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Christmas campaigns hit tills

23.10.07 Philip Stone

Aggressive discounting from the major high street retailers last week saw revenue through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market drop 6.7% to £35.96m in the week to 20th October compared to the previous week.

The fall follows six weeks of week-on-week revenue increases through the overall TCM, and came in the week that W H Smith launched a five-day "Half Price on All Top 20 Hardbacks" promotion, and Waterstone's officially launched its Christmas campaign.

The campaigns did help drive consumers in store, with volume sales through the General Retail Market last week up 0.7% on the previous week to £2.69m, and only 0.4% down on last year.

Within the top 50, just four titles managed to sell over 20,000 units last week. Guinness World Records (Guinness) remained in top spot for the third consecutive week by some distance, outselling Nigella Lawson's second-placed Nigella Express (Chatto) by over 14,000 units. But thanks to the competitive discounting on the high street, nine of the top ten hardbacks saw week-on-week sales increases this week as the selling prices fell across the charts.

Retail Bestseller News Philip Stone Christmas

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