WHSmith has set its sights on new bigger shops including pharmacies at eight of London’s busiest rail stations, as rail and airport shops continue to overshadow the high street as the main part of the retailer’s business.
For the six months to 28 February, profit doubled to £71 million, thanks mostly to profits from its UK travel shops rocketing from £3 million to £31 million.
CEO Carl Cowling attributed the travel success to expansion into new product lines, especially within health and beauty.
He highlighted the success of its combined WHSmith and Wells Pharmacy shop at Euston station, which was on course for £12 million in annual sales.
“What we found in Euston is that when you’re waiting for a train, you’re grabbing a magazine, but you might also want deodorant or toothpaste,” he said. “Having all of that in one roof is something customers want.”
This model, he added, would be rolled out at eight more London railway stations, including Paddington, Liverpool Street and Victoria.
Cowling also noted that revenue at WHSmith’s airport shops was higher than in 2019, despite passenger numbers still being below pre-pandemic levels.
While travel sales soared, profit dipped to £24 million at the bookseller’s high-street shops, which are set to fall behind the growing North American travel division in terms of profits this year as the business continues to make travel its main focus.
However, Cowling said there was still “lots of success” in the high-street business. Among those was Prince Harry’s book Spare, which he said “did really, really well” and created “a lot of excitement” around its shops.
Looking to the second half of WHSmith’s financial year, Cowling said that both airport and rail shops continued to perform well over the Easter period.
“We had a really strong Easter in air and rail,” he said “We were up again on 2019, though passengers were still down.”
Shares in WHSmith are down 47p to 1,577p.
