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Waterstone's will have completed the first stage of its new tailored offer by Monday (10th May) with local bays, charts and campaigns introduced to all 313 stores.
Stores have been given greater buying power since managing director Dominic Myers was installed in January and Tim Watson became product director. The new chain-wide range will coincide with a relaunched brand mooted at parent HMV's investor day at the end of March.
Speaking exclusively to The Bookseller this week, Watson said: "It's the beginning of tailoring and freeing up space for stores to change according to the local market."
Each store will have a local chart featuring its 20 bestselling titles and a local bay that will be entirely store-chosen. Watson said: "It will be relevant to local authors, or events that are going on locally, book groups, that kind of thing."
There will also be a bay of books tailored with an offer according to the store's customer profile. Watson said: "In mass market areas, it's a chick-lit bay for example. Really it's all about making sure the choice reflects the market the store is in."
Stores will also choose titles for the front-of-store three-for-two campaign from a centrally selected list. The majority of stores feature four campaign tables. One will feature "the best and newest titles", with one devoted to non-fiction and the other two featuring fiction. Stores will be able to select up to 25% of titles from the list.
Booksellers will also choose a number of titles in the "new books" bay but this will vary according to the store size. There will be feature bays across 17 adult sections. Again varying in size according to store square footage, it will be a mixture of highlighted three-for-two titles and backlist books, chosen between branch and centrally.
Watson said it was too early to say whether tailoring would be extended further. "We need to evaluate how the tailoring works and learn from that. We need to spend time looking at how that goes and see if we have gone as far as we can or whether this is just the tip of the iceberg."
Of the chain's greater focus on backlist promotion, he said: "You can't just rely on a price sticker to sell a book. It surely has to be more than that. Some authority, some integrity, some recommendation, some cleverness, grouping five books together so a customer will think ‘oh, that's quite clever'. It doesn't need a three-for-two sticker to do that."