Smith’s Better than Worst, But UK Retail Still Suffers Traditional UK book retailers continue to report weakness heading into the fall selling season. WH Smith’s earnings report for their fiscal year, through the end of August, was destined to be an improvement over their huge 148 million pound loss from a year ago. Showing net income of 46 million pounds, overall sales still fell, by 3 percent to 1.11 billion pounds. Book sales were down 3 percent in the pre-Potter half of the year, and still down 1 percent in the Potter-powered half. Inauspiciously, same-store sales in the first six […]
