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Bookshops nationwide are gearing up Back to School promotional offers as the peak selling month of August approaches.
Wholesaler Gardners is offering customers an extra 5% discount on 54,000 educational titles until 30th September, and has a cross-publisher Back to School promotion offering 50% discount on over 150 titles. W H Smith kicked off its Back to School promotions—offering up to 75% off products—last week.
Blackwell’s has invested in “a whole new suite” of point-of-sale material for the promotional season, which went into stores yesterday (25th July). Different money-off promotions will cover more than 400 titles from Key Stage 1 through to A-level at the academic retailers—the move is designed to capitalise on early Back to School sales which last year saw Blackwell’s promotional revenue grow by 84% in the season.
The new POS shows a smiling schoolgirl with an apple and a book [pictured]. Gareth Hardy, head of commercial at Blackwell’s, said: “We are investing in a whole suite of new POS to support what is a growing area of importance to our shops and our customers. We are confident this will build on our previous year’s successes.”
Meanwhile, John Smith & Sons bookshops are focusing on the Back to University season, and will shortly be offering students deals tailored by each shop according to its local market. Alan Leitch, campus director at John Smith & Son, said he was optimistic for a buoyant Back to University season as there were early signs student numbers would be higher this September than last year, when the increased tuition fees set in.
Leitch said: “We are focusing on increasing our penetration with the number of students on each course who are buying from us this year. We work on a combination of print and digital, and while digital is growing, it is still mainly print products which students want to use.”
He added: “There are indications that student numbers will be higher this year, which is positive. The student numbers were lower last year due to the tuition fee rises, and fewer students means less people buying books.”
August was the biggest sales period for dictionaries last year, with sales jumping 83% month on month to 130,000 copies sold. Sales of school textbooks jumped 12% over the same period, to 424,000 copies sold, before rising again in September to 598,000.