Waterstones, Blackwell's and indies report Christmas sales rise

Waterstones, Blackwell’s, Stanfords and independent booksellers have all reported strong Christmas book sales, with titles such as Five on Brexit Island and the GCHQ Puzzle Book proving hits with customers.

Waterstones’ m.d James Daunt told The Bookseller that while the chain hadn’t yet finalised its numbers, sales were up on last year after a “nerve-wracking” final week before Christmas.

Meanwhile 79% of the 50 independent booksellers surveyed by the Booksellers Association said their sales had increased on last year. Blackwell’s had an “excellent” Christmas, seeing double-digit growth in like-for-like sales across its estate, boosted by its city centre stores, its c.e.o David Prescott reported, while Stanfords saw a 10% hike in like-for-like sales over the festive period, its m.d Tony Maher said.

“Christmas was pretty good,” Daunt said. “It jumped forward two days on last year rather than one, which means people leave their Christmas shopping late and we spent the last week petrified because so much rests on it. It is always a nervous time, but it turned out well. The weather was ok, which helped, apart from the wind in Scotland, but the Scots didn’t seem to mind.”

Daunt said distribution went smoothly for the chain this year and “there was nothing we ran out of, the big titles were available throughout”.

“There was not the same bonanza with the Ladybird spoof titles as last year, but there was a wide range of books which performed well, such as Tim Peake’s, and especially The Essex Serpent (Profile Books) for us (named Waterstones Book of the Year in December) and the GCHQ Puzzle Book," he said. "On top of the usual array of nonsense publishing, led by Five on Brexit Island (by Vincent Bruce, Quercus), in all it was a year in which it was very broad.

“In all our sales were much in line with our year as a whole, so up by a modest amount like-for-like, year-on-year.”

Blackwell’s also reported a strong Christmas, with its c.e.o Prescott saying the company achieved a double-digit like-for-like sales growth in December.

“Christmas was excellent this year,” Prescott said “Both in the shops and online, particularly in our flagship stores in Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and London’s Holborn, all the stores were up apart from Manchester, which is currently trading from a temporary site.

“We performed well with a lot of the titles everyone else will have performed well with – Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the Elena Ferrante novels, Joe Wicks, Five on Brexit Island, The Vegetarian. We continue to do well from the general rise in physical book sales.”

Meanwhile Stanfords Travel Bookshops also reported a successful Christmas trading period, up 10% like-for-like year on-year across its London and Bristol stores. “Our sales were up across the board overall, which was really pleasing after a tough year in central London,” m.d Maher said. “Footfall has been low throughout the year, but it picked up. The range of titles was very broad this year, which helps booksellers,” he added.

Stanford’s bestselling book of the Christmas period was Five on Brexit Island, followed by London: The Information Capital: 100 Maps and Graphics That Will Change How You View the City by James Cheshire and Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders by Joshua Foer.

Altogether 79% independent booksellers surveyed by the Booksellers Association reported that sales were up over the Christmas period, with 35% saying sales were up “a lot” year-on-year and 44% saying sales were up “a little”.

Of the 50 who have taken part so far, many said they felt footfall was up on the high street and most named the GCHQ Puzzle Book as their bestselling title this Christmas.

The week leading up to Christmas ranked the highest in value for the book trade since 2007, figures from Nielsen BookScan have shown. Altogether £83.3m worth of print books sold were sold in the run up to Christmas - the highest since 2007.