Blackwell's reports 3.1% hike in Christmas sales

Blackwell’s continued the success of other brick and mortar retailers this Christmas, reporting a 3.1% like-for-like increase in sales over the festive period.

The company’s c.e.o David Prescott told The Bookseller he was “very pleased” with the academic book chain’s festive performance.

“The increase was driven by the physical book sales on display at the front of store and in our three-for-two promotion, with those sales up 10% like-for-like," he said. “The spoof Ladybird for adults series was a big part of that, but even without the Ladybird titles, the promotional sales were up 3.9%.

“It was a great Christmas and we are very pleased with it.”

Other titles wracking up high volume sales for the Blackwell’s estate were Mary Beard’s SPQR (Profile Books), Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings (Oneworld) and Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (Blooksbury).

Prescott said he thought fiction and children’s titles would continue to be strong for the chain in 2016, but warned that the digital transition was beginning to hit the academic book market.

“A few years ago when people were up in arms about the effect e-books could have on the industry, that is now coming to academic books,” he said.

Other brick and mortar retailers have also reported strong like-for-like increases over the Christmas period in the best Christmas for physical book sales in five years, boosted by Michael Joseph’s Ladybird books for adults series, written by Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris.

Waterstones’ book sales were up by a “modest” single digit percentage in the Christmas period, although the chain could not reveal specific figures, while Foyles sales were up 4.7% like-for-like in the month before Christmas “without significant discounting”, said the retailer’s m.d Paul Currie. Stanford’s m.d Tony Maher, meanwhile, said the company’s book sales were up 6% like-for-like in December, while the eight-strong chain Dubray Books saw sales surge 12.5% after it re-branded and launched a loyalty card in time for Christmas.

These retailer figures reflect a robust performance in the overall physical book market according to Nielsen BookScan, with sales up 9.6% in value year-on-year to £256.4m -representing the best December total in five years. Sales were also up 9.4% in volume to 30.2m units sold.

A report on how independent booksellers faired this Christmas will be published in this week’s edition of The Bookseller magazine, out on Friday (8th January).