| As you may or may not be aware, Dillons New Street is part
of a chain which in turn is owned by HMV. However, the nature of
bookselling, at least in the UK, means that we have minimal interference
from head office as to what we stock and how we sell it. Each bookseller
is given a department to look after which they run as they see fit.
This means that the bookshop departments are tailored to the local
market and the character of the individual bookseller rather than
to some bland head office mandate. This is why when you go from
town to town every branch of Dixons, WH Smiths, etc looks the same
but bookshops, be they chain or independent, can be distinctively
different. This puts the burden of “interestingness” down to the
booksellers - if they’re dull and follow the pack, then the shop
will be dull. But if they’re not…
Over the last couple of years we’ve been gradually hiring booksellers who are in some way “interesting” and who can apply that to their departments. It’s working, and this web site should be an example of that (albeit an example in progress). If someone in the shop thinks we should have a book in stock, they can order it. If they really like a book and think it should be discounted, it’s discounted (through the monthly “Buyer’s Choice” scheme which will be uploaded to here in time). Yes, we still run the head office promotions, but tailor them to our needs. We also try and make use of the staff’s knowledge, so if someone’s knowledgeable about films, they have a big say in the film department. And so on.
That’s not to say we’re perfect. Bookselling, especially this kind of bookselling, is an inexact science that, coupled with the schizophrenic nature of book publishing (don’t get me started!), can be rather hit and miss. But you could say that we can thrive on this. Once you realise that the book trade cannot be predicted or tailored by a national business strategy, it makes sense to let the strategy be figured out individually at the front line and tailored to the local market.
So, what you, the punter, end up with is a bookshop that is quite different to any other bookshop. And hopefully all those other bookshops are different too, although some won’t be. We know that we do things differently, that we empower our booksellers (to the point where managerial interference is frowned upon by the staff as something that might hinder sales), and that we can deliver not only the expected bestsellers at discounted rates, but also the cream of the quirky, curious and interesting books from the millions of books that clog up the books-in-print database. We know what these books are and we know how to find them.
And that’s what we do.
To the best of our abilities.
(hopefully)
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