I agree with Robert. Multibuy offers always put me in a spin and I often end up leaving without what I went in to buy because it seems expensive if I could have got 3 for 2 but I only want one!

Surely you could always simply choose to buy just one book and simply ignore 3 for 2 signage!

This is good. Very, very good. It will mean more chances to sell for more writers and more titles, instead of creating a hierarchy where a small group of 3 for 2 promoted titles outsell everything else by miles. Often in the past I've gone into Waterstone's and found 2 books I like on the 3 for 2 table, and seen a third I want that's not on offer. Of course I end up taking a third 3 for 2 that I can get for free, instead of the non 3 for 2 at full price.

Staggering.... Why would a retailer publish their promotional plan in this way...

Brave , very brave.

Not really revolutionary. I know of two bookshops that trialled the same thing recently.

The good thing about 3for2 is that a few bestsellers can boost the fortunes of lesser known titles and authors that punters would otherwise have chosen not to punt.

Please let’s get rid of all these '3 for 2'and 'buy 1 get 1 free' throughout the retail industry and let's have 'real' prices!

It'd be so easy renege on this though, if pride isn't a factor. All you do is put the stickers back on. Hopefully this'll see people engaging with books better and making more considered purchases, this is the main ace up bricks and mortar's sleeve.

Does this mean increasingly fraught margin discussions with publishers for the big W? A £7.99 mm pb sold for £5 is a 37.5% margin to the customer; 3for2 is 33%, if all titles are the same—I think the maths are right. So who pays for the 4%?

I can't tell if Mavis is being sarcastic or not...

Is this another leak rather than an announcement?
If so, I expect it won't happen before Christmas unless the buying teams have been working harder than usual to get the margins down.

Um... ok... next month.
My bad.

Weird, I've not heard about this, and no staff today told me of a missed message. Good ol' Bookseller, and my inability to probably see the blatantly obvious message on the intranet. It's an interesting move. 3 for 2 can be an issue with customers, but it can also be a great promotion when mixed with decent discounts from the publishers, and can certainly at times push people to buy another book that they might not always pick up and read, without that incentive, that it's a freebie. I'll be interested to see how it pans out in the long run, and especially over major buying periods like Christmas etc, where people often do go for a good promotion or two, as it's a great way of getting the extra present, or freebie for yourself as it were.

This is quite ballsy, especially given the time of year. As a W employee I expected Daunt to stick to to previous management plans for Christmas and attempt a radical overhaul in the new year. I think its a good move-we are competing with AMAZON and charging cover price for a best selling or backlist paperback(on its own)was suicide. Looking forward to a similarly brave decisions on linksaves, uniform and FLOURESCENT CARDBOARD!!

I, for one, hope that staff keep a uniform of some sort... just not those 'orrible puple t-shirts... hopefully Daunt realises getting staff in shops to promote a website and thus drive business back out of the shops is just madness!

It's xmas soon... put 'em all in elf outfits!

So more scope for the smaller publisher?? Mr Daunt please do not forget us, sometimes we can offer you better overall terms than the big boys....
Here's a thought Waterstones to by firm sale....

R

I absolutely agree that Waterstone's needs to get rid of the 3 for 2, that linksaves are awful, and that independent/small publishers should be better represented in the range, which will hopefully grow because of the decisions Daunt has made to date. (I don't believe anyone who uses the word 'linksave' is actually a customer rather than employee of Waterstone's, but well done for pointing out the annoying quality of the exercise.)

I wonder if the Bookseller ever intends to devote quite so much attention to the internal details of the marketing of, say, the Bookselling Chain of the Year?

I wonder at the comments about the 'relief' of getting rid of 3for2 and how it will suddenly free up book buyers to browse the whole range of titles. Do you not think that exactly the same titles currently in 3for2 will just appear in the W'stones £5 or £3 or half-price deals (presumably copied exactly from the current HMV offer with leading paperback titles - all, incidentally, individually stickered))? How come suddenly that mid-list title 'languishing' (to quote a contributor) on the shelf will be freed up and leap out at a customer? Customers will quite simply browse what will now be 'reduced paperbacks' tables and be even less inclined to buy a full price paperback.... Ah well, plus ca change.....

There still has been no official word on this in stores... I believe some managers have told staff what they know, but there has been no official word, except for "...we are planning for September and are not ready to communicate these plans to staff".

Waterstone's need to remember the shopfloor bookseller... they are the ones who keep the shops running, after all.
It's all very well having central buying, marketing teams, etc, but if staff in the shops don't have the time to talk to their customers or, more importantly, the respect they deserve the big W is going to sink irrespective of what the knight-in-grey-armour James Daunt decides to do.

Through the summer Waterstone’s had an across-the-board paperback fiction 3-for-2 offer. However much decried, this enabled customers to choose from the entire range, including all those authors excluded from every previously limited 3-for-2 offer that steered customers to the same author-sets.
From the 1st September this has been replaced, if I am correct, by a return to limited range 3-for-2 offers for the time being.
Whilst I agree that the latter limited offers are undesirable because ‘forcing’ people to choose from only those authors selected by ‘Grand Central’ – who apparently remain as sole purchasing decision arbiters under James Daunt’s ‘local empowerment’ scheme – I disagree that a generalised 3-for-2 offer does any harm.
Surely this is a very good way to tickle customers into leaving their comfort (National Newspaper reviewed) zone to try new authors? Maybe though such a Pandora’s Box of delights seen as too bewildering for those herd-like creatures snapping up the Book-of-the-Moment to not be told what is the best accompaniment to their main course in the limited time available to them on their way to the movie?
The restricted offer schemes do have the advantage of guaranteeing greater efficiency of stock replacement through the Hub, so maybe that is the best short-term solution to profitability.
After all, new authors have the option to revert to net strategies to claw their way into the notice of Central Buyers through Amazon’s best-seller lists, don’t they?