BookTokers drive Dymocks’ store expansion plans

Dymocks plans to open 20 stores over the next fews years as it capitalises on a book-buying revival, thanks in part to the growing popularity of ‘BookTokers’.

Dymocks employee Stephanie Thelin with customer Nicole Ellery in Sydney. Picture: Britta Campion / The Australian

Book retailer Dymocks wants to capitalise on strong growth throughout the pandemic and open another 20 stores over the next five years.

Managing director Mark Newman said the book market’s strength in recent years has allowed Dymocks to reconsider its position.

“We’ve got about 50 stores at the moment and we probably should be at around 70,” he said. “So we have a plan to add another 20 stores in the next three to five years.

“We went through a period in the last few years leading up to Covid where our strategy was essentially just to stabilise.”

He said the Dymocks chain used to have more than 80 stores at its peak in the 1990s.

“Brick and mortar retailing has been hit by disruption, particularly booksellers, but now that we’re on the other side of that, there’s an opportunity to grow again,” Mr Newman said.

Dymocks sold seven million books in 2021, an 8 per cent rise on the previous year.

“Strategically, in order for us to continue to thrive and flourish for the next 20-30 years we need to grow.

“We’re quite underrepresented in states like Queensland, for example. We’ve got six stores, and we probably should have double that, based upon the size of the market, the population and what we see our competitors doing.”

Dymocks book store employee Stephanie Thelin with customer Nicole Ellery in Sydney. Picture: Britta Campion / The Australian

Plans for expansion into the state are well underway, with Dymocks recently hosting an event in Brisbane that aimed to attract new franchisees.

They face stiff competition from Queensland-based rivals QBD, which boast 26 stores in the state alone, but Mr Newman said the company has found the right time to strike.

“We’re taking advantage of the fact that people have rediscovered reading and the market has been quite robust in the last couple of years, but also it’s a strategic play in terms of growing market share.

“One of the real trends at the moment driving growth in book sales is the rise of young people reading because of TikTok. There’s been a massive increase in sales of books that have been endorsed or promoted through ‘BookTokers’.

“We can see there’s definitely an opportunity for us to grow our network because of that, and we can see where that demand is from our online sales and where we’re delivering online orders.”

As online sales tripled to make up 15 per cent of Dymocks’ sales throughout the pandemic, Mr Newman remained confident of Dymocks’ ability to compete with online-only rivals such as Amazon and Booktopia.

“One of the biggest challenges we’ve seen lately for online-only retailers is fulfilment, being able to get products to customers quickly and for a reasonable cost.

“We’re about to launch ship-to-store which means we can effectively utilise 50 mini warehouses around the country for some of our online fulfilment, which will give us a real competitive advantage.”

Originally published as BookTokers drive Dymocks’ store expansion plans