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The British Retail Consortium has blamed heavy discounting, strong competition and the rise in popularity of e-books for the decline in book sales in December.
Sales across the entire retail sector were "stronger than we dared hope", the consortium said. Like for like sales in December increased by 4.2% compared with last year. Non-food sales grew by 3.8% on a like for like basis.
The consortium did not trip out a specific book figure. However, according to data from Nielsen
BookScan, sales across the four weeks to 26th December period totalled £271.7m, up 67% on the previous four-week period but down 1.1% year on year.
Stephen Robertson, director general of the BRC, said: "These are stronger figures than we dared hope for. After a surprisingly muted November, this is the best total sales growth for a December since 2005 and goes well beyond just making up for the sales fall the sector suffered a year ago. The figures were certainly helped by the comparison with last December's terrible results but customers clearly felt more confident about spending than they have for some time."
The latest Nielsen book sales figures will be released later today. The BRC said of book performance in December: "Book sales remained down on a year ago, amid strong competition, aggressive discounts for top titles and increasing popularity of e-books and e-readers."