WH Smith is the number 1 book retailer in the UK ? which is enough to make a sensitive bookworm weep ? but, according to The Bookseller (you may need to sign up for a free subscription to see this story), they’ve just crept away from the US market after an ill-timed (and expensive) attempt to break into the high margin airport and hotel bookstore business in the teeth of the biggest travel slowdown in US history. The thing is, WH Smith is such a terminally uncharismatic brand that no one will actually notice (compare and contrast with amazon).
In which I try, after 25 years of blogging, to drop my ironic stance a bit.