Company lists · Data refreshed September 2026
Top 25 Bookstore chains worldwide
RevenueBase identified 315 bookstore chains worldwide as of September 2026 and tracks 30,995 professional contacts across them, including 3,625 with verified work emails and 0 with mobile numbers. The United States is the largest market and Paris the largest hub.
This list covers bookstore chains worldwide, matched on what each company actually does as described in its own words. Ranked by team size, largest first. Every row shows the company's own description, its RevenueBase Smart Search rating, and when it was last checked. Data refreshed September 19, 2026. Country and city lists for bookstore chains follow the table.
Published by RevenueBase, a B2B data infrastructure company. This list was built with RevenueBase Smart Search, the natural-language company search RevenueBase customers use to build their own targeted lists and unlock verified emails and direct dials at the companies on them. How these lists are built and judged.
The 25 largest bookstore chains worldwide
Ranked by team size| # | Company | Contacts | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 12,213 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Barnes & Noble proudly serves America with approximately 600 bookstores across all fifty states, and are busy opening newly designed stores in communities nationwide.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 2 | 3,785 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Follett Higher Education is a leading educational service provider and omnichannel retailer providing students, faculty and staff, parents, and fans with the course materials…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 3 | 2,699 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Barnes & Noble College, a Barnes & Noble Education (NYSE:BNED) company, is a leading operator of college bookstores in the United States.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 4 | 2,011 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Books-A-Million, Inc, is the second-largest book retailer in the nation, operating more than 200 stores in 32 states and online at Booksamillion.com.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 5 | 1,790 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “With almost 300 bookshops and employing over booksellers, Waterstones is the leading high street bookseller in the UK and Ireland.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 6 | 1,110 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Be fair to customers and our employees, promote literacy, be kind to the environment and remain financially viable so we may continue.”, Our Mission Statement in the words of HPB…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 7 | 1,048 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Borders is a place to discover fascinating new releases and reconnect with old favorites, a place to share a family story time or savor a hot cup of coffee.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 8 | 750 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Die Leidenschaft für das Lesen und für Bücher bildet seit 1919 unser Fundament.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 9 | 698 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “ReaderLink is North America’s largest full-service book distributor.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 10 | 295 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Powell's is an independent bookseller serving Portland, Oregon, since 1971, with four store locations.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 11 | 197 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Furet du Nord fait partie du Groupe NOSOLI regroupant les librairies Furet du Nord et Decitre.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 12 | 174 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Enseigne historique du quartier latin à Paris, Gibert Joseph est aujourd'hui la première librairie de France.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 13 | 144 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Fondé en 1907 à lyon, notre enseigne est le 1er groupe-libraire indépendant multi-enseignes présent sur l'ensemble des canaux de distribution du livre, sous tous ses formats : 11…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 14 | 134 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Green Apple Books is a trio of independent bookstores in San Francisco.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 15 | 92 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Textbook Brokers is an Arkansas headquartered, debt-free, veteran-owned company.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 16 | 81 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “London's iconic independent bookshop.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 17 | 80 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “MBS Textbook Exchange was acquired by Barnes & Noble Education in 2017.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 18 | 76 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Weltbild als einer der größten Multikanal-Buchhändler bietet Kunden ein besonderes Einkaufserlebnis.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 19 | 73 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “An independent bookstore based in Miami, with nearly an author event everyday, with locations in Coral Gables, Miami Beach, The Bal Harbour Shops, Miami International Airport, and…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 20 | 60 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “OSIANDER ist ein erfolgreiches und modernes Familienunternehmen.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 21 | 45 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Welcome to The COOP, the campus store and official bookstore for the Harvard and MIT communities!” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 22 | 40 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Independent bookshops in Bath, Edinburgh, Ely and St Andrews” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 23 | 39 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Founded in 1929, Bookazine is a full-service wholesaler offering a wide-ranging and deep inventory of new releases and best selling back-list, with expertise in children's titles…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 24 | 37 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Book Culture was founded as Labyrinth Books in 1997 by current owner Chris Doeblin and his partner at the time Cliff Simms.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 25 | 37 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “A bookstore built by book lovers, for people who believe in the joy of browsing, the pleasure of a well-loved paperback, and the thrill of finding exactly the right thing by…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
RevenueBase Smart Search
RevenueBase Smart Search assesses information from a company’s LinkedIn profile, information supplied directly by the company, its website, and other publicly available sources. It uses that information to rate how closely the company relates to this list’s category: bookstore chains. Every row carries its rating and the description the rating was read from, so each one can be checked rather than taken on trust.
- Strong evidence
- The company's own public description of its business names bookstore chains.
- Partial evidence
- Its own public description names part of bookstore chains, so it works in or next to the category without describing itself that way.
- Indirect evidence
- The description shown does not name bookstore chains. The match rests on the rest of the company's public profile rather than the one sentence quoted here, so this is the rating to check first.
RevenueBase Smart Search is how these lists are built: RevenueBase's data engine and AI assemble the companies that match a category defined in a user's own words, so a list can be about what companies actually do rather than about whichever industry code they were filed under.
Showing 25 of 315 bookstore chains worldwide
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Bookstore chains worldwide at a glance
As of Sep 19, 2026Companies by employee count
How this list was built
Company categories are rarely black and white. RevenueBase reads each company's own description of its business to decide whether it belongs among bookstore chains, so some rows will be adjacent to the category rather than pure plays. The description and RevenueBase Smart Search rating on every row are there so you can check each match yourself.
- Source
- The RevenueBase company graph: 60 million companies and 398.9 million professional contacts resolved from primary sources, queried with RevenueBase Smart Search, the natural-language company search available to every RevenueBase user.
- Coverage
- 4 countries, largest first: the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom. Country and city lists for bookstore chains are linked below.
- What qualifies
- Companies worldwide whose own description of what they do matches “bookstore chains”. Matching reads each company's description, not its industry code or its name.
- RevenueBase Smart Search
- RevenueBase Smart Search is how this list is assembled and how each row is rated. RevenueBase's data engine and AI assess a company's LinkedIn profile, information supplied directly by the company, its website and other publicly available information, then relate it to a category defined in a user's own words. Each row is rated strong evidence (its own description names bookstore chains), partial evidence (it names part of the category) or indirect evidence (the description shown names none of it and the match rests on the rest of the company's profile). The description supporting each rating is quoted on the row.
- What we exclude
- Companies whose own description does not clearly place them among bookstore chains, and records with no verified work email.
- Match quality
- In blind human judging of this matching method, 86% of matched companies were on target. Expect roughly 1 in 7 rows to be adjacent to the category rather than a pure play. Every row shows the company's own description and its RevenueBase Smart Search rating so you can judge each match yourself. Read the full methodology: how the lists are built, how the judging worked, and what the figure means.
- Ranking
- Team size, largest first: companies are ordered by the number of professionals RevenueBase tracks at each one. Employee ranges shown are reported bands, for context.
- Verification
- Every listed company carries at least one verified work email, 3,625 across the full list. Contacts re-verify on a rolling cadence, and each contact's own verification date is shown inside RevenueBase.
- Refresh
- This page's figures were pulled from the company graph on September 19, 2026. Lists refresh periodically as the graph is re-checked.
- Corrections
- Wrong category, wrong headquarters, or a company that has closed? Use “Report an issue” on any row. Reports go to the RevenueBase Data Team and feed back into the company graph.
Bookstore chains by location
4 lists · largest firstEvery Bookstore chains list RevenueBase publishes, by country and city. Counts are matching companies in each list as of its own refresh date.
Countries
Frequently asked
What is RevenueBase Smart Search?
RevenueBase Smart Search is how RevenueBase decides which companies belong on this list and how strongly each one fits. Its data engine and AI assess a company's LinkedIn profile, information supplied directly by the company, its website and other publicly available information, then relate it to the category the list is about. Each row is rated strong evidence when the company's own description names bookstore chains, partial evidence when it names part of the category, and indirect evidence when the description shown names none of it and the match rests on the rest of the company's profile.
How many bookstore chains are there worldwide?
RevenueBase identified 315 bookstore chains worldwide as of September 2026, matched on each company's own description of what it does rather than its industry code.
What is the largest company on this list?
Barnes & Noble, INC, headquartered in Worldwide, tops this list with the largest team on record.
Which country has the most bookstore chains?
The United States leads with 168 companies, followed by Germany (68) and France (54). Every bookstore chains list by country and city is linked on this page.
Which city has the most bookstore chains?
Paris leads with 12 headquartered companies, followed by New York (8) and Chicago (6).
How do I get contact information for these companies?
A free RevenueBase account lets you run this exact search and work the top results, verified emails and direct dials included. Upgrading unlocks all 3,625 verified decision-maker contacts tracked across these 315 companies.
How current is this list?
The list refreshes periodically as the company graph is re-checked. This page's figures were pulled on September 19, 2026.
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About this data
RevenueBase is a B2B data infrastructure company. Its company graph covers 60 million companies and 398.9 million professional contacts, with emails verified on a rolling cadence rather than scraped once and left to decay. These company lists are generated directly from that graph with RevenueBase Smart Search, the same natural-language company search every RevenueBase user has: describe a market in plain words, get the companies that match, and add verified emails and direct dials for the people at them. It is the same data that powers RevenueBase's B2B data products, and a free account includes 500 credits to start. How these lists are built and judged.