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German booksellers 'positive' going into Christmas despite 'disappointing' year
Despite 2025 being a disappointing year so far for German booksellers, they were quietly optimistic going into the holiday season which normally accounts for up to a quarter of their annual turnover.
A recent survey by the trade association HDE underlined this optimism as, despite retailers across the board being pessimistic about December sales, booksellers were the one positive exception.
The survey was published at the end of November and reliable sales figures for early December are not available yet. Uniform trends have not yet emerged, but anecdotally the number of booksellers bemoaning less footfall in the high street, and customers keeping their purses tight, is rising. Many booksellers have also reported customers browsing intensely but delaying buying.
Advent – the German Christmas season – is traditionally defined by the four Sundays (1st to 4th Advent) before Christmas Eve. With shops closed on Sunday, Saturday is usually the strongest business day of the week.
According to the book trade newsletter Langendorfs Dienst, sales were down an estimated 7.1% in the first week of December and down 4.3% on the respective Saturday. The second week was again down by 3.3%, but with Saturday sales up 2.9%
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Booksellers are now hoping for strong sales during the remaining two weeks before they close for Christmas – as per law at 2pm on Christmas Eve and shops are also closed on Boxing Day. With the consensus that Germans leave their Christmas shopping, and especially books, later every year, many booksellers therefore do not seem unduly worried yet.
However, according to Branchen-Monitor Buch (BMB) which monitors book sales throughout the year, sales were down between January and end-November by 2.9% across all channels which are stationery bookshops/book chains, e-commerce, railway station bookshops, department stores and electrical stores/drugstores.
In the same period the number of books sold fell 5.3%, while prices increased 2.6%. Across categories, only fiction, driven by young adults, was up 1% year-on-year, with children’s books and non-fiction down 2.7% and 2.4%, respectively.
And what sells in the run-up to Christmas? According to booksellers, consumers are buying across the board with no must-have Christmas title emerging so far from the shelves. Demand is reportedly strong for English-language paperbacks, comics and fiction in general with an emphasis on thrillers, led by German top author Sebastian Fitzek’s latest Der Nachbar (The Neighbour). Another long-time favourite of German readers went straight to the top of the SPIEGEL children’s bestseller list this week: Gregs Tagebuch 20 – Bock auf Party? is the 20th instalment of Jeff Kinney’s evergreen Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
