NZ booksellers up 10.5% over Christmas

Friday, 16 January 2015 Books+Publishing

New Zealand booksellers have increased their Christmas sales by 10.5% in value and 8.6% in volume in 2014, reports Booksellers NZ.

Booksellers NZ CEO Lincoln Gould said: ‘Figures from Nielsen show a big uplift in Christmas sales by value of 10.5% over 2013, which has helped drive an overall annual growth in value of 0.1%.’ Christmas sales in 2014 were NZ$49.6m (A$47.2m), and overall sales for the year were NZ$115m (A$109m).

‘This time last year sales figures were continuing a two- to three-year downward trend with 2013 seeing an overall drop of 15% in volume,’ said Gould. ‘There has been a very significant turnaround with the trend line now reversed and climbing back across the line into growth.’

Gould added that ‘booksellers have not seen figures like this for a few years, despite the doomsayers telling tales of ebook and offshore online sales heralding the death of the bookshop’.

Category: Local news