Stepping into Smith & Son bookshop across from the Tuileries, my first instinct is to look for signs of change. A regular customer for decades, this is my first time here since its rebranding.
The ground floor storeroom is brightly lit and pleasantly appointed. On the front-of-store table display, I recognise several titles, including Deborah Levy’s My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein, John of John by Douglas Stuart, and Jennette McCurdy’s Half His Age. Immediately to the left, a cozy nook decorated with William Morris wallpaper is furnished with a soft purple sofa for customers to sit down with a book. Queen Elizabeth II looks down regally from an official portrait on the wall.
The big change at the English-language bookshop once known as WH Smith is not the facelift. It can be found in its business plan.
After struggling under its UK-based parent company, the famed Paris bookshop is under new management. Ironically, the bookshop known for its quintessentially English character is owned by a Frenchman, 55-year-old Patrick Moynot. Under his stewardship, the time-honoured Paris branch of the WH Smith chain has become an indie bookshop, like its competitors Shakespeare & Company, Abbey Bookshop, Red Wheelbarrow, Galignani, and San Francisco Book Company.
These are not easy times for indie bookshops in a marketplace dominated by Amazon and big retail chains. While there are some hopeful signs of a rebound, many independent book retailers are floundering or closing.
In Paris, Smith & Son has not only survived, but it is profitable and growing with ambitious expansion plans. A second bookshop has opened in the trendy Le Marais district of Paris, followed by another Smith & Son in Versailles. Coming soon, a new location two doors down from the flagship store on the Rue de Rivoli. It will be devoted entirely to children’s and young adult books.
That’s an impressive turnaround for a bookshop that, despite its storied history in Paris, was suffering chronic losses and heading towards closure.
The original bookshop facing the Tuileries was opened in 1870 as Neal’s Library with a tearoom on the first floor. WH Smith & Son bought the shop in 1903 and transformed it into a bookseller and newsagent with an Arts & Crafts interior design. During the occupation in the early 1940s, the Nazis took control and turned it into a propaganda Buchhandlung. After the war, WH Smith reclaimed its Paris location and brought back the tearoom. For decades, WH Smith in Paris was a mecca for expats and Anglophiles – and also celebrities such as Jane Birkin and Woody Allen – who frequented the tearoom and bought English-language newspapers. Famous authors also came to sign books, including Armistead Maupin and Julian Barnes (whose latest novel Departure(s) was perched on the front-of-store display on the day I dropped in).
The boom years for WH Smith in Paris were the 1990s, even if some were disappointed with the closing of the tearoom. Hard times were ahead, however, with the explosion of the internet and online book buying. A decade ago, sales were plummeting and the bookshop was losing money. Then came the wave of ‘yellow vest’ protests against the high cost of living in France. Mass demonstrations paralysed the French capital for months, especially in the Place de la Concorde area near the WH Smith location.
The final straw for the owner in the UK was the Covid epidemic and lockdowns. Turnover plunged and losses grew. After more than a century, WH Smith put its Paris bookshop up for sale. It was an early sign of the company’s retreat from the high street. Last year, WH Smith company sold 480 retail stores for £76 million while keeping 1,200 profitable outlets at airports and train stations. The buyer of the high street stores, Modella Capital, recently announced that it will close 150 outlets to focus on turning a profit at the remaining stores, rebranded as TG Jones.
In Paris, WH Smith handed the task of finding a buyer to Patrick Moynot, the bookshop’s managing director. Moynot initially scouted for buyers, but eventually concluded that, with his insider knowledge of the finances, he could turn around the bookshop. Instead of selling WH Smith, Moynot acquired it for an undisclosed sum. It must have been a rock-bottom price because WH Smith was dumping a distressed asset in Paris in the midst of the Covid crisis.
Under Moynot’s ownership, the bookshop’s name was shortened to Smith & Son and the quintessentially British ambiance was emphasised as an ‘experience’ draw. The modern interior renovations of recent decades were stripped away to reveal the original Edwardian-era wood panelling and plaster mouldings. Today the upstairs café, festooned with Union Jacks, opens for brunch at noon and later at teatime. The ‘full English’ brunch menu is €32 – or £28. For tea, the ‘Bronte menu’ (tea, coffee or hot chocolate with two scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam) costs €10 – about £8. An ‘Elizabeth’s Coronation’ chicken salad is €19 – roughly £16.
The main driver of Smith & Son’s strategy, however, is books. One advantage of selling books in France, with state regulations that limit price discounting, is that profit margins are higher on every book purchase. At Smith & Son, margins are about 50 per cent. In the UK, WH Smith outlets traditionally make 25 per cent of sales on books, with the rest on stationary, DVDs and other products. At Smith & Son, it’s the reverse. Book sales account for 75 per cent of turnover.
So far, Smith & Son’s book-focused strategy has paid off. Last year, the bookshop earned an 8 per cent profit on revenues of about €7.4 million. Moynot says his goal is to return to the bookshop’s golden years in the 1990s when profits were 10 per cent on sales of €10 million (roughly £8.6 million). Smith & Son is also pursuing a multi-channel strategy with a website where customers can order books online and pick them up at the retail locations. French regulations imposing a minimum €3 charge on Amazon book deliveries helps indie bookshops compete.
Moynot says his goal is to return to the bookshop’s golden years in the 1990s
Most of all, Moynot is betting big on the flagship’s new location on Rue de Rivoli devoted to children’s books and YA fiction. Unlike in the past, Gen Z consumers in France are keen to devour cultural products in English. On the TikTok app, BookTok is driving huge demand for romance and fantasy books in original English editions. American thriller novelist Freida McFadden, YA fantasy author Suzanne Collins, and British historical fiction writers Lucinda Riley and Anna Stuart are massively popular in France.
Smith & Son’s success story hasn’t been all smooth sailing. The Paris Olympics two years ago transformed the Place de la Concorde into a sports stadium and strangled retail shopping in the area near the bookshop. Moynot estimates the impact of the Olympics at €500,000 (roughly £432,000) in lost revenues and is suing the French government for reimbursement.
Another problem is Brexit, especially for customers attracted to the bookshop’s British character. In the press section, London newspapers and magazines are unavailable due to customs delays. The only paper I found in the newsagent section was the Financial Times, which is printed on the continent. Also, the traditional product offering of classically British confectionary – from Mars bars and Walkers crisps to HP Sauce and Marmite – has been drastically scaled back due to customs delays and taxes. Today, a limited offering can be found near the entrance – tea cakes, digestive biscuits, blackcurrant jam, Oxford marmalade, and tea tins etched with portraits of the late Queen and Princess Diana.
Going forward, Smith & Son’s expansion plans could target cities in other parts of France. At the top of the list is a Riviera outlet in Nice. It will be located, needless to say, near the Promenade des Anglais.
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