Australian market: Christmas 2022 sales up but booksellers look to challenging year ahead

According to booksellers surveyed by Books+Publishing for its annual post-Christmas survey, there was a bump in book sales in the lead-up to Christmas 2022 compared to the previous year. Booksellers reported an average increase of 6.9% in sales and most booksellers (79%) said sales were ‘up’ during Christmas. In the previous year, Christmas had been tough due to pandemic-related supply issues, which came after ‘the best Christmas ever’ in 2020.

Comparing this Christmas 2022 sales to pre-pandemic levels of 2019, 93% booksellers said sales were up, only 2% said sales were down, while the rest (5%) said sales were about the same.

In most cases, Christmas sales met or exceeded expectations. A majority of booksellers (58%) said Christmas sales were close to expectations, with almost one third (32%) saying sales were better than expected and the remaining few (10%) said sales were worse than expectations.

Online

Most booksellers who responded this year (90%) had online stores. Sales online were better than last year for 42% of booksellers, while 35% said online sales were worse, and the remaining booksellers were unsure. Most (57%) saw an increase in the proportion of online sales, with a few seeing a decrease (14%) and the rest were about the same.

Christmas rush

A majority of booksellers (58%) said the Christmas rush was later than last year, with the rest saying the rush was earlier (21%) or about the same (26%).

Booksellers pointed to several factors that they believe affected the timing of the Christmas rush in 2022, including predictions about the economy and its uncertainty.

At Potts Point Bookshop in Sydney, bookseller Anna Low said, ’a lot of customers wanted to get organised early. Many have learnt to get in early due to supply chain issues,’ said Low.

Another factor cited was less Covid pressure. One bookseller said, ‘I think there was a much gentler lead into this Christmas in comparison to the two pandemic years. Our sales immediately pre-Christmas were relatively consistent with past years though in terms of busyness.’

Marina Sano, co-founder of online-only Amplify Bookstore, said, ‘People started browsing earlier I think, because it was the first Christmas in a while where we could. We also sold a lot more gift cards the last two Christmases, but I think people were just a lot more keen to be out and about to do their shopping this year.’

‘More people are looking at the Black Friday sales and this gets them thinking about Christmas earlier. Especially if they are wanting to decrease spending, customers are shopping wiser,’ said one bookseller and another said ‘as soon as the online delivery windows closed the rush was on’.

As previously reported by Books+Publishing, according to Nielsen BookScan, Australian book retailers sold 9.5 million titles in the four weeks to Christmas, up from 9.1 million in the same period of 2021, with a value of $188.7 million, up from $180.8 million the previous year.

The books

There was a 50/50 split on whether the books on offer at Christmas were strong or average. One bookseller said the books ‘seemed like a good spread of offerings across sections this year, though no one standout title’.

Arnold said there was no standout fiction title, like last year’s Still Life by Sarah Winman (HarperCollins). She added that the Junction Bookstore’s ‘bestseller by far was Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (Doubleday, May release), followed by Ikigai: The Japanese secret to a long and happy life by Hector Garcia and Francesc Mirales (Hutchinson, 2017).’

Booksellers’ most mentioned titles were:

1. Bulldozed (Niki Savva, Scribe)
2. Lessons in Chemistry (Bonnie Garmus, Doubleday)
3. Limberlost (Robbie Arnott, Text)
4. Barefoot Kids (Scott Papa, HarperCollins)
5. Exiles (Jane Harper, Macmillan)
6. RecipeTin Eats: Dinner (Nagi Maehashi, Macmillan)
7. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (Shehan Karunatilaka, A&U)
8. Book of Roads and Kingdoms (Richard Fidler, HarperCollins)
9. It Ends With Us (Colleen Hoover, S&S)
10. Cold Enough for Snow (Jessica Au, Giramondo)

‘Surprise’ bestsellers mentioned included:

• Limberlost (Robbie Arnott, Text)
• Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner (Grace Tame, Pan Macmillan)
• Madly, Deeply: The diaries of Alan Rickman (Alan Rickman, A&U)
• Battle of Long Tan (Peter FitzSimons, Hachette)
• Barefoot Kids (Scott Pape, HarperCollins)
• RecipeTin Eats: Dinner (Nagi Maehashi, Macmillan)
• Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Extra good things (Noor Murad & Yotam Ottolenghi, Penguin).

Looking ahead

Looking to the future, several booksellers believe that 2023 will be a challenging year for bookselling. Matilda Bookshop owner Gavin Williams said, ‘With society back to something approaching normal, with no comment made as to whether this should be the case or not, books and reading will once again be forced to fight for attention in the wider community. The wider factors of increases in cost of living and huge lifts in mortgage costs will have a negative impact on all retail businesses, particularly those seen as discretionary. My hope is that publishers will trim their lists a little, and concentrate more resources on fewer, better books.’

Arnold said ‘I think it’s going to be a challenging year with many significant price increases now coming through from publishers in response to paper and printing cost hikes. That increased product price point combined with ongoing cost of living pressures due to interest rate increases and general inflation is likely to hit discretionary retail, including books, quite hard. We are planning for a retraction in sales this year due to these factors and plan to spend the year focusing on tracking and reducing our business costs overall and seeing where we can make changes to improve the business internally.’

Imprints Booksellers owner Jason Lake said, ‘A downturn in sales due to belt tightening. There are too many books of a lesser quality being published due to worldwide trends.’ Another bookseller said there would be more expensive books overall, due to paper, labour, supply chain and the Australian dollar. Another said, ‘An easing off—we’ve had a very good past 18 months’

Looking at categories, one bookseller said there was a trend towards ‘narrowing of the categories/range available in physical bookstores. I’m finding it harder to keep a range of health, craft, and New Age titles. Some of the smaller sections in the store are just getting smaller.’ Another noticed a ‘demand for more good Australian fiction, not just crime.’ Other booksellers pointed to the ‘Continued BookTok effect’ and suggested ‘more graphic novels. Even more good kids books.’ There was a good sign from one bookseller, who said ‘We’re seeing a definite increase in late-teen readers visiting the shop, we expect this to continue’.

Category: Think Australian feature