Bookshops report encouraging first day's trading

Bookshops in England reported a brisk trade yesterday (Monday 15th June), with warm wishes from returning customers, as many reopened for the first time since the nationwide lockdown.

Kate Skipper, chief operating officer of Waterstones, reported the first day had “gone well” with customers full of “really positive feedback”, after what has been “a long 12 weeks” for the chain.

“We’re very happy to have finally reopened the doors to books,” she said. “We are delighted to welcome back into our bookshops both booksellers and customers. It’s been a long 12 weeks. The first day has gone well, reflecting similar patterns to those seen in Ireland and Europe. Feedback has been really positive with both the safety measures and new ways of retailing working well. It’s been incredibly heartening listening to booksellers recommending books to our customers again. It feels like a good first step towards some kind of normality as we look forward to the reopenings in Scotland and Wales.”

Blackwell's reopened five branches on Monday (15th June) to a positive welcome and “outpouring of affection”.

Rebecca MacAlister, shop manager at the flagship store in Oxford, said: “It was such a pleasure to open the doors again and see our customers being delighted to return. We have had small children and elderly customers who have shopped with us their entire lives return today and all have been reassured that we have remained the same in so many ways but changed enough for them to be comfortable shopping with us at this difficult time.”

However, the chain’s Manchester bookshop saw much less traffic, which the academic books manager attributes to “a lack of students and lecturers”.

“Hopefully the university will start bringing people back on site. We’ve had some locals and regulars placing orders and checking in though, which is always good," the manager said.

Waterstones has introduced Covid safety measures at its stores

Independents The Bookseller spoke with were generally encouraged by the custom they received on their first day back.

The Stripey Badger in North Yorkshire said yesterday was “a great day” with customers so pleased it had reopened that it almost brought owners Linda Furniss and James Firth to tears.

“Our customers are over the moon we’re open again! It’s almost brought us to tears,” said Firth.

“Both of us are in to see how it goes. Most of our customers are locals that usually come in and they have been saying, ‘Thank God you’re open again! It’s good to be back.’ One has brought us a bottle of wine and a card, which is lovely. It’s also great to let our customers see all the new books that have been coming out.

“I think people have got the hang of social distancing now. We all know how to deal with it. We’re only letting three people in at a time and by keeping that number low, it leaves plenty of room for people to walk around and browse and take their time. We’re covered in sun at the minute, so people don’t mind waiting outside either. We’ve had a couple of people waiting in a queue. There were a couple of little things that weren’t quite working this morning, and we needed a little bit of figuring out, but we’re all quite happy.

“At the minute people aren’t staying away. Whenever we’ve been dressing our windows and preparing outside we’ve been asked ‘when will you be open?’ So we anticipated we would be busy the first couple of days, just from the locals wanting to visit. It will be interesting to see how tourism picks up... Especially with the weather like this, we could be a really busy place if people wanted to go for a walk and come back and buy a book. A lot of it will be a case of wait and see but our locals are really propping us up and helping us.”

Hilary Redhead, manager of the Bell Bookshop in Henley, said it had seen a “steady” stream of customers, in a “chilled” but “buzzy” atmosphere where “everybody knows the drill” in relation to social distancing.

She said: “We were a bit concerned obviously [how it would go] like everybody else, but everybody has been really lovely, it’s all been very calm. We haven’t been overloaded but it’s been steady, people have been coming in. Pretty much everybody knows the drill by now and we have our sneeze screen up and our hand sanitiser by the door. We’re not taking the books out of circulation but everybody is perfectly happy.

"We are letting in six people at a time max-we have quite a big airy store-which is working well and there is a one-way system around the shop. It’s lovely to be seeing people again and talking about books.

“Our customers have helped and we have managed to keep going in a virtual sense, but they are really happy to be able to come in and to chat about things - lots of regulars in today.”

Redhead said the shop also has slightly reduced hours, open Monday to Saturday, 9.30 a.m. to 3.30 p.m., to give staff time to clean the shop and to catch up on returns and other housekeeping. Stocking titles newly published since lockdown has been harder than usual, she conceded, particularly as “not all the reps are around” and "having to do things on Zoom is not quite the same”.

Alex Milne-White, co owner of Hungerford Books said the shop had been enjoying “a steady trickle of customers” since it reopened yesterday morning (15th June).

“There’s no queues outside or anything like that, but we have customers and that’s what we want. Things are fairly promising so far."

The Berkshire-based shop has reduced its trading hours, but may re-evaluate them next week. “We’ll know more in a day or so’s time about what it's going to be like, we’re adjusting as we go along."

Kate Claughan, co-owner of Hebden Books, said trade was “going really well” and the demand for stock was encouraging.

“I’m overwhelmed with order messages in every direction, so I’m trying to keep on top of that. We’ve had a steady stream of customers through the door. I think people are really thinking they just want to get back to normal.”

Like most of the shops The Bookseller spoke to, Hebden Books has hand sanitiser for customers to use on the premises, and screens by the till.

“We didn’t know what is was going to be like, whether nobody would want to come but people seem to be really chuffed about being able to come and browse again”, Claughan added.

Ron Johns, owner of The Falmouth Bookseller, The St Ives Bookseller and The Padstow Bookseller, said the Falmouth branch had had “a reasonably busy day” but that the other shops had been “a bit quieter”.

Johns said: “They’re more holiday destinations, whereas Falmouth is a bigger town with a bigger population. There are no tourists and no students at the moment, but there’s a nice local cohort of people who’ve been dying to get into the shop. People are overjoyed in this street.”

“I think things can only grow," he added.

Despite the positive reception, Johns said there had been some “anti-opening” sentiment and the company has received “flack on Twitter” for reopening, particularly relating to the St Ives branch. “We’re not going to go to St Ives at the moment, because we’re not wanted,” he said.

He added he was keen to get the majority of his staff back to work. “The real issue is whether we are going to get to break even figures on bringing staff back, two weeks before flexi-furlough starts. I can’t be running three shops all by myself.”