Waterstones "will split its centralized buying function into two roles, aimed at resolving the disconnect between what is ordered by the chain and what is then sold through," the Bookseller reported, adding that the company's latest results showed the British bookstore chain "struggled for growth in the year to end April 2018, with the management team said to be distracted by the sale of the business." The business was acquired from the Russian investor Alexander Mamut by the U.S. private equity group Elliott immediately after the financial year closed.
Managing director James Daunt described it as "a steady as she goes year. I spent more time on the sale than I spent selling books or putting in the new buying processes. I would hope that this year we will step up from that. But it is what we are, a pretty steady business, running itself fairly sensibly in quite trying times."
Under the proposed buying changes, "an initial sub would be agreed earlier in the publication process by a Waterstones' buyer, but a new category manager would then manage the roll-out of the books within the estate," the Bookseller wrote. "The category manager would be able to increase the level of stock made available to individual bookstores, but also make sure the merchandising matched the order levels." Currently, publishers meet with many different buyers at Waterstones, depending on the sectors they publish into, and buying decisions are delayed until all of the buyers meet for a monthly review of these titles.
"I am telling publishers this is coming down the tracks. But this will be an evolutionary change, not a Big Bang," Daunt said. "We will buy titles in a much more centralized, focused and holistic way.... So there won't be a case anymore of the history buyer not knowing what the biography buyer has bought. But we will no longer be ordering it six weeks ahead but 12-14 weeks ahead, so publishers will have greater certainty earlier."
Noting that the decision-making process would be streamlined, he said, "We have to have the ability to correct ourselves upwards [by talking with publishers]. We won't go down from the initial order. We need to react much more quickly, and respond if there's a buzz around a particular title."
He remains committed to "local replenishment," with individual stores able to re-order titles from the hub or order titles that have not gone through the centralized function, but is wary of bookshops being overstocked and returns still too high, if much reduced.
As a result of the changes, Daunt is "expecting there will be more time for us to actually read the books. We are in the business of trying to run the place better, not worse. No one thinks we are trying to sell fewer books, but equally very few think we couldn't do it better."