Left to Right: Adam Brown, Jacob Long, Emily Scott, Homer Brown.
AT YOUR SERVICE BUMPERNETS IN ALABAMA IS A DREAM DESTINATION FOR TABLE SPORT DEVOTEES By Anthony Stoeckert For two decades, BumperNets has been the place in Birmingham, Alabama, for people who love table sports.
knowledge to create the best possible customer experience at every level of his business.
Whether it’s people who want to buy a beautiful billiard table, table tennis setup, or other game, or folks who want to spend time with family or friends playing pool, ping-pong, pinball, or an arcade game, BumperNets has everything.
“Being retail tough and consistent is so important in our business,” Brown says. “I always remind my staff that ‘retail is detail’ almost every day.”
And Homer Brown, the founder and owner of BumperNets, has a long track record of making his store all about his customers. Brown discovered his love of retail at an early age, and he uses all of his experience and 22 | BCA INSIDER • SPRING ISSUE 2019
His story begins almost 50 years ago, in a different industry, and it’s a story that has seen his idea for the nation’s first table tennis store grow from a booth to a mini-empire with three different locations – each of which offers different services related to table sports – in the same mall.
“It’s been a fast ride,” Brown says.
A START IN THE OIL BUSINESS Before getting in the home recreation business, Brown had a career in a different sector. During his last year at Covenant College near Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, he took a job at a service station. He fell in love with the oil industry, mainly because of the service aspect, and after graduating, he became a manager of a Shell station. Then he bought a Gulf Service Station
