We shopped at Barnes & Noble and saw a key shortcoming that's hurting the chain in its battle against Amazon (AMZN)

• Barnes & Noble is struggling to compete with Amazon.
• Barnes & Noble stores have become places where customers read, hang out, and have a cup of coffee rather than just shop.
• On Thursday, Barnes & Noble reported that comparable sales dropped 6.1% in the first quarter.
• We visited a Barnes & Noble store earlier this year and saw why the chain is struggling. 

Barnes & Noble is struggling to keep up with Amazon. 

The bookstore giant, which has more than 630 locations in the United States, is losing steam in its competition with Amazon. And, some analysts say, its failure to adapt to changing shopping habits could be to blame. 

"People may drop in for a browse but they won't make a dedicated trip to a bookstore," GlobalData Retail's Neil Saunders told The Guardian in May. "They don't have the need and they don't have the time. The way people shop changed, and that's been detrimental for Barnes & Noble."

Barnes & Noble has tried to combat people's shifting attitudes towards shopping by creating a great in-store experience, but in doing so, they seem to have become more like libraries than bookstores. People come to browse books, study, have a cup of coffee, and meet up with their friends — not necessarily to buy books.

On Thursday, Barnes & Noble reported comparable sales dropped 6.1% in the first quarter. In the past five years, Barnes & Noble has lost more than $1 billion in value. It cut 1,800 full-time jobs earlier this year, and was recently sued by former CEO Demos Parneros, who alleges that he was fired without cause. 

In response, Barnes & Noble said in a statement that Parneros' lawsuit is "nothing but an attempt to extort money from the Company by a CEO who was terminated for sexual harassment, bullying behavior and other violations of company policies after being in the role for approximately one year."

We visited a Barnes & Noble store earlier this year and saw why the chain is struggling:

SEE ALSO: We compared Amazon and Walmart-owned Jet.com to see which site was easier to shop — and the winner was clear for a key reason

I visited the four-floor Barnes & Noble store in Manhattan's Union Square in the middle of a weekday.

To the right of the entrance were displays of new releases ...

... and to the left was a collection of New York-themed books.