Rare high street success story as young shoppers flock to 1 major chain

Book retailer Waterstones is opening ten new stores a year, despite UK high street shops closing across the country. The famous book-selling brand is enjoying 5% higher sales, with some claims that the strong performance is down to social media culture promoting reading to Gen-Z.

Waterstones CEO James Daunt explained that he believes younger shoppers are rediscovering reading through TikTok recommendations - a phenomenon known as BookTok - and in-person book clubs.

"People have come back to reading and buying books in bookshops as we have made a place which is an enjoyable and effective way to buy books," Mr Daunt told the Guardian.

"BookTok is an easy label to put on it, but this is about people wanting to read and talk about books", he added.

Fiction sales, in particular, are soaring, and Waterstones has said genres like Romance and Fantasy are capturing the public's imagination. In 2024, UK fiction sales up 12.2%, according to the Publishers Association.

However, that growth offset a 2.8% fall in children's books and a decline in non-fiction, and the overall print book market is down 1%. Digital sales, however, leaped 17%.

Mr Daunt said younger adults are getting into reading because it is relatively cheap compared with other leisure activities, and collecting books is an addictive habit.

"They want to do something not staring at a screen and relatively inexpensive, and once people start collecting books they just buy more," he said.