Book retailer Foyles experienced a 20% increase in sales in December, driven by its new store at Westfield Stratford City.

The retailer’s stores at St Pancras and Royal Festival Hall posted strong like-for-likes up 10% and 35% respectively. But construction work around Tottenham Court Road underground station kept shoppers away from the retailer’s Charing Cross branch, leading to a 6% drop in like-for-likes.

Online sales of books and eBooks at Foyles.co.uk soared by 67%.

Foyles chief executive Sam Husain said: “We are happy with our Christmas trading, although figures could have been stronger were it not for the handicap of the Tottenham Court Road underground station development.

“Range has always been our strength and the lack of runaway bestsellers enabled us to sell larger numbers of an even wider range of titles than usual. We refrained from discounting hardbacks such as the Steve Jobs biography, which did incredibly well and topped the charts at Westfield White City.”

Foyles experienced a third year of profitable trading for the year-ending 30 June 2011, although pre-tax profit was down 39% to £204,681 after ‘extraordinary expenses of £126,250. Turnover also declined slightly to £22.8m.

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