Foyles
| W&G Foyle Limited
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | Limited |
| founding | 1903 |
| Seat | London , UK |
| management | Achilles James Daunt |
| Number of employees | 189 |
| sales | 26.12 million GBP approx. 29.19 million EUR |
| Branch | Book trade , retail |
| Website | www.foyles.co.uk |
| As of June 30, 2018 | |
W & G Foyle Ltd. is a British bookselling company that operates seven bookstores in England under the Foyles brand . The flagship store is located on Charing Cross Road in London .
history
The company was founded in 1903 by the brothers William and Gilbert Foyle and moved to its current location in 1906.
When the brothers were denied a career as a civil servant after failing their entrance exams, they offered their superfluous specialist books for sale and were literally inundated with offers to buy. This encouraged them to work as a bookseller, initially trading in used books from home.
Foyles was listed in the Guinness Book of Records for a period as the largest bookstore in the world in terms of shelf space and the number of books on display. Foyles is still one of the largest bookshops in England and also has an online shop .
By the late 20th century, Foyles was famous (or infamous) for its eccentric practices, including:
- the arrangement of the books by publisher instead of by subject or author,
- a payment system that required customers to queue twice - at one counter to get an invoice for the book and then at another to pay the invoice,
- the indication of a telephone number, the sole purpose of which was to play a recorded message indicating that no calls were being received,
- unsold books that had been struck out of the publisher's catalogs for years and were still on the shelves.
However, the bookstore and its practices were modernized after the death of the owner Christina Foyle in 1999 and the takeover of the business by her nephew Christopher. The store has become more efficient as a result, but many regular customers are of the opinion that it has also lost some of its charm.
Foyles is also known for its literary lunches, which have been done since 1930. In 2005 Foyles opened a branch at the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank . In 2006 it was announced that there were plans to open additional stores at Hampton Court Palace and the Tower of London . There is a shop in St Pancras train station .
Chairman Christopher Foyle is also Chairman and CEO of Air Foyle HeavyLift .
Since June 2014, Foyles has also been represented in building 107 Charing Cross Road in the immediate vicinity of the old headquarters. The 1930s building was used by the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design until 2011 .
In September 2018 it was announced that Foyles would be bought by Waterstones .
Web links
- Foyles online shop
- Foyled Again ( Memento of September 3, 2002 in the Internet Archive ) About Foyles (Bell College, English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Full accounts made up to 30 June 2018 , accessed on 15 September 2019
- ↑ Against the trend: Foyles relies on the book in London in FAZ of June 12, 2014, page 13
- ↑ Waterstones buys Foyles 'in face of Amazon's siren call' , theguardian.com, September 7, 2018, accessed September 8, 2018