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Oct 26, 2023

Attention, Shoppers: Sale on Fresh Books in Aisle 3

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By Edward Wyatt

STERLING, Va. - The literary center of this northern Virginia suburb has all the trappings of a modern bookstore: an espresso machine, comfortable leather chairs and occasional book-signing visits from best-selling authors like Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark. Not to mention fresh vegetables and frozen foods.

Supermarkets, long the domain of paperback romances, pulp thrillers and astrology guides, are the new frontier of book selling. Chains like Wegmans, Kroger and Albertsons have greatly expanded their book sections, adapting the techniques that move large amounts of Velveeta and Count Chocula and applying them to Nora Roberts and John Grisham.

Grocery stores have gone beyond the traditional spinning racks of pocket-size paperbacks, adding mahogany fixtures, sitting areas and cafes, and often placing their book sections in the center of the store, where shoppers are likely to stroll. Eye-catching displays of new hardcovers are sprinkled throughout the stores, encouraging impulse purchases: a big display near the entrance, cookbooks near the spice aisle and, in summer, beach reading near the seasonal displays of sunscreen.

Publishers have taken notice. "Supermarkets are definitely taking a bigger share of our business," said Josh Marwell, president of sales for HarperCollins, the country's third-largest publisher of general-interest books. "Hardcover bestsellers have become more of an everyday commodity. So it's a question of having books available where consumers are."

In part, this shift reflects publishers' desperate search for new outlets as book sales tumble. It also reflects changes in bookselling culture: now, television advertising or a mention on "Oprah" can spur huge sales for a very narrow slice of the market. For the grocers, it is part of an increasingly uphill struggle to match wits on every front with warehouse clubs like Costco and mass merchandisers like Target and Wal-Mart, which now feature groceries in their supersize stores.

"When you look at our business versus a bookstore, we have the opportunity to capture the same customers three times a week," said Lance Parsons, a senior category manager who oversees the book business for the Kroger Company, the country's largest grocery chain. "Now publishers are beating down our doors."

Stores like the 130,000-square-foot Wegmans here in Sterling regularly feature author signings and sell newly released hardcover books at 20 percent to 40 percent off the cover price, discounts similar to those at Barnes & Noble and Costco. On April 10, the mother-and-daughter suspense novelists Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark signed books and posed for photographs for five hours here, with some fans waiting in line for up to two hours. Women, who typically do most of a family's grocery shopping and book buying, easily made up 90 percent of the crowd. (The store sold 500 books at the event.)

Over all, the number of books sold at grocery stores is still small when compared with book superstores and online booksellers, accounting for just 3 percent of the 1.7 billion general-interest books sold in 2004, according to Ipsos BookTrends, a market research service based in New York. Nearly 32 percent were sold in bookstores, 29 percent directly to consumers through book clubs and the like, and 19 percent through other retailers, including Amazon.com, warehouse clubs and mass-market stores. (The remaining 17 percent were sold through other outlets.)

But the percentage of all hardcover and trade paperback books being sold in supermarkets has jumped by 50 percent since 2001, to nearly 1 percent of hardcovers and 1.4 percent of trade paperbacks, said Barrie Rappaport, chief analyst and manager of Ipsos BookTrends.

Viewed another way, hardcovers accounted for 11 percent of the books sold in food and drug stores in 2004, up from 7 percent three years earlier. Over the same stretch, trade paperbacks climbed to 13 percent of sales from 7 percent, and mass-market paperbacks fell to 74 percent from 83 percent. (The remainder consisted of audio and digital books.)

Mass-market paperbacks, the inexpensive pocket-size books that have long been the mainstay of grocery store bookselling, have fallen sharply in popularity for several reasons. Heavy discounting of hardcovers by almost all book retailers has meant that hardcover prices have stayed relatively flat in recent years, increasing their popularity. Another theory holds that the pocket-size books' print is too small for aging baby boomers.

Booksellers like hardcovers because of the high profit margins. If a grocer pays a $12.50 wholesale for a hardcover with a retail price of $25, he can still sell it at a 30 percent discount for $17.50. That makes a gross profit of $5, or 40 percent, far greater than the single-digit profit margins that most grocery items produce.

"I believe there is a definite shift going on here," Ms. Rappaport said. Grocery store sales of hardcover books were larger in 2003 than last year, she said, in part because the last Harry Potter book sold heavily in supermarkets. With the next Harry Potter installment coming in July, supermarkets should do well again this year.

Margaret Heasley is an avid reader who said she frequently buys books at her local supermarket. She recently drove four hours from her home in North Huntingdon Township, Pa., near Pittsburgh, to Sterling to meet Mary Higgins Clark at Wegmans.

"I buy books wherever I find them," said Ms. Heasley, including at Barnes & Noble, Waldenbooks, her local Giant Eagle supermarket and Sam's Club. "It all depends on where I am and how badly I want the book."

Though she knows she might save more by going elsewhere, she said she frequently stops in the book section at the grocery store just to browse, and ends up buying. At the Wegmans book signing with the Clarks, Ms. Heasley bought four books.

The Clarks have promoted their books in grocery stores before. Mary has made nine book-signing appearances at Wegmans stores, and Carol has done three. "The store market is a wonderful one for writers," Mary said. "They stock enough books so that people are tempted to stop and buy, people who might not have the time to go into a bookstore and browse."

Kroger has been among the most aggressive in expanding its book sections. Its store managers compete with one another to build the best displays of best sellers, a Kroger spokesman said, with some publishers offering prizes to managers for the best display and most books sold. In a Kroger store in Brentwood, Tenn., a mini-courtroom was built out of copies of John Grisham's recent book "The Last Juror." Kroger book departments can carry up to 2,800 titles, similar to what the warehouse clubs like Costco carry, but far greater than the several hundred titles in a typical Wal-Mart. Big bookstores like Barnes & Noble can carry up to 200,000 titles on their shelves.

Bookstore owners complain that grocery stores, like warehouse clubs, are killing bookstores and possibly the book business, too. By focusing almost exclusively on best sellers, grocers do not support the thousands of lesser authors whose books are carried at independent and chain bookstores, the critics say. Nor do supermarkets carry large selections of older books, or the backlist, which for most publishers is the most profitable portion of their business and which often supports their publishing of newer, less-known authors.

The supermarkets do not apologize for that. They want to carry what sells, plain and simple.

"So much of what Wegmans talks to its customers about is freshness," said Heather Pawlowski, a vice president for general merchandise at the company. "That includes freshness within the reading category."

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