The Bookseller.com

2nd December 2008

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HMV and Zavvi to expand book offers

04.07.08 Graeme Neill

Music chains HMV and Zavvi are both ramping up their book offers with more dedicated space instore to promote titles. Zavvi has been trialling a book section in 19 stores from the beginning of the year, with shops stocking between 400 and 12,000 individual titles and a chart wall featuring bestsellers alongside its music chart.

The retailer had originally planned a phased roll-out, but following the success of the trial all of Zavvi's 125 stores will be selling books by the end of July. "We want all our stores to be carrying a chart wall," said Gary Williamson, head of related product. "The amount of titles will vary from store to store, but the majority will stock our top 100 paperbacks and top 50 hardbacks." Zavvi stocks a mix of cult, autobiography, TV and film, art, music, sport and humour titles.

Meanwhile, HMV is currently testing a book chart wall in around 20 stores with a view to rolling it out across the rest of the chain, which has almost 250 stores. Thanhmai Bui-Van, book buyer for HMV and Fopp, said that the retailer had been steadily expanding its book offer over the past 18 months. She described the product mix as "music and film titles as well as a range of fiction and also local books, especially sports titles, which perform very well for us".

She added: "Books fit perfectly into our extended home entertainment mix, as we look to broaden the appeal of our retail offer into all areas of popular culture."

Bui-Van, who recently joined the company from Play.com, said that HMV was working on a core book range for stores, and was also looking at stocking books in different parts of its stores. "Books are currently displayed on shelf units as well as table tops and book plinths in the larger stores. Using tables and plinths is something we hope to encourage more of, and we are looking at this as another merchandising option going forward," she said.

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