Credit: Louise Rose Photography
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Backstory, a lovely independent bookshop in Balham, has crunched the numbers, and there’s only one way to beat Amazon on Christmas book orders: wine.
Owner of the shop, Tom Rowley, has worked out that around 120,000 Londoners live within a half-hour walk from Backstory, and hopes to tempt them over to pick up their books this festive season by hovering a free glass of wine in front of them. It’s surely got to be backed by science…
Credit: Louise Rose Photography How to enjoy a free glass of wine with your books this Christmas
If you live close to Backstory, this is a complete no-brainer. All you need to do is order on their click-and-collect service, and you’ll be able to cheer your wine glasses when you go to pick up your next read. Even if it’s a bit of a journey, this is surely the best method for removing some of the stress of Christmas shopping.
Speaking on the initiative, Tom Rowley said: “I thought, well, Bezos has Amazon Prime, near monopoly power, Black Friday discounts, and rockets. I can’t do any of that. So what do we have? Well, apart from a very warm welcome, we’ve got lots and lots of wine. Jeff can’t do that.”
“We have spent a frightening amount of money connecting our website with the inventory stocked by a book wholesaler. That means we now have 500,000 books that can be ordered on our website and then available to collect in the bookshop the next day. I think that’s probably the only way to prize some people out of Bezos’s grip.”
It’s certainly a much finer thing to be able to go and pick out your book from a store and feel it before either turning the pages yourself or gifting it to a loved one. Backstory’s new method is a tried-and-tested way of doing just that AND getting your paws around a free glass of wine, and who could resist such an offer in December?
There’s no getting away from the fact it’ll always be tricky for bookstores to compete with the monolith of Amazon, but shops like Backstory’s are part of a noticeable resurgence in the city alongside peers such as BookBar, both of which not only give customers a place to pick out titles, but stick around and discuss them over a glass of wine or a coffee. Community is at the heart, and this idea from Tom Rowley is a lovely touch for anyone who heads straight to the internet to sift through books when it comes to tackling the Christmas shopping.
Find Backstory at 71 Balham High Road, Sw12 9AP (nearest station is Balham). You can read more about the shop and its upcoming events on their website.