONTHS gets no discipline whats so ever. My assistant manager would discipline me in front of customers, the head manager would raise her voice at me and belittle me. It was horrible. I received little to no training and when I was thrown out on the floor and not doing things correctly I got yelled at for it. This was my experience at store #663. I only lasted 2 months. I feel sorry for people that work here it is like being trapped in hell. This should be a relaxing peaceful place to work and it was the opposite of that. I tried contacting HR about my problems there (because I was basically being bullied) and got absolutely no response!

Advice to Senior Management

Stop with the stupid discount cards no one has money anyway right now! You are losing business! All of your customers are going to Barnes and Noble up the street. Hey here's a thought...treat your employees like they mean something and maybe you will have a better more successful company!!!

Pros

employees do have some fun on the sales floor and the tasty treats ( for buy of course w/ employee discount)
the book check out was the best part. since you are looking at books all day there does come a time when you find something new or old that you would like to read.

Cons

they hours that you are scheduled are terrible, they give you this nice schedule sheet saying put down the hours and days you want to work. and you are super happy thinking I have control over when I come to work. But the managers know if they dont want to come in every weekend at 530/6 am then their works dont either. Switch it up a bit I applied to work thursday - sunday but never got a thursday and only worked two fridays (and was with te company 5 months) I ended up leaving because I could not take another early morning weekend and then the last 3 weeks they started only giving me 1 day a week... While every one else was still getting 15-25 hrs.

and if you cant prove that you can sell the cards and mags on a few tries at the register forget the register you will be back at customer service.

the bonus that the cashiers make should be going to customer service as well. The cashiers are not running the floor searching for products for customers the customer service crew is!!

Advice to Senior Management

you can not fault the workers for not selling cards when most of the guest are from other countries without a BAM store!
give hours to workers who want to come to work. No one can live off 8 hrs of works a week...Its not worth the gas to come in.

Pros

As a part time job while in school, the industry is ideal. Retail bookstores are a great asset to the community and an enjoyable product to sell. The 30% employee discount ate up most of my paycheck, however. Training as a salesperson and as a barista makes it easy to get a second retail job if needed.

Cons

With profits slowly declining in the business, management focuses more on sales of "discount card" memberships at $20 a year. Though a better deal than the B&N $35, that was the only focus from corporate management. Corporate goes so far as to tell store managers to send home employees who are not meeting their individual sales goals and to fire employees after just 2 or 3 days of not making percentages. Also, the merchandising managers do not plan ahead, often asking stores to set displays, move them, take them down, and reset them all within two weeks, making for many lost productive hours.

Pros

The employee discount is good. If you like to read you will find you have a lot in common with the other employees. It is easy to move up in the company if you are smart and hard working. It is also helpful if you are willing to relocate for a better position. There is always something to do, tasks involving setting features or other projects come about daily expect for on the weekends when customers are the main focus. Re-alphabetizing the sections is a constant project due to customers not putting books back where they got them so you will never be without something to do.

Cons

The expectations are very high to be able to maintain a discount card sales percentage. The managers bonuses which barely augment their meager compensation hinge on the store making discount card sales goals. The associates are paid a small amount for discount card sales they personally make but payment is only given if the store as a whole makes the goal for the week.
The risk free magazine program causes complaints, not satisfied customers and actually causes a loss of customers when they don't read the fine print and find out they have been charged for a subscription after their risk free trial is over. The managers and associates have to deal with angry customers on a weekly basis because of this program.
Turnover in the store is a problem because the pay is not minimum wage at entry level in most stores and the pressure to sell is very high. Most people want to stay because they like the people they work with but they can't live on the hours and pay that is available.
The training program is not sufficient. Basic slide presentations followed by multiple choice quizzes is all you can expect and there is never extra money in the salary budgets for training of new associates. There is a set training plan but it is not realistic for the store to actually follow. Associates need to be up and running very quickly because they don't have the salary to keep them on shadow shifts forever. On-hand training is the reality of what works and the quizzes end up just being a waste of everyone's time that associates are encourage to hurry through so we have more time with them for on-hand training.
Recently, key positions in some store have been eliminated and their responsibilities redistributed to the already over extended management teams.
When things are good, they are good and upper management will allow the store to operate the way the management team sees fit. When things are bad, such as with the economy as it is now, upper management seems to be in a panic to find out what is going wrong in the stores and it becomes a micromanaging nightmare.

Advice to Senior Management

There are over 200+ stores but the home office still operates as if it is a relatively small chain. The stores are expected to schedule employees weeks in advance without any idea of what projects are coming for that week or exactly when their weekly shipment is going to arrive. It seems to me that the home office staff has also gone through a significant amount of turnover and therefore have not had the experience to know what the most effective way to execute store changes are. Over the 5 years I have been with the company I have seen them make the same mistakes repeatedly. There is little vision into where the company is headed. They are trying to build the business and expand the product base but it has been a weird mix of high end trinkets and cheap discount books and toys. They have tried to get into electronics and DVDs but execution was not well thought out and many changes had to be made after the initial roll out. It is still not ideal and theft of this merchandise is high. It seems like they get an idea and try to act on it as quickly as possible instead of researching and properly planning execution so the stores do not have to reset the same merchandise multiple times.
The warehouse which is owned by the company is in complete control over accuracy of the store's inventory. There is no system in place to ensure accuracy of the shipments at store level other than counting the number of totes that come in the door. Often times there are pieces missing and it is extremely hard to figure out what it is that was not received. Ultimately the store is held responsible for their inventory and the warehouse has little to no accountability for short shipments.

Pros

-Book Check Out
-Friendly Atmosphere
-Expanding Company

Cons

Work Holidays
Pay Low Compared to other Book Retailers
Bare Bones Staffing

Pros

Good opportunities for advancement. Comfortable team environment. Bonuses based on performance. Fun, competitive sales environment when numbers are rolling in smoothly - particularly on holidays.

Cons

Low income, especially for level of work. Menial tasks, even for management. Books hard to find, often misplaced. Customers' expectations high - sometimes hostile when a book is not in stock/cannot be located. Also, customers checking out versus those requiring information, plus phone calls. Many sources compete for your attention & become impatient, even if you are the only individual available to tend to them. No dedicated customer service /information associate, leaving cashiers to fulfill both roles. Team performance affects bonuses. Pressure to maintain a 5% individual & team-wide sales margin - usually sales occur during checkout, slowing down customer service even further. Often not enough time to complete tasks in addition to normal daily operations. Wildly varying daily schedules, leaving little free time in a week.

Advice to Senior Management

Task delegation should be more uniform. Currently, it seems like everyone rotates through the same tasks but arbitrarily throughout the week. Visits from a district manager should not be cause for a massive overhaul - the store should be maintained & updated properly throughout each week (except we don't have the manpower to do so while still fulfilling our daily operations as expected). Also, the team is responsible for how bonuses are dispensed. As a result, bad blood can coalesce when not everyone performs with the same determination as others. This is a potentially problematic system. Finally, the pay is fairly low given the high expectations, which in turn is a driving force in pushing away loyal employees. Income isn't likely to be evaluated, so the treatment of employees should at least be more appropriate.

Pros

Your discount on books is twenty percent, except on the first of the month it's thirty percent. Most of the individual booksellers and baristas are nice people socially.

Cons

Corporate focus is solely on selling discount cards and magazines. Store management puts entirely too much pressure on individual employees to make numbers. Entry level is part time with almost no chance of promotion or a raise. From an entry level position you may be promoted to a specialist position, but management positions are hired from outside the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Drop the magazine program; it will chase away customers and employees in the end. Focus on your customers. Maybe if the stores tried to sell books instead of discount cards and magazines then our customers would be happy.

Pros

Enjoy my days, and the company is still growing.

Cons

Bookseller pay is lacking for job duties.

Pros

Book checkout, 20% associate discount and co workers.

Cons

Discount card selling is books a millions number on focus. You are told that there are no excesses for not making percentage. In this economy most people do not have an extra 20 bucks to throw down. It doesn't matter how good of a salesperson you are. This company is traded on the stock exchange but acts like a mom and paps store. Basically the 20 bucks they make off of the club card is not an inventory item, so im sure it is taxed differently. I have worked for other retailers and none of them were like this company. Mr. Anderson gets to sit back and reap all off the benefits of his hard working employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Have a little sympathy for what it is really like on the store front. We do all the hard work that makes it possible for you to have gorgeous homes, nice cars, and vacations. They need to start treating all of us like humans instead of dogs tied up in the back yard. Stop making decisions on the fly and make sure you communicate to your stores. Lower the discount card % and get rid of the magazine program. It is a scam. Does any of this matter because they probably have no idea about glassdoor.

Pros

The associate discount isn't too bad - 30% off on the first of the month, 20% the rest of the time. Competitive when compared to other retail outlets (it's especially nice on discounted books). The other booksellers were fun to be around.

Cons

Hypocrisy in management - would criticize some employees, but not others that did the exact same thing. Pay is minimum wage or slightly less. Expectations to sell discount cards are unrealistic and do not show an understanding of regional habits. Being berated for not selling a discount card when the store is empty is absurd (this happened frequently).

Advice to Senior Management

Get to the know the area in which the store is located. Get rid of the magazine subscription service -it causes a lot of complaints and in my experience, most customers aren't interested. Make the discount card worth it - up the discount to 15% instead of 10% and offer better coupons. Teach booksellers how to properly keep the store organized (i.e. recovery). It's amazing how poorly some of my co-workers recovered. It created more work for others to do and was a constant source of frustration among employees.