The Hardest Parts of Working at Barnes & Noble
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ส.ค. 2024
- Quick Disclaimer! This video is based off my own experience working with Barnes & Noble. I don’t speak on behalf of the company or anyone else who works for them. B&N has been my favorite job I’ve ever worked, but like all jobs there are difficult parts of the job, and I wanted to share those with everyone.
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Thanks for sharing your experiences! I have to say that in 16 years of paramedic work, I never dealt with any book-related injuries! :D
Haha that's good! Don't want books hurting people in physical ways they already damage us so much emotionally lol.
Never dealt with a gushing papercut? Extreme eyestrain aka Readeritis?
If customer who seemed to like movies with women being assaulted shows up again you might recommend a dvd of movie called "Teeth". It could help remove his perverse thoughts not to mention a few choice parts of his anatomy.
OMG Teeth! If I had been cleverer in the. moment and not so shell-shocked I should have recommended that to him.
Hi Teapot! I just started working at Barnes & Noble, and I'm loving it so far! It's my 4th day & my coworkers have been so kind, supportive, and understanding
I'm doing well; thanks for the comment! And congrats on the job!
For the genres you don't know much about I promise you will pick stuff up about them. Coworkers will recommend or customers will recommend or you'll just start to notice which authors sell well. I'm not really a mystery/thriller reader myself and I've been honest with customers asking for recommendations and told them either that someone I know read and loved a book or I'll tell them "I can point out some that sell well and are popular" and often that's a good rec. You'll also have a head set so you can definitely ask over the head set if any of your coworkers have a recommendation for whatever specific genre or whatever the customer is looking for. And honestly, you'll probably pick up a lot via osmosis. If there's a big release coming out there will be chatter around the store and in daily updates and such. When you're shelving it's also a great time to take the opportunity to skim the back of books and get an idea of what's out there. And definitely take advantage of learning monthly picks! It's a good variety of books and there are so many times I've recommended a past pick just because I know so much about them.
But honestly: even if it's not exactly what a customer is looking for, if you're passionate about a book and you share that passion with them they will probably be interested. Most customers who ask for recs just want to hear about something that someone else loved.
And a side note about bestsellers and super popular authors: most customers who read them (for ex. James Patterson) don't need you to tell them about those books. They know they like the authors and just want the most recent book by them. So don't worry too much if you don't know the details of the bestseller list, it'll mostly sell itself.
As long as you do your best to help the customer your management team will see you working hard and you won't get in trouble for not having a great knowledge about every genre. I've been at my location 3ish years and there are still a lot of sections that I couldn't recommend specific books for (like business or religion) but I can still help satisfy the customer just by pointing out ones I know sell or ones that have a shelf-talker or something like that.
I hope you enjoy working there and I hope this helped!
@@theteapotreads I am so sorry for not getting back to you!! Thank you SO much for your response, it really means a lot to know that I'm on the right track & not floundering!
I've been learning so, so much and am so happy working there! I've been working register a lot which isn't so bad, because I like talking to customers about what they're buying :) But thank you again!! I hope you have a beautiful day!
HI teapot! Awesome video! I’m considering to get a job at Barnes and noble I’m torn between bookseller and receiving associate. I think right now I want to do the receiving end but I’m still on the fence. What are the main differences between the two? Thanks so much!
It will really depend on the store you work at. Receivers spend most of their time behind the scenes--they unload the trucks, organize books before they go on the floor, organize the back room, process returns to vendors, and a myriad of other tasks that someone helping customers on the floor may not have time for. Booksellers are a lot more active on the floor and are really customer focused firstly and store-appearance focused second. So besides helping people find books it's also about building displays and keeping the store neat and full. At my store, though, there are several people cross trained (including myself) for receiving and bookselling so there's a chance you'll end up learning both ends at some point.
@@theteapotreads Interesting, awesome thank you so much for the helpful information! Really looking forward to applying now that I get a better idea of it all. I’m definitely gonna watch more of your videos, Thanks bunches!
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Watch out for the Calvin and Hobbes book set . That thing hits you on the head it’s over lol
OHMYGOSH yes I've seen those they really would be a pretty solid weapon ahahaha
It’s so Heavy it needed to be kept on the floor . I guess it was Too risky to put it on the shelves lol
I worked at Barnes and Noble in Boston from 1985 to 2006, but B&N as we know it today didn't really come into being until about 1991.
As a cashier, do you have to check every returned item carefully? Do you need to be trained to find the slightest problem with it? Have you ever had a customer claimed they bought something but received something else? lol
We definitely check the items if they're returned, but luckily with books you can tell pretty much right away if they look like they've been read or damaged. There wasn't really any training it's really just common sense, but if someone accepts a return that is clearly damaged (like a book with a broken spine) then they might be told why they shouldn't have accepted that return. As for the last one... not that I remember. Very rarely do we have returns from items ordered to people's homes and if it's an order that they had shipped to the store if we see it's the wrong book or item we just reorder it so that there's no reason for a return.
No more manga books? 😢
Just temporarily! Manga is translated and printed in Japan and then shipped to America and both the increase of demand right now and the pandemic have led to it becoming harder for publishers to distribute the series. As soon as it can be printed and distributed it is sent out.