Booksellers

WH Smith released a trading report for the 20 weeks ended January 14, with sales up 41 percent over last year and 20 percent over 2019, driven by the continuing recovery in their travel stores. High Street sales, however, continued their long fade; revenues were down 2 percent from 2022, and 14 percent from 2019, which the company called as ever “a good performance, in line with our expectations.” Sales in the Travel segment were up 77 percent over last year and 48 percent from 2019. The company has opened 40 new stores so far this year, with 37 set […]

UK retailer WH Smith released their year-end earnings report for the period ended August 31, and the company stated it “is now in its strongest ever position as a global travel retailer” with sales that not only rebounded post pandemic, but reached their highest level ever: overall sales of £1.4 billion were up 58 percent over last year. Profit before tax was £63 million compared to a £(116) million loss last year. High street sales, however, remain well below were they were pre-pandemic (after declining for a decade), registering £473 million, down (2.5) percent from last year’s £485 million. Trading […]

Barnes & Noble Education started their fiscal 2023 by doing what unfortunately they do best: Losing more money than expected. In the seasonally soft quarter, sales of $264 million were up from $241 million a year ago, but still well behind pre-pandemic levels of $338 million in fiscal 2019. The net loss of ($52.7 million) was worse than last year’s net loss of ($43.6 million), and their worst loss for this quarter in at least the last six years. Retail sales of 236.5 million rose $26 million, mostly on merchandise and café and convenience food product sales, rather than textbooks. […]

Yesterday Indigo announced their first quarter 2023 earnings for the period ended July 2 with sales of CA $204.6 million, up 19 percent from $172.1 million last year, a higher level than any first quarter in the past three years. The growth was driven by “the success of Indigo’s omnichannel business; a strong recovery in the retail channel, where traffic levels continued to normalize, and an ecommerce business that sustained incremental growth of 80% to fiscal 2020 levels.” Net loss was $25.4 million, compared to $21.9 million last year, due to inflation and increased freight costs and “increased strategic investment […]

Barnes & Noble Education reported results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended April 30, and restated the results of fiscal year 2021, due to “certain out of period adjustments related primarily to income tax benefit, and restructuring and other charges.” Those adjustments increased the fiscal year 2021 net loss by $8 million. The company finished the fiscal year by doing less worse than before: Sales for Q4 2022 were $261 million, up 17 percent from the revised $223 million last year. But that’s still well below the pre-pandemic level, which saw sales of $334 million in Q4 2019. […]

UK book retailer WH Smith reported a brief trading update for the third quarter, the 15 weeks ended June 11. The company is still comparing their results to those of 2019, with overall group sales at 107 percent of the same period in 2019 lifted by a surge in travel—the first time the company has risen above pre-pandemic numbers. But High Street sales remain weak, at 79 percent of 2019’s level, including “the impact from the cyber incident on [online gift and greeting card business] Funky Pigeon,” down 7 percent from the same period last year. High street sales have […]