Sales up at Waterstone’s new-look children's departments
29.07.10 | Caroline Horn
Sales in Waterstone’s new children’s departments have seen double digit growth in the first week of launch, with the greatest increases seen in teen, reference and gift books, according to head of children's books Toby Bourne.
The trial at four stores, in Bath, Leeds, Newcastle and Cambridge, was launched earlier this month and is part of Waterstone’s strategy to increase children’s sales across its stores from 16% to 20% of its business.
Bourne said: "We have taken four important stores, significantly grown the space given to children’s books and highlighted certain categories. The focus is on helping customers to find books and to upgrade the amount of local tailoring."
The main changes in the new children’s sections include 30% more floorspace, separate and bigger teen (12+) and YA (14+) sections outside the children’s area, a dedicated “learning zone” for reference books, new signage and colour-coded age-ranged areas, and locally selected display areas. New furniture and non-book products have also been introduced.
Waterstone’s will retain its three-for-two promotions but these will be age-ranged and presented in the appropriate area, rather than as a single children’s fiction promotion at the front of store. The amount of space given to promotions has halved to around 10% with more room for locally
selected feature displays.
Penguin children’s sales director Daniel Shepherd said: “Waterstone’s has really thought about their customers and the way their consumers shop. Their general strategy to allow booksellers to have more ownership of local subjects and authors, like David Almond in Newcastle, makes sense and is
something they should have always done.”
Paul Litherland, Hachette Children’s Group sales director, added: “It will be good to see these changes being rolled out across the estate.”
How the trial stores perform in the coming weeks will dictate what changes are introduced to other branches, said Bourne. “We will know what works by mid-August and are looking at a workable number of stores where we can deliver the changes before Christmas.
“We will certainly introduce elements of the redesign to all our children’s departments although it may not be possible to deliver all the changes to all our branches.”
The company is also allowing branches to individually choose at least 30% of their children’s stock. Debs Smith, lead bookseller at Waterstone’s Bath store, said: “It means we can target areas that
our customers are asking for locally and do more hand-selling.”
The changes at the Bath store have resulted in a 40% increase in sales of its gift books following the introduction of a dedicated table area for pop-up books. A trial of reference books linked to holiday activities has helped to drive an 85% rise in reference sales at the branch, while teen and
YA features including “classic” reads and graphic novels have helped grow sales by 30% compared to this time last year.
Waterstone’s children’s buyer Sarah Clarke said: “There will be much more opportunity for publishers to communicate with booksellers via our intranet snd to get booksellers talking about what they like.”
Some 320 booksellers have signed up to a new Waterstone’s diploma for children’s bookselling.
Comments on this article
By Cowardly Lion
What's this? An article related to Waterstones and there are no comments on here yet? Those disgruntled employees who trawl The Bookseller to slag off their employer endlessly must actually be busy at work, selling books perhaps? (Cue nasty accusations about me and the usual bitter comments).29 Jul 10 16:16
By A voice for no reason
Quote "Some 320 booksellers have signed up to a new Waterstone’s diploma for children’s bookselling." ------ Hang on a bit is that 1 bookseller from each store? But But But there ever only seems to be one childrens bookseller in each store!29 Jul 10 16:48
By SPY
Is this a national recognised diploma of some thing made up by Waterstones?29 Jul 10 16:50
By imatree
30% more space and double digit sales growth. Is this the measure of a success story? Does the Bookseller have anyone who understands figures on their staff? (hint: double digit means ten or more)29 Jul 10 21:55
By Maggot
Don't worry Cowardly Lion the wicked witch of the west will come along and lay waste everyone's hard work....29 Jul 10 21:58
By Buff Orpington
Well it makes sense to expand Children's - it's going to be less affected by the growth in eBooks, in the short term, anyway. What worries me is the time when books like "The Very Hungry Caterpiller" can be illegally downloaded in seconds onto an i-Pad or similar product. I still think there's something magical about the tactile qualities of a tradtional children's book, but how many people feel the same way?29 Jul 10 22:32
By Danny McBride
I just hope the other stores get equally recognised, because I know alot of the staff work really hard in their kids' sections... let's face it, the size of some of them, you may as well class them as their own shop! Good news for Waterstone's, and well done to the teams involved.30 Jul 10 09:32
By penguinb
The revamped children's section in the Nottingham Waterstones is attractive and spaceous now it is on the second floor. Shame about the slow small lift (that you'll be lucky to get more than one modern pushchair in at a time) to be able to get there if you have very young children...30 Jul 10 12:51
By dinky mcfoogle
Seperate 342's, locally ordering, learning zones...many booksellers have already been using their noggin and initiative and doing this in their children's sections for years with no acknowledgement (and probably being told off because it wasn't planogrammed even if it was making money). Now that head office have 'come up with this idea' and taken the credit it's to be applauded . It's actually good to see that the new head office team have been looking at what their staff have been getting up to and using it to take the business forward. At least that's the way I choose to see it.30 Jul 10 19:01
By Jojo
Erm I don't think the central team has actually changed. They've just got cash to support their ideas30 Jul 10 21:53
By Ex Borders
Yep, and the double digits growth and increased interest in children's books at Waterstones has nothing to do with the 80 or so Borders branches closing down. It's nothing to do with innovation and everything to do with the market becoming smaller. All those parents and kids who used to buy in Borders have to go somewhere.30 Jul 10 22:04
By a.bookseller
ouch Ex-Borders.... does it still hurt? Actually, I think the biggest growth in kids' books is probably WHS, where they have made a big impact. My local big W (or should that now be small w?) is so not a place to go to buy kids' books - looks unloved, unattended and the offers are poorly signed. Just not a welcoming place at all. They still have a long way to go.30 Jul 10 22:58
By Country Joes gold fish
Well Cowardly Lion, i certainly did very little work when it worked at W'stones. It was sweet.31 Jul 10 13:11
By diabetics advances
Work? What was there to do? 'Would you like a bag' 80 times a day. Wrestle with some blue boxes. An robot could have done that.31 Jul 10 13:14
