Indies report strong Christmas sales despite economic uncertainty

The majority of independent bookshops saw like-for-like sales increases over the Christmas period as a feared hit to consumer spending after the Brexit vote did not come into fruition.

Of the 40 independents who responded to The Bookseller’s annual Christmas Trading Survey, 68% reported a like-for-like sales increase in December, with 14% saying they were down and 17% said they stayed about the same.

While the 68% figure was lower than 2015’s 72% and 2014’s 79%, the robust figure was still above that of 2013, when just 46% of indies reported Christmas sales growth and 2012 when 48% said they received a festive boost.

The sales increases reflected a market which has seen print sales rise for a second year in a row - up 7% in 2016. The week in the run up to Christmas also saw £83.3m worth of print books sold  - the highest since 2007, according to Nielsen BookScan.

The titles which fared the best among indies were the Christmas gifting books Five on Brexit Island, the Famous Five spoof by Brunco Vincent (Quercus) the GCHQ Puzzle Book (Michael Joseph) and perennial favourite The Private Eye Annual.

In non-fiction, Alan Bennett’s diaries Keeping On Keeping On (Profile/Faber) was cited as a top seller by many indies, along with John Simpson’s We Chose To Speak of War and Strife (Bloomsbury), Ken Clarke’s memoir Kind of Blue (Macmillan), The Descent of Man by Grayson Perry (Allen Lane) and Tim Peake’s book Hello Is This Planet Earth? (Century).

A wide variety of fiction titles sold well at independent bookshops, but the ones most often mentioned were Ali Smith’s Autumn (Hamish Hamilton), Tracy Chevalier’s At The Edge of the Orchard (The Borough Press) Jeanette Winterson’s Christmas Days (Jonathan Cape), The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry (Serpent’s Tail), also named the Waterstones Book of the Year, Robert Harris’s Conclave (Hutchinson) and Ian McEwan’s Nutshell (Hutchinson), along with the The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories by P D James (Faber) and the Costa First Novel winner Golden Hill by Francis Spufford (Faber). The Goldsmiths Prize winner Solar Bones by Mick Cormac (Tramp Press) was also named as selling well at indie shops, along with Zadie Smith’s Swing Time (Hamish Hamilton) and J K Rowling’s playscript Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and the screenplay of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (both Little, Brown).

While the range of new books on offer was generally praised as being “fabulously broad” by one bookseller, another lamented the “definite lack in the food and drinks categories this year”.

Altogether 48% reported they had experienced problems with supply, with Planet Earth II by Stephen Moss (BBC Books), and Winterson’s Christmas Days both most frequently named as being hard to get hold of, with one bookseller commenting they could have “sold an awful lot more if the stock had been available.”

In all, several independents reported they felt customers had supported their local high streets over the Christmas period and were “turning away from ‘big town shopping’”. Good weather conditions in the run up to Christmas also played into indies' hands, along with a broad range of titles considered beneficial for independents as supermarkets and chain stores tend to win market share on the very popular titles by offering large discounts.

Most booksellers commented that uncertainty surrounding Brexit had not yet impacted on consumer spending over Christmas despite initial fears.

One bookseller said: “The quality of publishing was good and customers wanted to buy physical books from a 'real' book shop and get the ‘bookshop experience’. Books make great Christmas gifts!” While another said:  “Consumer confidence stronger than expected after the Brexit vote in June.”

More analysis from the Independents Christmas Trading Survey 2016 will be published in next week's issue of The Bookseller.