Barnes & Noble — Local services in Jonesboro

TL:DR: A limited selection, a confusing layout, and constant congestion. And the entrance to the restroom is in a picture on this review because it's not marked.

This store bewildered me. I grew up around many book stores from used mom and pop shops to big B&N stores. This layout is by far the worst I've ever seen.

The shelves are not laid out to facilitate traffic. One person stopping to look at a book will cause you to reroute around a table. If a second person stops, you are at a standstill until one of them moves.

Imagine you are looking for a light novel. Unexpectedly they are mixed in with the manga. Want tsbletop RPG rulebooks? There's a thin sliver in the back and a few end caps throughout the store.

And this maze-like layout of books and tables leads to less room for stock and no places to sit and evaluate a book. I don't know what the rules are for fire safety, but at capacity, I would personally want to be nearly anywhere except that store.

Beyond the layout seeming to lack any care or reason, you have signs like "Ga s Puzzl s". Despite being a relatively new store, most of the signage seems damaged or incomplete. Even the restroom is lacking any signage.

This feels like one more reason to buy physical books online or even switch to digital for some books. The ability to read the first chapter or so of a large novel can be a major part of the buying experience. In the same vein, being able to quickly look through a shelf for the next volume of a series is important. It's also fairly important that the store actually has the series you are looking for to begin with (and that requires...

Absolutely awful layout. Who ever designed this store needs to rethink being an interior designer because this place is so discombobulated. No signage hardly at all. If someone stops in a long aisle of books to look you have to completely go another way or wait for them to stop looking. Poor seating area for actually reading unless you want to sit in the uncomfortable too bright cafe area. The cafe honestly ate in to too much space for the store considering the location they picked for this book store which was already a small building. The store would have benefited from not having the cafe that way there would have been more room a lot more room for books and comfy seating. If you need a coffee you could easily stop at one of the numerous coffee stops on the way to the store. The book selection is also pretty bad too in all honesty. All in all I can say that it’s nice that there is a Barnes and noble again but you would think with the years it took them to open this more thought would have been put in to the design and layout...

I'm understanding that it's a new store. I get it's busy and crowded. There was a plumbing issue that didn't allow for the Cafe to be open and we tried to be understanding. But once we got to the counter, we were rang out by the rudest cashier, whose name on the receipt is Samantha G. She was aggressive in handling the books, and even her tone was aggressive toward us. For a first weekend I try my hardest to be sympathetic, since I am a retail manager myself but her attitude made me extremely uncomfortable, and as much as I love bookstores I will not be returning. The store manager was extremely nonchalant when we called and approached the service issue, and dismissed us. To add, I bought two books eligible for a buy one, get 50% off promotion and I didn't even get it. Small rural areas such as Arkansas, the community is the most important part for a business to thrive. This store will not thrive this way. I'm extremely disappointed that a book store that has been waited for for so long has such...