Nielsen Report: Fifty Shades Effect for U.K. Sales in 2013

Consumers in the United Kingdom spent £2.2 billion (about US$3.7 billion) to purchase 323 million books in 2013, with both volume and value of purchases down 4% from the previous year (though 2012 was a difficult year for comparison because of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy sales spike), according to statistics released during Nielsen's Books & Consumers Conference in London this week. 

The decrease in 2013 came despite a 20% increase in e-book purchases, with U.K. consumers spending an estimated £300 million (about $495 million) on 80 million e-books last year. 

Highlights from the Nielsen Book study involving U.K. booksellers:

• While bookshops lost share of book purchases in 2013 overall, they did gain share in the declining print market, and remained ahead of Internet retailers in that sector.
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• With e-books making most impact in the adult fiction sector, Internet retailers accounted for three in five purchases in that category in 2013, compared to fewer than half of adult nonfiction books, and only a third of children’s books. Children's books continued to be bought from the most diverse range of shops, with bookshops maintaining a 38% share in this sector in 2013.
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• Convenience, atmosphere, happenstance, selection and service were the most common reasons why buyers shopped for their books in chain and independent bookshops in 2013, with independents increasingly benefiting from a desire to support local shops.

Via Shelf Awarness