News

« Headlines

Zavvi to roll out books in 125 stores

28.03.08 Graeme Neill

Music and film retailer Zavvi, formerly known as Virgin Megastores, is to sell books in all its 125 stores following a successful trial.

The chain, which was last year bought out by management from Virgin, will be stocking a range of cult fiction, TV and film books, autobiographies, and sport, music and humour titles.
Books have been introduced in the Exeter, Glasgow Buchanan Street, Belfast, Merry Hill and Camberley stores recently, and will be sold in the Cork branch when it opens at the end of March.

The book offer will be rolled out into another eight stores over the next month, and then subsequently introduced across the entire chain by region over the course of this year. "We will look at a select number of stores every few months," said Gary Williamson, Zavvi's head of music and related products.

Books will form part of Zavvi's "related products" strand, which also includes magazines and cards. The retailer aims to grow the strand to a quarter of its total sales, alongside games, music and DVDs. "Basically I want to reintroduce cult classics to the masses," Williamson said. "I want On the Road to be available to customers as much as 'A Hard Day’s Night'."

The number of titles stocked will vary from store to store, but each will have a "chart wall" of bestsellers. Individual cult titles will have special branding and new categories will be created: books about football hooliganism have been branded "Hoolifan", and the likes of Irvine Welsh and Hunter S Thompson will be stocked under "Chemical culture". A special range of paperbacks will be priced at £5. There will always be a selection of recommendations by store staff, branded "Books We Love".

Among the successes of the trials was a dedicated front-of-store book section in the Belfast branch. "Books are among the first thing you see when you enter the store," Williamson said. "That's the first time we have ever tried that instore, and sales have massively been up. It's something that could be rolled out."

Zavvi is sourcing stock both direct from publishers and via wholesalers.

Retail Graeme Neill Home Zavvi Virgin Megastores

See Also