The resurgence of physical book sales was given another shot in the arm today as Foyles unveiled a spike in pre-tax profits.
Alongside rivals like Waterstones and Daunt Books, Foyles is defiantly proving there is enough oxygen to go around beyond Amazon.
And Foyles’ ten-fold surge in profitability for the year to June 30, 2016, sent that message loud and clear to the online titan.
But the business has harnessed technological advances of its own in order to achieve such growth, installing an in-store digital ordering system dubbed Foyles Lite and revamping its ecommerce platform.
After Waterstones made a £9.8m pre-tax profit in the year to 30 April, 2016 – its first since the 2008 financial crisis – the life story of the physical book clearly has many more chapters still to run.
Quote of the day
“We are beginning to see a trend for retailers experimenting with stores primarily as a marketing tool, where building brand awareness and engaging with new catchments become the priorities, not sales.”
– Mark Bourgeois, managing director of UK and Ireland at shopping centre landlord Hammerson
Today in numbers
2
The number of times employment agency Transline has been asked to appear before a parliamentary committee in the last 12 months.
Tomorrow’s agenda
As the City sleeps over the weekend, good luck for the next two days’ trading.
Luke Tugby, head of content
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