Majority of Waterstones stores in England to reopen on 15th June

Waterstones will open the vast majority of its stores in England on 15th June, with shops in Scotland and Wales to reopen once their devolved governments announce dates. But managing director James Daunt has warned against thinking there will be an immediate "rebound", with sales from March, April, and May lost for good, and stores likely to be working at below capacity for the ensuing months.

Waterstones operates 240 shops in England, eight in Wales, 27 in Scotland, and eight in Northern Ireland, with Daunt confirming that well over 200 in England would reopen on Monday 15th June, if the government does not backtrack on its decision to allow non-essential shops to begin trading again, with others across the United Kingdom to follow. Irish bookshops, including Waterstones and Hodges Figgis, are allowed to begin trading today (8th June).

On reopening in England, Daunt said: "It will be pretty much all off the ones we are allowed to reopen, though there will be a few exceptions, the campus stores for example, or where we have two shops that are close to each other, we'll most probably open just one." The final number will be confirmed this week.

Daunt said staff has already begun working to prepare stores, with personal protective equipment available, with hand sanitisers and styluses for those customers paying by PIN also available in store. He said store furniture had been re-arranged to manage the throughput of customers, but added that the quiet season would make social distancing easier to facilitate.

"We'll set them up the shops a few days in advance, and it'll be a case of waiting to see how many customers return. We are trying to manage the flow in and flow out with furniture, so the shops will look a bit different, but not hugely. Our shops are not desperately busy at this time of year in any case, so the issue of limiting numbers may not prove to be massive. For customers it will look relatively normal, with most changes intuitive, such as a stylus to input a PIN. We've got very good processes, and all the equipment is in place, so I'm confident about that."

Daunt confirmed that staff were returning to work in waves, with regional managers and store managers already working to prepare the bigger shops for reopening. But he added that if staff were vulnerable or lived with vulnerable family members, they would be able to remain on furlough. He added that the safety of staff and customers was of paramount importance.

He said he did not expect to see sales return to past levels immediately, with experience from Barnes & Noble in the US suggesting that about 60% of business would return, and then grow from there. "Being down about 40% is the worst anyone has done [in the US]."

But he stressed that publishers should not expect a bounce-back. "I think we will have lost forever that portion of our sales while we were closed, there is going to be no rebound in the way you can normally expect [if there is a major disrupton]. All of these lost sales generally come back, but that isn't gong to be the case now. For us and most independents the end of the March, April and May sales are gone, and that's a huge financial hit. It'll also take a while to get back to normal so there will be a further loss through the following months."

Overall he added that he remained positive: "We've got some nice big books that are waiting for us when we return, and some that came out in the interim that haven't yet had a lease of life in the shops. I'm optimistic in that sense; also customers will come in and ask what they've missed."