Sales at WH Smith’s high street stores fell over the festive season as demand for spoof books such as The Ladybird hangover guide plunged by 50%.
The bookseller and stationery chain said in the absence of a big new literary trend, sales at high street shops open for more than a year were down 4% in the 20 weeks to 20 January.
Stephen Clarke, the WH Smith chief executive “Our stationery and seasonal ranges, including cards and wrap, performed well with good sales growth versus last year.
“Book sales were stable over the course of 2017, but there was a particular issue at Christmas. Humorous books were very successful for us in 2016. But because so many people got or gave them that year, it was seen as a little bit ‘last year’s gift’ and there was no other genre to replace it.”
The retail chain previously benefited from a humorous revival of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, including titles such as Five on Brexit Island, as well as the Ladybird Books for Grown-Ups series. That trend replaced the adult colouring boom.
WH Smith said in the trading update that gross margins were up over the period, compared with a year earlier, but “slightly less than anticipated” as a result of the waning popularity of the spoof titles. Shares fell 5%.
Total sales across the group were flat over the period, after sales in its travel division, which includes shops in airports, motorway service stations, hospitals and railway stations, rose 7%, or 3% after stripping out the contribution of shops open for less than a year.
The travel division accounts for almost two-thirds of WH Smith’s annual profit and the retailer is planning to open 15 shops this year, having recently unveiled large stores in Gatwick and Stansted.
Laith Khalaf, a senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “The newsagent is now a two-tier company, with a high street estate which is withering on the vine, and a travel business which is growing at quite a clip.”
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