A merry holiday season for Books-A-Million

E-commerce and Disney’s Frozen helped propel Books-A-Million’s holiday sales over Barnes & Noble’s.

Books-A-Million, the country’s second largest bookstore chain, reported that total sales for the nine-week period ended Jan. 3 were $129.2 million, an increase of 1.1% over the same period a year ago. Same store sales rose 1.2%, but excluding sales of e-reader devices comp sales were up 1.7% in the nine week period compared to the holiday season last year.

Books-A-Million CEO Terry Finley said the gains were due to “strengthening sales in our largest and most significant business categories of full priced books, gifts, and café. Our gift department was particularly strong due to Disney’s Frozen licensed product. We also delivered double digit sales increases in online sales.”

Barnes & Noble’s total sales rose 0.2% and comps, excluding Nook, were up 1.7%, but were down 0.6% including sales of Nook products.

With the retail bookstore business under a long term threat from online retailers and lagging book sales, Books-A-Million is significantly smaller than its bigger competitor Barnes & Noble but still has annual revenues of over $470 million.

The company operates 261 stores in 33 states and the District of Columbia.