Bad news: Reads bought by Easons

Hornet

Bad news for everybody who like bargains and low prices!

Reads, the bookshop and photocopying place, known for its fierce competiton with Easons by offering the lowest prices for books, stationary and 10% discount on all magazines, has been bought by Easons.

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The Irish Times reports today:

Eason opens new chapter with takeover of rival Reads

Ireland's dominant bookseller, Eason, has bought Dublin rival Reads of Nassau Street. Reads has been synonymous among generations of Dublin students with cheap photocopying and stationery, writes Dominic Coyle

In recent years it has developed a reputation as a place to buy books at heavily discounted prices. It cut prices by 25 per cent, even on bestsellers and new releases, and insisted it could still make a reasonable profit.

Like Eason, Reads also has a significant business in newspaper, magazine and stationery sales. Reads' Nassau Street premises are near the former Fred Hanna bookshop, which was acquired by Eason in 1999. There are 45 Eason outlets in Ireland.

There were no details yesterday of the price paid for the Reads business, which was owned by Dublin businessman Michael O'Reilly and his wife Nuala. Reads management, including Niall Mescall who runs the Dublin store, have transferred to Eason as part of the deal.

Industry sources said yesterday that Eason was likely to use Reads to expand its presence in the discount end of the book market. The company recently completed the purchase of a 49-store UK discount retailer British Bookshops and Stationers for over €40 million. The Irish group had initially taken a 49 per cent stake in the group based in the south of England in 2003.The British side of the business was the main driver of profit growth for Eason last year. Sales jumped 22 per cent across the group, although Irish turnover increased by only 6 per cent.

Neither Eason nor Mr Mescall were available yesterday to comment on the deal.

whiskeyman

just heard about this.
Will be interesting to see if they rebrand.
I'm not sure they will... they'll probably keep the heavy "low selling" marketing approach, but can rest easy that its no longer real market competition for them.

Hornet

I expect that the 10% discount on magazines will be abolished immediately, the stationary prices will be raised and the current (heavily discounted) books will be taken out of the portfolio immediately and replaced with the rubbish books they can't sell easily.

All in all a very negative development.

--Hornet

Crash

It'll kinda screw over a lot of Trinity societies - as reads were great for giving sponsorship as they made ****loads of money off of us during the first week of college or so

bogman

It would seem to me that Easons always had a far better stock and that Read's never had a large quantity of any books and never were any real threat to Easons.
Recently I went looking for a reasonable quality compass and there is no doubt that in this category Easons won hands down for price and quality
Charles

jaqian

Might be interested to know that Eason's also bought a big bargain bookstore chain (46 shops) in Britain. So not neccessarily bad news if part of a big plan to bring bargain books to the ordinary joe.

shabbyroad

nah don't think so....

... they'll continue to screw us on UK imported publications and use the exchange-rate excuse... I once had someone in Easons insist that the reason for a 200%+ markup on a magazine was UK VAT plus Irish VAT plus the exchange rate.

Devon

Sounds very much like they couldn't squash the little guy so they just made them an offer they couldn't refuse. Wonder how much of a kickback the owner got? No matter what way we look at it, it definitely bad for us consumers. What are they going to do? Lower prices in all other Easons stores across the country or raise prices in ex-Reads?

Uhhhh..................

okidoki987

It's a bad sign all right and deffo end of the cheap mags!

I got my weekly fax off Read's this morning and it's interesting to see the difference between last weeks and today's.
Last weeks they compared their prices to EASON'S but this weeks they
compare their prices to Waterstones, Hodges Figgis, Dubray books and Hughes and Hughes with NO MENTION OF EASONS!
Also no mention of the 10% off magazines either.
Doesn't look good going forward

9lives

Reads is to become a chain in itself with six new stores planned next year (there are two in Ireland at the moment). I don't think it would make sense for Eason to start dictating price rises to Reads as the bargains are the reason the brand is so successful. Dave and Niall, the two current managers, will remain in charge of the Reads chain although of course they now work for Eason.

-9L

9lives

okidoki987 wrote:

It's a bad sign all right and deffo end of the cheap mags!

I got my weekly fax off Read's this morning and it's interesting to see the difference between last weeks and today's.
Last weeks they compared their prices to EASON'S but this weeks they
compare their prices to Waterstones, Hodges Figgis, Dubray books and Hughes and Hughes with NO MENTION OF EASONS!
Also no mention of the 10% off magazines either.
Doesn't look good going forward

Eason have been dropped from all the in-store signage as well - but that's only common sense. They're not going to shoot themselves in the foot by telling everyone not to bother going to Eason as they're too expensive. Shifting the emphasis to H&F and Waterstones allows Reads to maintain their low prices without hurting their new parent.

Don't know anything about the 10%-off thing but I'm due to have a chat to someone in the know this weekend for a news piece on it so I'll ask about that.

-9L

DjDangerousDave

Kinda Related, Students can get 10% off in all easons now. So students ask for it, and everyone else get a student to buy ur book / stationary and give them the 10% off

Dave.

TempestSabre

DjDangerousDave wrote:

Kinda Related, Students can get 10% off in all easons now. So students ask for it, and everyone else get a student to buy ur book / stationary and give them the 10% off

Dave.

Where did you hear that?

parsi

jerryadams wrote:

Sounds very much like they couldn't squash the little guy so they just made them an offer they couldn't refuse. Wonder how much of a kickback the owner got?

When you say "kickback" I presume you mean "for how much did the owner sell his business?" A kickback carries connotations of wrongdoing....

DjDangerousDave

TempestSabre wrote:

Where did you hear that?

In the easons on nassau street i was downstairs and i think i saw a sign or asked.

Dave.

Kernel

www.amazon.co.uk tbh.

A good 10euro cheaper for Bill Bryson's 'Short History of Nearly Everthing' (hardback illustrated) than it was under Easons' 'special offers'.