Foyles bounces back into profit in the age of ebooks and iPads

12 April 2012

Foyles bookshop has defied the rise of internet booksellers and ebooks to enjoy its most successful year for more than a decade, figures reveal today.

Sales at the shop — which has traded from its flagship Charing Cross Road store since 1906 — rose nearly 10 per cent to give the company its first pre-tax profit since the Nineties.

The success follows bumper sales of books ranging from Stieg Larsson's Girl With The Dragon Tattoo to Buzz Aldrin's autobiography Magnificent Desolation and Vincent van Gogh: The Letters.

Genres which have contributed most are fiction, children's, travel and cookery sections, as well as the art and military history departments.

It comes despite gloomy predictions about the future of the traditional bookshop who face stiff competition from ebook readers such as the Kindle and tablets such as the iPad.

The rise of Amazon and other online sellers has also contributed to the closure of high street chain Borders and depressed sales elsewhere.

Announcing today's results Foyles' chief executive Sam Husain said they showed that the demand for books and bookshops with a wide range of titles and knowledgeable staff remained strong. "Our shop is a destination and a place that book lovers want to come and I think that is why we have been successful.

"We have never really tried to go head to head with the discount sellers and although there are changes with digital books coming we think we still have a very good future," he said.

Mr Husain said there remained a large number of people who preferred reading books in either hardback or paperback format.

The Foyles figures show that like for like sales for the year ending June 30 were up 9.7 per cent on the previous 12 months, compared with a 5.6 per cent decline in sales in the books industry overall. The pre-tax profit of £335,934 is the first time that the store, which also has branches at the South Bank, St Pancras and Westfield, has been in the black since a major reorganisation following the death in 1999 of its previous owner Christina Foyle.

The store founded after exam failure

Miranda Bryant

One of Britain's most famous, and most eccentric, bookshops, Foyles was founded in 1903.

After failing entrance exams for the civil service, William and Gilbert Foyle decided to make a profit by selling their textbooks.

William's three children all worked for the business, but he gave control to Christina, who went on to run it for 54 years.

She came up with the idea of the Foyles literary lunch. She also wrote to Adolf Hitler asking him to give books to Foyles instead of burning them. When she died in 1999 she left almost her entire £60 million estate to charity.

Her nephew Christopher has modernised the shop and employed an outsider in management for the first time in the store's history.

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