News

Five Living Oasis stores to close

07.03.11 | Lisa Campbell

Three Living Oasis stores have closed and two more are preparing to shut their doors, making around 20 staff redundant.

The Christian retailer has closed outlets in Aberdeen, Inverness and Sutton with Bedford and Belfast soon to follow, due to "poor sales".

Ray George, chairman of trustees for Living Oasis and head of the Nationwide Christian Trust, said that managers of the affected bookshops were warned in October that if trade didn’t pick up he would have no choice but to close them.

"We said the shops had to sustain themselves to be safe from closure, staff were well aware of that," he told The Bookseller. "The shops that were closed were losing £40-50,000 each a year and we just cannot afford to keep sustaining that, we had to make that decision."

Hope that trade would pick up in the weeks before Christmas was not borne out, he added.

The closures bring the number of Living Oasis stores nationwide from 19 to 14, with George adding that further closures would depend on the result of "dialogue" between Living Oasis and church leaders in the coming weeks.

Living Oasis, the trading arm of the charity Nationwide Christian Trust, acquired the 19 shops in January 2010 from former retailer Wesley Owen Bookshops.

Two stores in Leeds and Liverpool are currently undergoing what Living Oasis calls "phase two" development, which involves combining the bookshops with a café, and making them a bigger part of the community with late-night openings.

"We think this is the way forward to keep the shops open and viable," George said.

The Nationwide Christian Trust has been running for seven years.
 

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By Good Trading

Brian, as someone who was raised as a Christian in the Baptist church, one of the things that led me to question my faith when I was in my teens was the shocking banality of most Christian literature.

Christian literature isn't the word of God - it's merely an interpretation of the Bible.

Wed, 09/03/2011 - 22:20
By photojaqs

I agree with Bryan. I am a small independent card producer and I was suprised that christian book shops did not want to buy cards with scripture in them- people prefer blanks so that they can put their own thoughts in them. The quality of my cards is not 'banale'. The whole reason I went into cards was that I was fed up with the mediocre quality of 'chistian' cards. I wanted to sell charity cards which were equivalent in standard and better than secular ones.

i only got on this site because I wondered whether Ray George would sell some of my cards. Does anyone have his contact details??

Mon, 14/03/2011 - 17:56
By Margaret

After ten years of previously working in a Christian bookshop I was often dismayed by the lack of quality and artwork displayed on cards and literature. Texts are not really the problem it is the lack of imagination and professionalism that matters. Too much Christian publishing is old fashioned and cheap looking.

Mon, 04/04/2011 - 13:53
By Margaret

After ten years of previously working in a Christian bookshop I was often dismayed by the lack of quality and artwork displayed on cards and literature. Texts are not really the problem it is the lack of imagination and professionalism that matters. Too much Christian publishing is old fashioned and cheap looking.

Mon, 04/04/2011 - 13:54
By David

I sometimes wonder what kind of viable business plan did Living Oaisis have for the company?

Thu, 22/12/2011 - 00:01

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