WHSmith high street store Christmas sales down four percent

In the UK, sales at bookselling chain WHSmith’s high street stores fell four percent like-for-like over the Christmas period—a decline partly attributed to the fall in sales of spoof humour books, reports the Bookseller.

WHSmith said the drop reflects ‘the lower sales of high-margin spoof humour books compared to the same period last year when humour books had a particularly strong performance’, with ‘no new publishing trend’ to replace the decline.

The retailer’s travel stores performed strongly over the same period, with three percent like-for-like growth. Ongoing investment and continued growth in passenger numbers in its airport stores over the Christmas period helped the growth. Overall, total sales for the Christmas period were flat.

Category: International news