Blackwell's to open new Oxford bookshop

Blackwell’s is set to open a consumer-focused bookshop in Oxford Westgate Shopping Centre – the company’s fourth bookshop in the city.

The academic bookseller has its flagship store on Broad Street, Oxford, an arts and poster shop and university branch near Oxford Brookes University, but will open this new store in Westgate after the venue has a £440m facelift in the last quarter of 2017.

Unlike its Broad Street Shop, which has served Oxford’s academic and student population since 1879, the new 310 square metre Westgate shop will “prioritise an offering of interest to general consumers,” the company said.

David Prescott, c.e.o of Blackwell’s, said: “This new shop is an exciting development for Blackwell’s. The Westgate development will bring a new and different customer demographic to Oxford and it’s a fantastic opportunity for us to market to a whole group of customers who may never have been into a Blackwell’s before.”

He added: “Our focus for Westgate will be to differentiate the offer from what we do on Broad Street, delivering a product mix that will attract this different target audience – best sellers, strong commercial and contemporary fiction, non-book products, including games, and of course outstanding non-fiction too.”