“The revenue budgeted for 2015 is EUR9.71 million and the first half revenue stands at EUR4.58 million, 47.2% of the projected revenue for 2015,” Marieta Seba, general manager of CLB, told ZF.
The majority shareholder of the CLB is the Asociatia Compania de Librarii Bucuresti Pas (69%). Regional investment fund SIF Muntenia (SIF4.RO) holds another 9.8%, while individual shareholders own the rest.
CLB is the oldest bookstore chain in Romania. Established 65 years ago, it has 46 bookstores in Bucharest with a total floor space of about 3,400 square meters, which makes it the largest chain in the city. “We are trying to keep the network at its current size.”
CLB posted EUR9.78 million revenue last year, which puts it on the third place among local bookstore chains, after Carturesti and Diverta.
“The main factor for this result was the computerization of the bookstore chain.” The process entailed introducing new sales management, customer and supply relations models, as well as the launching of the CLB online store.
Book sales dropped 3.7% in the first half compared with the first half of 2014 to EUR1.4 million. This shows that CLB, like other bookstore chains, only gets 30% of its revenue from book sales, while stationery generates more than 40%.
“Books take up about 50% of the display space in our chain’s stores and generate about 30% to 32% of the revenue,” Seba said.
Books contributed EUR3.1 million to the total revenue last year, accounting for 31.6% of sales. Stationery generated 42.4% of the revenue or EUR4.1 million.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)