Positive Christmas Trading

13 Jan 2011

By Booksellers NZ CEO Lincoln Gould.

A positive attitude to Christmas trading appears to be the general mood among New Zealand booksellers.

One big-city independent reported a 10 percent rise in Christmas trading while other city shops have advised that it was a “good Christmas”.  

“Extremely erratic,” was how Carole Beu (pictured, right) owner The Women’s Bookshop, in Auckland described her shop’s Christmas trading.

“Some days were absolute boomers and then nothing would happen the next day. 

"Christmas Eve was a real boomer with staff running to keep up. While overall we may be a little down on last year, I am very pleased.”

Tilly Lloyd (pictured, left) of Unity Wellington saw Christmas 2010 “not as good as 2009 but better than 2008”.

There were local trading conditions which made 2009 especially good for Unity.Local factors in the cities often affect trading generally – the continuing aftershocks in Christchurch being an obvious example. 
 

New enlarged premises for the Blenheim Book World had been a major factor in the “best Christmas yet” according to Peter Scott, joint owner with his Charlene.  And Peter said that the busy trading was “continuing through January”.

For the groups, Peter Kalan (pictured, left) Managing Director of Red Group Retail New Zealand was bullish: “Book sales were up on last year for the group, which is a credit to the new local buying team that we put in place last year.

“Overall,  a number of great titles helped us deliver a great result, particularly in non fiction with Annabel Langbein.

“Boxing Day heralded in a new era, with our eBook store recording record sales as people started to log on and use their Kobos and Sony eReaders.”

Paper Plus were also very positive. Group Book Manager, Joan McKenzie  (pictured, left) said: “Paper Plus Group book sales were very healthy through December with many of our members enjoying significant increases on last year.

"There were some real standouts : The Free Range Cook, of course!! But also The Fall of Giants, The Wisdom of Dog, Life, Willbee The Bumblebee (and amazingly The Wonky Donkey just goes on and on and on); All Blacks Don’t Cry, Coronation Street - and a whole lot more besides.

"It was a Christmas where we sold a lot of range, and where we found it quite easy to meet customers’ expectations - and overall we’re very happy with the way the season traded."

Booksellers NZ Chairman, Hamish Wright (pictured, left) of Wrights Bookshop in Cambridge said trading in December had been “up on last year, although the year itself was a little down.”

Nielsen BookScan reported that overall book sales in New Zealand in 2010 had shown a 1.2 per cent increase on 2009 with 9.67 million units sold. 

However, the value of sales at $243.6m was 0.1% down on the previous year.

Bookmark/Search this post with