Online and pop-up bookseller The Book People has gone into administration just a week before Christmas, putting almost 400 jobs at risk.
The retailer has a large delivery warehouse at Parc Menai in Bangor, which employs 229 people, with another 160 staff employed at the head office in Godalming, Surrey.
The Book People was founded in 1988 by two book enthusiasts, Ted Smart and Seni Glaister, on the principle of making books available and affordable to everyone.
The business makes over 70% of its sales online, which are delivered from the Bangor warehouse. It also sells direct to schools and businesses, with pop-up shops in workplaces. The business has an annual turnover in excess of £50 million and sells over 17 million children’s books each year.
Toby Underwood and Zelf Hussain of PricewaterhouseCoopers have been appointed joint administrators of the company.
The administrators said The Book People would “continue to trade and no immediate redundancies were envisaged as a rapid sale of the business was explored.”
They added that “Christmas orders already placed by customers would be fulfilled.”
