An odd couple in Canterbury

Independent Piccadilly Bookshop Christchurch and franchised Take Note Rangiora: An odd couple in Canterbury.

Neville Templeton owns two bookshops in the Christchurch area, but they are an unlikely combination. One, Piccadilly Bookshop, is an independent in the suburban city area at Avonhead Mall, the other is the franchised Take Note Rangiora 30kms north of Christchurch.

Piccadilly came first in 1993; Templeton was looking for business opportunities after a corporate career with Mobil and then service station ownership. “A venture into manufacturing ended disastrously, so I looked for opportunities back in retail.”

He found a store in the newly extended Avonhead Mall and established Piccadilly. As a demographic area, Avonhead was second only to affluent Merivale at one border and stretched up to the university and airport neighbourhoods, which had grown fast with new subdivisions.

The name for the bookshop spun off two other businesses launched around the same time – Hyde Park and Park Lane. Though Templeton later found out the second business was actually Park Avenue, the London theme stayed and the bookshop was Piccadilly – with bright yellow accents in shop design.

Neville says “Although a suburban mall is not the obvious location for a real bookshop with a much wider selection than a basic franchise model, we’ve gained a large following of booklovers from all over Christchurch.

“Our website www.piccadillybooks.co.nz attracts customers from all over New Zealand and abroad.”

In a depressed market, Piccadilly Bookshop is actually making gains in turnover. They’ve established a separate remainder books sale in a vacant shop at Avonhead Mall, and this has helped with trading.

Later this month, Piccadilly will expand into a next-door tenancy and open a New Zealand Post and Kiwibank franchise allowing the business to grow without compromising the functioning and atmosphere of the bookstore. The extra foot traffic should also improve bookshop sales.

As Neville explains, the business is in a mature phase. “Sales haven’t changed, profitability hasn’t changed but there are rises in wage and rent costs.”

With Take Note Rangiora, he has noticed the difference a New Zealand Post franchise has on a bookstore. That business is also growing, with a momentum gained pre-recession in the thriving rural town and district. But with total customer numbers for retail / Post / Kiwibank / Lotto around 1200 a day, the most effective promotion for new book titles is good display and merchandising in store.

Take Note Rangiora, acquired in 2000, was formerly the local Post Office before being transformed into a Books & More. While Neville says Take Note brand does not have the same impact on the marketplace, this is more than offset by lower franchise levies and the NZ Post foot traffic. “A happy combination,” says Templeton wryly.

Both stores average about 40 percent of current retail sales in books, so depend on a balanced offering including cards, magazines and stationery.

Behind every good bookseller are good bookstore people; at Piccadilly it is Robyn Joplin, Bede Daly in books, Raelene Hogg for stationery and cards and Merle Davies running magazines.

PICTURED ABOVE: Piccadilly Bookshop team, Neville Templeton, Merle Davies, Bede Daly and Robyn Joplin.

PICTURED ABOVE: The team at Take Note Rangiora, Anne Kellaway, Neville Templeton, Sue Dale-Bates, Diana Ditmer, Raewyn Growcott, Helene Hackett, Frances Granger, Pauline Shaw and James McCoy.

In Rangiora, you’ll find Helene Hackett and Joe Shaw the book people, Mary McCoy and Tasha Stokes handling magazines and Raewyn Growcott in stationery and cards.

Neville Templeton has book buying responsibilities and a weekly routine that sees him spending 15 -20 hours at each store, with a similar time working from home. His schedule is not one many would thrive on, but Templeton takes it in his stride. Perhaps the fact he lacks a mobile phone makes it less stressful. (It certainly makes it harder to locate him!)

Helen Templeton helps with some of the business accounting, but she works all hours herself maintaining a beautiful garden visited by tour groups.

For both bookstores, Templeton has always appreciated the help of publisher’s reps. Tongue in cheek he says “At the outset, I relied heavily on reps. Now I need slightly less advice but I still make the same mistakes!” Rep visits he finds enjoyable and makes sure there is the minimum of interruptions. With their head offices he mostly expresses frustration. “Why as an independent am I not offered the same extra discount for buying a bin of a paperback title that the groups are offered? We are seeing the demise of the independents, so why are publishers not offering comparable encouragement for buying good numbers?”

New Zealand titles that are hot at the moment in both stores include Rebel with a Cause, Loving All of It, Up the Andes, A Life on Gorge River, Who Said that First… and The Wonky Donkey. Other bestsellers are Peter Robinson’s Bad Boy, The Lost Symbol and Tuscan Rose.

And what of the future for Piccadilly as an independent? “At 188sq m, Piccadilly was too small to be a Books & More which incorporates a full NZ Post franchise, and also thought too small to be a Paper Plus. We feel that we have invested over 10 years establishing Piccadilly as a bookshop which differs from the chains. Now we will have an extra 100 square metres at Piccadilly when the adjacent tenancy is added, so the franchise becomes a future possibility.

“As the numbers of independent bookshops continue to decline in New Zealand we will continue to keep an open mind about joining a chain, should we then be at all welcome,” Neville Templeton concludes.