Digital sales hit supermarkets

Big publishers are likely to feel a squeeze on their supermarket sales as a result of the sector experiencing a “once in a generation change”, reports The Bookseller.

Two of Britain’s biggest supermarkets, Tesco and Sainsbury’s, are big retailers of books and both reported slumps in profits in recent financial results. Tesco reported half-year pretax profit was down 92% to £112m, after more than £500m was spent on one-off costs; and Sainsbury’s reported a pretax loss of £290m.

Between January and August 2014, supermarkets’ share of overall book sales in volume terms fell to 8.9% (from 10.5% between January and August 2013), according to Nielsen’s UK Books & Consumer survey. Supermarkets’ share of consumers’ overall book spend in this period dropped from 8.3% to 6.9%, Nielsen told The Bookseller.

Publishers, meanwhile, have privately expressed concern about declining supermarket sales and, in particular, about the reduced amount of shelf space given over to books in Tesco stores nationwide.