Foyles sees 0.4% uplift in sales over Christmas
Bookseller Foyles saw its like-for-like sales edge up 0.4% year-on-year in December with sales in the three weeks to Christmas rising by 0.1%
In the seven days to Christmas Eve, sales at Foyles’ six shops showed an overall like-for-like increase of 0.68% with the Royal Festival Hall, St Pancras, Westfield Stratford and Cabot City stores putting in particularly strong performances.
However, the ongoing Crossrail development at the junction of London’s Tottenham Court Road and Charing Cross Road continued to affect footfall at Foyles’ flagship store in the capital.
The bookseller said Christmas sales were spread over a wide range of titles with autobiographies by Morrissey, Alex Ferguson and Yousafzai Malala all featuring in the top ten. Other top ten titles included Helen Fielding’s ‘Bridget Jones: Mad about The Boy’ and ‘Fortunately, the Milk…’ by Neil Gaiman.
Never Miss a Retail Update!Foyles chief executive Sam Husain said: “Given the disruption caused by the Tottenham Court Road underground station development, Christmas trading is much as we predicted. While we expect this disruption to continue throughout this year, we have taken a long-term view and are confident that the street will be even more vibrant once the development is finished.
“We now look forward to re-establishing our flagship store next door in the former St Martin’s college in spring and opening a new bookshop in Waterloo Station at the end of January. ”
