Joseph Beth Booksellers Fredericksburg VA

We had some time to kill after dinner Friday evening before we needed to pick up our daughter from a Girl Scout event. So we wandered into the new Joseph Beth store at Spotsy Towne Center.

I don’t get it.

They are trying to play up the independent bookstore angle, but there is no indie vibe about the place at all. Had I not known where I was I could have easily been convinced that I was in Borders. Their definition of “indie” seems to be that they aren’t Borders. Fine. I’m all for indie bookstores, but if you are going to be an indie bookstore you need to give the customer something they can’t get from Borders. The space seems way too corporate to provide any indie cred for shopping there, and the prices and selection on my meander through the store did not do anything to inspire me to return. The books themselves are a commodity and I just don’t see near enough differentiation from Borders or any other corporate chain (are there any others left) to make we want to shop there.

I guess I’ll be sticking with the $25 free shipping deals at Amazon, the 30% off (or better) coupons that Borders emails to me a couple of time a week, and the used bookstores throughout the FredVegas area.