The Book People rebrands under Bayliss to put books back in the driving seat

Following an unsettled five years, The Book People’s new c.e.o. Claire Bayliss has arrived with a fresh vision for the company: a rebrand and a further restructure, planned to help the business move away from its "cheap" reputation to become "a brand with purpose", delivering significant profit over the next three years.

The Book People, based in Godalming, Surrey, was founded in 1988 by Ted Smart and Seni Glaister as a mail-order bookseller, which invested heavily in its direct-to-consumer website. Traditionally, it offered customers deep discounts via direct or workplace marketing, as well via schools, using branded "Book Buses". However, the retailer’s popularity fell in recent years and private equity firm Endless completed a buyout in 2014, with Glaister stepping down as c.e.o. Shortly after, a restructure saw the company’s Coventry site closed: sites in Bangor in Wales and Haydock in Merseyside still remain.

Endless employee William Wellesley took over for a five-year stint before Simon Mason, The Book People’s chief operating officer, stepped up for a brief tenure this January. Now Bayliss, a brand and marketing expert, has succeeded Mason, to provide what she terms "a more customer-centric approach".

The pre-Endless accounts were rocky: turnover was down 10% year on year to £83.8m, with a trading loss of £2m, in the year ending 31st December 2013. After a return to profitability in 2015, the latest round of results from Companies House put turnover at £71.4m in 2017, relatively stable year on year (£71.8m) but 14% down from 2013. Profit for the financial year fell 87%, from £5.5m to £0.7m.

Bayliss says part of the problem was that the brand had become "invisible". "I remember The Book People; my son is 33 and when he was in primary school, the company would come in and sell books. So for me, the brand warmth I had was overwhelming, but it made me realise that for me, it had become invisible. Through no investment in above-the-line advertising, I had forgotten it existed." Several publishing insiders told The Bookseller The Book People has fallen off their radar in recent years, too.

Planning ahead
Two weeks into the job, Bayliss conducted a raft of focus groups, including insights from lapsed customers, existing customers and publishers, to find out what had gone wrong. "What came out of those groups was really clear—we had become very one-dimensional and we were known for being ‘cheap’. Our pricing strategy and our promotional strategy had overtaken everything else, even though we had been curating beautiful collections of books for more than 30 years."

Through buying direct from publishers in bulk, Bayliss reveals the company became trapped in prioritising low-cost books, at a detriment to its brand. She wants the company to step away from its deep discounting reputation towards a more ethic-driven narrative, and says the publisher focus groups were supportive of this aim. She says: "We buy significant volumes, we commit, we hold the books in our own warehouses, which enables us to retail our products at significantly reduced rates; on our website, we always offer 70% off r.r.p. That’s where we try to be in our pricing strategy. But value is not just about being cheapest, so part of the work we’re doing, which the publishers embraced, is looking at tweaking our pricing. [Being] stupidly cheap can erode the value of the product, and that’s the last thing we want."

She is particularly animated when discussing her desire for the brand transformation away from "cheap". "I hate that word," she says. "We are not cheap. We are
a value proposition. We are accessible as a brand, so our pricing strategy is important. But what is really powerful is the curation of the collections, because that is where we drive real value—more than anything else that we do. That’s what we had become famous for, but over the years it had been eroded because we became so chaotic with offering daily deals. But we have moved away from that completely."

There was no three-year plan in place when Bayliss became c.e.o.; she developed one over a few weeks, which has now been cascaded down to virtually all of the 260 employees, and will be rolled out formally in September. She says the transition from financial experts Wellesley and Mason to her was necessary for the brand to move forward. "The focus historically was around restructuring and for the first couple of years [following the buyout] that was absolutely the right thing to do. Having stabilised the business—and obviously the team did a superb job with that—it requires a different skill-set to deliver the vision."

The brand transformation, she hopes, will transition the company from "story sellers" to "story tellers" through a revamped website featuring Book People "characters"; a new logo mimicking the spine of books; and an advertising campaign featuring TV and cinema ads. She will not disclose the cost of the rebrand, but "it is significant". Asked for The Book People’s "elevator pitch", she says: "We are a brand with purpose; booksellers with heart. Our vision is to inspire a lifelong love of reading. We believe all minds deserve to be nurtured, young or old, and we do that through beautifully curated collections."

Children and schools will continue to be central to the business, and Bayliss is planning some major new initiatives. As well as boosting the school "Book Buses" by 500% over the next three years (schools earn 15%–25% commission from every book bought), Bayliss has instigated an overhaul of the company’s e-commerce site through a programme called the Big Book Boost: for every £10 spent, The Book People promises to donate £1 to the school of the customer's choice for their library. She hopes more than a million books will be donated to schools via the scheme by 2022. "We believe this is unique in the market," Bayliss said. "Supporting literacy in schools is critical to our brand DNA."

A further restructure
Along with the brand transformation, she has instigated a significant further restructure, reducing management while promoting communication and integrated working.
"At Bangor, where we have the warehouse, we stripped out a whole layer of middle management, such as team leaders, and reinvested in people who are going to make a difference," she says. "What we had was a management structure right across the group which was too top-heavy. I’ve realigned that because my belief is we should focus on delivery, not just talking about it."

In the support centre at Godalming, six roles have been made redundant and 10 new roles are being recruited, across marketing, e-commerce and merchandising. "We now have teams who aren’t just focused on digital marketing, but a brand team focused on PR, social media, social content, above-the-line and wider media strategy... Everything we’re doing is about putting the customer first."

Bayliss says she has the support of staff, even after the restructure, because she spent her first three weeks meeting virtually every employee, writing their feedback into a notebook—which she brandishes at the interview—and introducing a "Tuesday huddle" to the Godalming head office to promote communication. She has also introduced a bonus structure for staff and given staff an additional day off on their birthday.

Bayliss wants the brand to focus on books rather than the array of gifting options previously included. "We have various licensed partnerships and a new licensing range launching in September around the Mr Men and Little Miss books," she says. "We’re doing more work around range extension, but they all link back to work. Historically, we bought gift businesses and we had taken it too far and lost the thread of what The Book People is about—the clue is in the name." Yet if the proposition is "relevant to the core of what we do", she will entertain the possibility; for instance, "audio is a big opportunity, so we’re looking to partner with someone to test audio. It’s just about that love of reading, and how we bring it to life."

Looking three years down the line, Bayliss will not be drawn on specific financial targets, but she is planning "significant growth". She added: "It’s all very positive and Endless is very happy... it invested in this business five years ago and it’s a massive supporter of the brand and the vision in where we take it."