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Waterstones buys Foyles bookshops in bid to fight back against Amazon

‘Together, we will be stronger and better positioned to protect and champion the pleasures of real bookshops in the face of Amazon’s siren call,’ says James Daunt

Ben Chapman
Friday 07 September 2018 12:33 BST
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The sale includes the Foyles flagship store in Charing Cross
The sale includes the Foyles flagship store in Charing Cross

Waterstones has bought family-owned bookseller Foyles in a deal it says will champion real bookshops in the face of competition from Amazon.

The sale includes Foyles’ flagship store in Charing Cross, as well as three further bookshops in London and outlets in Bristol, Birmingham and Chelmsford.

James Daunt, Waterstones managing director, said the acquisition would help the bookseller fight back in the face of “Amazon’s siren call”.

​Waterstones will add the 115-year-old Foyles to London bookseller Hatchards, established in 1797, and Dublin-based Hodges Figgis, which celebrated its 250th anniversary this year.

Mr Daunt said: “We are honoured to be entrusted with the Foyles business, and greatly look forward to joining forces with the Foyles bookselling team.

“Together, we will be stronger and better positioned to protect and champion the pleasures of real bookshops in the face of Amazon’s siren call.”

He added that it was an “exciting and invigorating time” in bookselling as traditional shops battle with online and e-readers.

“At Waterstones, we see our future as responsible stewards of shops that strive to serve their customers each according to their own distinct personality,” he said.

“This is nowhere more important than with those shops – Hatchards, Hodges Figgis and now Foyles – that have such singular heritages.”

Mr Daunt told The Independent that buying Foyles was part of a successful strategy of creating stores with their own individuality, a move that has helped Waterstones grow while many others high street chains are struggling.

“My way is to decentralise as much as possible,” he said. “That creative tension is important.”

Booksellers had to face up to the “extraordinary challenge” posed by online retailers much earlier than others did, he said.

“We knew you could buy everything Waterstones stocks online, so had to really justify why customers would come in store,” Mr Daunt added.

“We had to make it fun and worthwhile and an absolute pleasure and make people come away with a book that’s worth more [than one bought online] because you’ve really invested in it.”

Christopher Foyle, Foyles’s chairman, said: “My family and I are delighted that Foyles is entering a new chapter, one which secures the brand’s future and protects its personality.

“I look forward to witnessing the exciting times ahead for the company founded by my grandfather and his brother 115 years ago.”

Waterstones operates 283 bookshops across the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and Belgium, employing more than 3,000 booksellers.

Reports of the death of printed books at the hands of e-readers, such as Amazon’s Kindle, appear to have been greatly exaggerated.

E-book sales declined in 2016 and 2017, while both hardback and paper book sales rose.

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