Smiths suffers from decline in spoofs but shareholders still smiling

The performance of the high street division was dismal, but the travel shops kept the ginger beer fizzy

WH Smith is a retail survivor (Alamy)

Spoof Famous Five and Ladybird books are no longer raising the smiles they once were and that’s no joke for chain like WH Smith.

Their waning popularity contributed to a 5 per cent fall in sales at its high street outlets, which diverted attention from the lashings of ginger beer supplied by the travel division.

Made up of more than 800 outlets at airports, railway stations, service stations, hospitals and workplaces, it turned in a 7 per cent sales rise and as a result overall group sales were flat for the 20 weeks to January 20 when compared to a very good festive period a year earlier.

So there'll still be some ginger beer left for the shareholders.

The stock has fallen off its lofty perch recently but when you consider that Smith’s shares closed at 671p five years ago and they’re now still selling for just over £20 a pop, investors don’t have much to complain about.

When set against the carnage that’s been taking place elsewhere on planet retail they’ve every reason to feel as happy as Timmy the Dog in pursuit of a rabbit while the Famous Five are picnicking.

Not that Smith's is finding it easy. Like any business in the embattled sector it has to run very fast just to stand still. But it’s pulling that off while others are faltering.

As such it seems rather churlish to quibble. Still when the Smith's, as part of its explanation for the numbers, describes book sales as “more challenging due to the decline in spoof humour titles and no new, big publishing trends” you do rather wonder whether it mightn’t try a little harder to help itself.

The spoof book craze was never going to last. The trend created by a certain JK Rowling has lasted years and is still going.

It only got started because Bloomsbury took a flier on a work that had been rejected by a long list of other publishers, and because there were retailers willing to risk giving an unknown author some shelf space.

It is true that Smith’s has been successful by sticking to what it is good at, and focussing on easy wins, like those spoofs last year. It's never going to be a Foyles or a Waterstones, or one of the brave band of independent booksellers that do it for the love as much as the business.

But risks sometimes bring rewards and Smith’s wouldn't have to bemoan the lack of trends if it tried a little harder to get involved in the creation of some.