Countdown is on as booksellers prepare to reopen in April

Ahead of 12th April, when shops in England and Wales reopen, sellers are redecorating shops, launching new websites and coming up with innovative measures to attract customers, with one Scotland-based seller adding small fluffy animals to in-store children’s storytime sessions.

James Daunt, m.d. of Waterstones, said staff are “all very keen to get back to work”. Commenting on how the shops will operate, he added: “We’re evidently experienced at running safe and sensible stores and we’ll carry on doing so. So nothing will change. There will be proper social distancing, good masks, barriers around the registers on the counters, and it’s something that was proved and tested. And of course, all the shops that have remained open seem to have demonstrated pretty clearly that retail as a whole, as long as you follow these sensible measures, is a safe environment. I think we are just very pleased that this peculiarity when there is this very small number of shops that are not allowed to open, the so-called ‘non-essentials’, ourselves and effectively the clothes retailers, will now be able to open alongside W H Smith and all the others who have been allowed to stay open.”

Of the chain’s 290 shops, only the branch at Leadenhall Market in the City of London stayed closed after the last lockdown. Daunt said he expected the same this time, saying of Leadenhall, “if people are coming back into the offices we’ll open it, and if people aren’t coming into the City, we won’t.”

Meryl Halls, managing director at the Booksellers Association, said of the reopening: “We know our members are hugely looking forward to being able to reopen their doors to book lovers again when restrictions lift in each UK nation. This is of course just one step in the road to recovery, and the BA will be working hard to support booksellers as they welcome customers back instore, while continuing to sell books in more ways than ever before. We hope the entire publishing industry will likewise continue to show their support for the book world’s frontline as they work to rebuild following this prolonged period of store closure.”

Chris Taylor pictured right, of St Davids in Pembrokeshire, Wales, has had to move out of his tiny shop of 54 years, described as Britain’s smallest, into a larger city centre store during lockdown after the lease on his original premises ended. He intends to keep social distancing in place both inside and outside the shop after reopening, and will expect his customers to wear masks. “Last August, when the lockdown came to an end, Wales was inundated with visitors. It’s very difficult because we are in a holiday resort and I think the Welsh government got it slightly out of hand. It wasn’t controlled enough, there were too many people here. But I think this time perhaps we’ll be more fortunate from last time around,” he said. “I believe the Welsh government will introduce rules and regulations [...] probably allowing two or three into the shop at a time.”

Apprehension remains
Though most staffers told The Bookseller they were feeling very positive about April, some have reported feeling “super stressed” ahead of reopening. Sue Lake, owner of White Rose Books in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, said: “I cannot remember ever being busier and we’re not even open. I’ve had a massive week doing our first ever stock take in house, followed by our first online book launch, and now I need to turn my mind to recruiting for our café operation, which can open outdoors from 12th April.”

Lake is working on rebranding ideas, new signage, and painting and tidying the premises, and has just launched the shop’s new website, which she says will bring future rewards and “fresh challenges”. “Ahead of the 12th I’m keen to regroup the team and have some customer service training, but before that I need to start re-stocking and ordering new titles, as we currently have a third of our normal stock holding. Lots of reps are getting back in touch and they want to fill their diaries,” she added.

Sam Fisher, owner of Burley Fisher in Haggerston, said he was concerned about the amount of stock he has to shift, adding that trade is quieter than usual for this time of year. “We’ve just got so much stock, especially second-hand stock, that’s not worth listing online and it’s [titles] people will respond to by browsing,” he said.

“We would be doing big returns at this time of year anyway, because it’s all the post-Christmas stuff. But the problem is more [that] you have so many titles coming out at this time of year, that when you have only online channels to promote stuff, you end up only heavily selling some things, and some books just get totally neglected. When you have tables and tables of books, people will browse and pick them out. So I’m looking forward to seeing titles that perhaps have had a harder time, because they are hard to sell online, getting more interest as people come back into the shop.”

Like many indie booksellers, Fisher is tentatively planning events, with a focus on launching a “really big, packed schedule” in the autumn as part of the shop’s five-year anniversary. “I think initially we will try to do some blended events, with small numbers of people and others joining online, so we just need to figure out how to do that. I think maybe the end of June—I’m trying to plan a mini-festival,” he said.

A new start
Chrissy Ryan, founder of BookBar in Islington, north London, has used this lockdown to “soft-launch”, creating a virtual book club and ramping up the shop’s click-and-collect service. On 12th April the shop will physically open its doors to the public for the first time. Ryan said: “We’re as much of a wine bar as a bookshop, so we’ll be serving wine and coffee to customers safely from a few outdoor tables at the shop front, as well as takeaway coffee, but customers will be able to come into the shop to browse only.

“Author events are a huge part of what we do at BookBar, so we will be building on the success of [our online] book club with lots more virtual events, and we already have some incredibly high-profile authors lined up. However, the most important thing is safety and I’m sure that alongside the excitement about the world reopening there will be some uncertainty.”

Ross Bradshaw, owner and manager of Five Leaves in Nottingham, also plans to continue online events until November, but he hopes to host physical ones soon too. He anticipates customers will shop online for the foreseeable future. “We are pretty sure that quite a few of our regulars will continue to use the webshop for a while, and we will continue to offer free postage to those shielding, housebound or low paid until we are properly back to normal—which won’t be on 12th April,” he added.

Sally Pattle, manager of Far from the Madding Crowd in Linlithgow, Scotland, said she and her staff are “champing at the bit to get open again” when non-essential retail returns there on 26th April. “We have done a ruthless pre-reopening cull of older books to make sure we have room for lovely new titles on the shelves,” she said.

“We will be keeping the face-covering rules in place, as well as the hand sanitiser stations, and we will keep a keen eye on further advice from the government around social distancing, so we know how many customers we are allowed to welcome back at any one time. By the time we are allowed to reopen on 26th April, we’ll have been in enforced closure for a total of 241 days over the past year: we are extremely ready to welcome back all of our amazing customers, and fervently hope this is the last time bookshops are made to close their doors ever again,” she said.

In addition to painting the shop and rejigging book sections, Pattle has decided to get two guinea pigs, to “help out with the story-telling—because this year, more than ever, we all need more guinea pigs in our lives”.