Independent Bookseller Foyles (Thanks to Flickr User Hslo* & CC*)
Thoughts for a Snowy January
With snow and ice everywhere I find myself cut off from my favourite bookshops for a few days. Allowing me to think about the Christmas gone by and read a little more about the trade rather than see it with my own eyes. The first thing that struck me was the news about average book prices dropping coupled with some coverage of the January sales. It has been, no doubt, a tough year for everyone and prices dropping in response seems to make perfect sense.
I felt my journey around bookshops just before Christmas was great value as I used 3 for 2, special prices and bonus discount days to pick up presents for friends and family. I was however also surprised that some of my most expensive purchases carried no discount, that I struggled to find the books in question and was very glad to pay for them. It is interesting to note that I paid the same price for one book as I did for three in a promotion. I actually had to talk to a member of staff to find that book, who used some of his knowledge to lighten the mood in the midst of the shopping mayhem. As a gift it was a success, books always are when they mean something to the reader, and it was one of the few gifts on which feedback was both swift and positive.
The Discount Culture Vs Knowledge of Books?
I didn’t think much more about this until I read a piece covering the experience of Foyles in the UK over the festive period. Not only did they have a big jump in sales but they also noted that only one of their top ten bestsellers was discounted at Christmas. Now I have been to Foyles on many occasions and they give real value for money with lots of offers, as do all booksellers in the current climate. So why, with all this discounting were they able to sell nine out of ten of their bestsellers without a discount? How many book shops could say the same thing? Their number one bestseller was A Little History of the World by EH Gombrich. A book that I saw well displayed in many Irish book shops before Christmas but didn’t make the top 100 in Ireland, and I assume the UK, during the same period.
What it says to me, along with being able to find that full priced book in one of my favourite book shops, is that there is lots of room for specialist booksellers. Doing their own thing and showing a strong eye for quality titles. I assume that the other eight titles were equally non-mainstream hits, if I am incorrect someone from Foyles please correct me#. I know Foyles, as a specialist, has all of the main titles available but with readers now buying from multiple stores, as I did, they understand the need to have those non discounted specialist titles also. Customers will come for the range and if they find something being pushed they have not picked up on elsewhere they will buy.
When people question the future of independents this, to me, proves there is a vibrant future. The independents who carry the range and the offers, but push something that says more about their knowledge of books and appeals directly to their customers will surely survive. I think customers are not looking for discounts on all titles and are happy to pay a premium for books they cannot find elsewhere or that they are not seeing pushed in a big way by the majority of book shops.
I know I am not saying anything new but the number of times I stop in front of a display and say ‘wow’ is not as often as I would like. It also works because margins are not under the same strain and customers go away feeling happy they have received something different. Of course this does not only apply to the specialist but with their knowledge of both their customers and their market it would seem easiest for them.
My bookshelves are full of books that jumped off the shelf, in specialist book stores displayed with confidence. Books I had never heard of and that showed a great eye by booksellers for their market. It is no surprise I continually return to those stores and hope to find another similar delight. I look forward to the end of this cold snap and better driving conditions.
Colm Ennis is Publisher at Hawk Hill Publishing Limited and a former head of buying at Hughes & Hughes one of of Ireland’s largest booksellers.
IMAGE CREDIT
Thanks to Flickr User Hslo* & CC*
#Foyles Christmas Top Ten
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1 A Little History of the World – E H Gombrich (Yale University Press,
£7.99 pb; Foyles’ Christmas price £3.99)
2 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson (Quercus, £7.99 pb)
3 The Road – Cormac McCarthy (Picador, £7.99 pb)
4 Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate, £18.99 hb)
5 Logicomix: An epic search for truth – Apostolos Doxiadis & Christos
Papadimitriou (Bloomsbury, £16.99 pb)
6 Where the Wild Things Are – Maurice Sendak (Red Fox, £5.99 pb)
7 Open: An autobiography – Andre Agassi (HarperCollins, £20.00 hb)
8 Bad Science – Ben Goldacre (HarperPerennial, £8.99 pb)
9 Private Eye Annual 2009 – Ian Hislop, ed (Private Eye, £9.99 hb)
10 The Girl who Played with Fire – Stieg Larsson (Quercus, £7.99 pb)
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4 Comments
Good to find you this morning via @davidmaybury. I’m the brother of the O’Mahony’s in Limerick – the one who’s only connected to that business by birth
I heartily concur that customers will happily pay for books they really want. A part of our business I’ve watched steadily growing is sourcing rare or hard-to-find books, especially leading up to Christmas – customers are generally delighted to pay for the extra effort we go to in getting their “Holy Grail” titles, and it’s tremendously rewarding to hand over a book that you know holds great significance.
As a fan of your bookstore Louisa, I can happily say, I’ll always pay for your sourcing of suitable books! Sometimes in fact I wish I had more to spend there!
Editor!
I had a similar experience with Irish bookshops over Christmas. I found a few books that I wasn’t looking for actively, but was aware of from earlier publicity, in 3 for 2s in Easons & elsewhere. A couple of the books I was looking for proved harder to find (they’d come out earlier in the year–I come home to Ireland once a year, so am often looking for older books), with several stores being out (probably because I was mainly shopping in the days before Christmas and week after–they generally seemed picked over). When I did find them, I was happy to pay cover price. Of course, there was one that I couldn’t find anywhere, and have now ordered online at a discount, which just reminds me of the double value of a deep selection: not just for making the customer happy & building loyalty, but for getting full value from the sale.