At the weekend I noticed that my local Ottakers is to become a Waterstones in a matter of days. The “makeover” is only scheduled to take a day or so, and I expect to see nothing more than signage on the front of the store. The reason for the rush, according to something I read a few weeks ago, is that Waterstones are planning a big TV push this Christmas, and they obviously want to maximise that opportunity well ahead of time.
This story in Booktrade.info suggests that there will be more than a few sign changes however, with stock ending up pulped – as much as 30% of stock being either pulped, returned to publishers or “cleared”.
I quite like my local Ottakers, and I hope that they don’t do anything too radical.
What’s really curious is that this rebranding is happening only a couple of months before the shop was due to move. Ottakers has taken a retail unit in a new shopping centre development 100 metres or so away. I assume that this is has a bigger area. Unless they plan on keeping two shops open, they’re likely to moving there.