Books-A-Million — Local services in Ames

Fountain pens, fine writing paper, fine accessories, etc. -- all these things have made a nice comeback and there are many vendors and communities for them online (not insignificant ones, either). Yet, places like Books-a-Million don't want to carry these thing. Instead, they want to carry weird items, and stuff that's very "out there" and whatnot, but not stuff actually related to a bookstore. sigh Then they argue with you. Try to send you to Staples. Staples isn't going to carry these things. They aren't a fine stationery store, just an office stationery place. They have a very minimal amount of items, none of them terribly personal, or thoughtful. When companies don't keep up with trends, it is extremely disappointing. I want to find fine stationery there, not...

Nice big store, found everything we were looking for and then some lol. The staff member working when we went in was really friendly and went out of her way to help. She even cut the tag off my son's plushie for him when he asked if they had scissors he could borrow. The manager on duty was also nice and went above and beyond to help with an issue with my coupon. The only thing is I just wish the online prices and sales matched with the in store prices because a couple items my kids wanted were missing price tags and when I looked up the price online for my store it didn't match the price we had to pay for the item due to online sales. They have a great selection of books, collectibles, plushies, and...

I love going here because there's so much fun stuff to look at, but I walk out without buying anything when Paul is at the cash register. He aggressively tries to sell you a membership every time you go there and acts offended and kind of snarky when you don't want to buy it. I just want to be able to go in and buy my stuff and check out. I've heard this membership spiel 20+ times now and I tell them every time that I did pay for one once and didn't use it enough to justify it. Seriously, no means no. And please don't fall for the magazine scam. They've made it as tricky as possible to cancel.

I would go here a lot more often if you stopped pushing the membership so hard,...