The Bookseller.com

4th July 2008

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Johnson assures indie publishers

10.03.08 Alison Flood

Waterstone's managing director Gerry Johnson has assured independent publishers that the book chain will not make a wholesale move to central buying once its new consolidation centre launches in June. Speaking at the Independent Publishers Guild's annual conference in Brighton, Johnson said that those small publishers who deal with Waterstone's on a store-by-store basis would continue to be able to do so.

"Through Peter North, our independent publisher coordinator, we are making sure that those publishers who deal directly with us at store level are protected," Johnson told publishers. "Our challenge is to find a way to make that work, and we will. Your access to the business might change, but you won't be shut off."

He later assured the conference that Waterstone's would not start to buy its entire range centrally. "We won't keep the expertise in Waterstone's if we don't allow our booksellers to do some buying. We would lose the expertise out of Waterstone's if we moved to central buying, so we won't," he said. "We can't afford to lose colour out of our range. If I have a 5,000 square foot store on Chiswick high street, I need to make sure my range is relevant to that local market. My ambition is that about half the range will come through core ranging and grading, and the balance of it will be driven at a local level. We know our customers, and my belief firmly is that for Waterstone's to survive, we need to keep a neat balance between central and local buying - probably around 50/50."

He also spoke to delegates at the conference about the "difficult process" that will have to be gone through with terms discussions. "I won't apologise or excuse it – it's part of the change process. But we'll try to be fair. It will be presented as: there are savings to be made, and this is what we want out of it," he said. "We have to do that, and once we've got over that we will continue to develop our business."

He urged publishers not to let discussions over terms colour their overall relationship with Waterstone's. "If we fall out over terms, keep that in a box about terms, and don't allow it to enter the box about growing sales, and bringing good books to customers. Peter [North] will keep striving to keep those sales growing."

Johnson said the consolidation centre would start to roll out in the "first or second week" in June. The first store to 'go live' will be the Burton-on-Trent store, where the centre is based. "We want to go live with all publishers in one store, then all publishers in a region, then all publishers across the country," he said. "We've been in touch with some of the major distributors about how to manage the changeover."

In the future, Johnson said that he hoped Waterstone's would be able to collect some of its stock directly from printers. "We want to go and collect the books rather than have people delivering to us. We are a national chain – it seems senseless to have two lorries going to the same place. And it will reduce book miles." He added: "I don't see the point in ordering from a distributor when we could go directly to the printer. For campaign and new titles this is a great opportunity to deal directly with printers."

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