Supermarkets and books - by Joel Rickett
Joel Rickett, Editorial Director, Viking Penguin
Since Tesco and Sainsbury’s first started selling books in the early 1990s, various myths have been spun about supermarkets and books. The first myth is that these giant retailers use books as a ‘loss leader’ – discounting below cost price to lure customers who will then pick up (more profi table) groceries. A few blockbuster books are sometimes used in this way, but the supermarkets actually make a profit on 99 per cent of the books they sell – even on those £3.50 paperbacks and yes, even on Harry Potter.
The second misconception is that supermarkets only stock a handful of bestsellers. That may have been true a decade ago, but now any large Asda, Tesco or Sainsbury’s has a surprisingly deep and varied book range (Tesco’s biggest stores have up to 5,000 different paperbacks). No less an authority than James Daunt, founder of the upscale London bookshops Daunts, once remarked to me that he personally would be happy to read nothing but books from the shelves of his local Tesco for the rest of his life.
This brings me to the third myth, namely that supermarkets are only interested in commercial fi ction by brand name authors, trashy celebrity autobiographies or ‘misery memoirs’. They certainly do a roaring trade in these areas, but they also shift big numbers of literary classics, cookery, history, biography, children’s picture books and even cult fiction. Tesco sold more copies of Ali Smith’s experimental novel The Accidental than Waterstone’s; in 2007 it promoted the Man Booker Prize shortlist.
Finally, people suggest that the supermarkets reach an entirely new demographic who never usually buy books. The fact that they are hoovering up market share across most genres suggests that many avid readers also pick up books while on their weekly shop. The edited range in supermarkets helps these people choose quickly – and the influence of media book clubs (particularly Channel 4’s Richard & Judy show) supplants the role of informed booksellers.
Many independent bookshop owners complain bitterly about the industry terms’ structures that have enabled supermarkets to gain such ground. Publishers can certainly be accused of naivety in the early days, giving away margin too easily; now they are faced with demands for payments of up to £3 m to become ‘preferred suppliers’. Yet it is hard to argue with such scale – Tesco turns over the annual sales of the entire UK book trade every 20 days.
We ain’t seen nothing yet. Supermarkets have a 12 per cent share of total UK book sales by volume (BML/TNS 2006), but only a small proportion of their shoppers ever pick up books. The main players Tesco and Asda have plans to expand their ranges; others with bookish ambitions include Sainsbury’s, Woolworths, Morrisons, Wilkinsons and Costco. For them all, books generate customer goodwill, add quality by association, and sell at a high price per item. In the most optimistic assessment, this shift could empower publishers, spread the reading habit, and perhaps even help the finest local bookshops to flourish in opposition, as have delicatessens and farmers’ markets.
Clark and Phillips, Inside Book Publishing, 2008, page 243
