The Big Read launches in stores this week which is the culmination of loads of hard work for the books team at Asda house. This is the first dedicated books event in our shops so we’re all a bit nervous about how it’s going to be received by customers… however initial signs are really good so there’s been lots of big smiles on the faces of the book buyers this week!

What is it all about then?? Well, we’ve decided to do a market leading offer of 2 for £5 or £3 each across loads of different books… for kids and adults alike.

This means that you can mix and match for your kids and treat yourself at the same time. We’ve really tried to include the nation’s favourite books, such as The Gruffalo, Aliens Love Underpants, the BFG and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We also thought it was really important to include some real timeless classics (it’s not called a Big Read for nothing!) so you’ll also find John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Lord of the Flies and Dracula. This is the first time you’ll see these kind of books available to buy in Asda, and it’s all about making reading affordable for everyone!

Hope you manage to get out to stores and see what we’ve got to offer… we would welcome any feedback you have on the books!

Share

I’ve just seen some posts on the Your Asda site about our customers not being able to get the latest Dan Brown book at £5, so I thought I’d write a couple of lines to address your concerns and explain how we buy books for these big promotions.

Just to reassure you guys, it was never our intention to deceive customers or get you into our shops under false pretenses. For Dan Brown, we agreed with the publisher to buy 100,000 books which were supposed to last us three weeks. This was split into two orders. 50,000 books for launch which we were able to sell for a fiver during the first week, and a further 50,000 books to sell at £10 in future weeks.

That was the plan, anyway. The reality was quite different. We actually sold 36,000 books at £5 in the first day and from then on, we have been struggling to keep up with demand. Rather than selling 50,000 books at £5, we ended up selling 117,000 books at £5. It was genuinely a case of demand outstripping supply.

Because the promotion only lasted for one week at the amazing price of £5, it was always in our strategy to increase the price once the promotion ended. In fact, we sold 67,000 more books at £5 than was our intention…

Obviously we’re really sorry if we’ve disappointed you and you weren’t able to get the book for £5. We’ll try our best to order more copies next time around so that more people can get their hands on it whilst it’s still on offer.

Share

Hi everyone … I’m Steph and I look after the books category at Asda. What I mean by that is I’m responsible for the buying of all the books we sell in Asda shops across the UK.

There’s a team of eight of us in the books team here at Asda House … each one of us with various areas of responsibility. It’s our books team mission to ensure we get the right books at the right prices for our Asda customers to purchase. I’ll try and work my new video phone and post some video of the gang later.

Away from work you won’t be surprised to know that I’m an avid reader. Perennial favourites of mine are Michael Connelly, Sebastian Faulks, Paul Auster, John Connolly.I’m also a big Leeds Rhinos fan … and am looking forward to us winning a historic three Grand Finals in a row in October (not wanting to tempt fate!).

Just read: The Forgotten Garden, Kate Morton. Engleby, Sebastian Faulks.

Currently reading: The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown. Dead Man’s Footsteps, Peter James.

Share