Ian Allan Waterloo to close

[Chriso]

Sad to report that the Ian Allan shop in Waterloo will close at the end of October

 

[Ianno87]

Gutted.

 

[Chriso]

Yes me too

 

[Mag_seven]

Another victim of "on line shopping"

 

[lyndhurst25]

Is that the last of their shops?

 

[Ianno87]

Is that the last of their shops?

Yes.

 

[Capybara]

That's a real shame. Having worked and lived close by for years I've been a regular in there and bought loads of stuff. I feel for the staff.

 

[jfollows]

I'd guess that they got hit with a large rent hike, which coupled with a decrease in turnover to make them unprofitable. They seem to be in locations which were once unpopular/cheap but which have become popular/trendy, such as Manchester Piccadilly station approach.

 

[James H]

I'd guess that they got hit with a large rent hike

I think the Ian Allan group owns the freehold of the building (or did until fairly recently at least)

As the company has contracted in recent years, I don’t think their heart has been in book selling for some time

 

[jfollows]

I think the Ian Allan group owns the freehold of the building (or did until fairly recently at least)

As the company has contracted in recent years, I don’t think their heart has been in book selling for some time

Ah, OK, so this presumably why this outlet has lasted longer than the others - such as Manchester and Birmingham?

Makes sense, thank you. As I wrote my previous post I did wonder if rent hikes would be likely under current circumstances.

 

[Ianno87]

I'd guess that they got hit with a large rent hike, which coupled with a decrease in turnover to make them unprofitable. They seem to be in locations which were once unpopular/cheap but which have become popular/trendy, such as Manchester Piccadilly station approach.

A good sign for the railway in that areas around stations once to be avoided are now in fashion, but bad news for small shops like Ian Allan.

 

[lyndhurst25]

I'd have thought that city centre shop rents and property values would be falling quite dramatically at the moment. If they do own it, maybe they're sellng the shop quickly before it falls in value any more.
It's a pity that they can't relocate to some provincial town with cheaper rents, perhaps somewhere close to one of the "premiere" preserved railways.

 

[davetheguard]

I've always felt, perhaps wrongly I don't know, that with the company now being run by the son, rather than by Ian Allan himself, there simply wasn't the interest in railways amongst top management.

It's just been a gradual drip, drip, drip of closures and sell offs. Will anything at all of the original company be left after the Waterloo shop closes?

 

[Tubeboy]

Sad news, but not surprising. I haven’t been there for a good five years, but when I did go, it was fairly regularly and I usually spent at least £50-100 per visit.

Why did I stop going? Products cheaper online, including magazine subscriptions and using, I hate to say places like Amazon for books if it’s half the price that IA wanted. I do still use small specialist places, MDS, Bill Hudson etc. I always found the shop, when I went anyway, to be full of the people who touched everything, but never actually bought anything. They also had questionable personal hygiene. Apart from the manager, I didn’t find the staff particularly friendly either.

So sad, but I’m surprised it’s lasted so long. I’m sure the Covid pandemic has hit them hard seeing as Central London is like a ghost town the last few months.

 

[bramling]

Sad news, but not surprising. I haven’t been there for a good five years, but when I did go, it was fairly regularly and I usually spent at least £50-100 per visit.

Why did I stop going? Products cheaper online, including magazine subscriptions and using, I hate to say places like Amazon for books if it’s half the price that IA wanted. I do still use small specialist places, MDS, Bill Hudson etc. I always found the shop, when I went anyway, to be full of the people who touched everything, but never actually bought anything. They also had questionable personal hygiene. Apart from the manager, I didn’t find the staff particularly friendly either.

So sad, but I’m surprised it’s lasted so long. I’m sure the Covid pandemic has hit them hard seeing as Central London is like a ghost town the last few months.

I’d echo the above. Likewise I’ve been quite a bit spender in there over the years (I’d say well into four figures per year), but sadly this doesn’t come as a surprise, gutting though it is.

Covid certainly won’t have helped - indeed who is going to want to spend time in a book shop with a mask on? Unfortunately you’re also bang on with the point that many people spend a lot of time in the shop but don’t actually buy much, which as well as being unhelpful is actually destructive as they finger stock which then makes it less desirable to those who actually want to buy, and get in the way - plus the dubious personal hygiene of some.

Very sad, another good thing gone, no doubt to Amazon’s gain.

I think I’m right in saying the LT Museum is the only specialist transport bookshop in London now? And to be honest I wouldn’t say they’re a serious bookshop in the same league as Ian Allan’s were.

 

[Ashley Hill]

The end of an era. Always popped in here during visits to the smoke over the years. A quick squiz at the books,a pasty from Greggs and a pint at the Hole In The Wall.

 

[superjohn]

A quick squiz at the books...

But how often did you buy? I think that was the problem at all of their shops. Retail demand is down across the board and having a large proportion of customers who only browse makes that much worse. Of course the fact the Ian Allan no longer publish a lot of the books they sell must have hit their margins significantly as well.

 

[Flange Squeal]

This is sad news. I'd often take a walk over to Waterloo during longer breaks with a list of books I'd seen advertised in magazines etc and potentially interested in, to see what they're like. More often than not I'd come out with several purchases. It was also handy for picking up various club/society newsletters and journals, or lesser known subscription magazines, from groups that you perhaps weren't interested in enough to become a member of, but might see something on the cover of their most recent publication and buy the odd individual copy that they wouldn't otherwise have sold. Quite often transport enthusiasts seem to be interested in more than one mode, so to have everything from rail and road to sea and air all under one roof made it all the more attractive. They also of course specialised in non-transport related war history, be it the world wars or individual battles from other periods, although I don't know how much of their income this provided.

 

[Ashley Hill]

I often bought a book or DVD. The trouble in later years I found it to be selling an increasingly larger selection of general railway books. Specialist books about signalling for example were becoming difficult to buy. Not living near London meant I could not order a book from the shop hence Amazon.

 

[Turtle]

Sad news, but not surprising. I haven’t been there for a good five years, but when I did go, it was fairly regularly and I usually spent at least £50-100 per visit.

Why did I stop going? Products cheaper online, including magazine subscriptions and using, I hate to say places like Amazon for books if it’s half the price that IA wanted. I do still use small specialist places, MDS, Bill Hudson etc. I always found the shop, when I went anyway, to be full of the people who touched everything, but never actually bought anything. They also had questionable personal hygiene. Apart from the manager, I didn’t find the staff particularly friendly either.

So sad, but I’m surprised it’s lasted so long. I’m sure the Covid pandemic has hit them hard seeing as Central London is like a ghost town the last few months.

Must disagree with your remarks over personal hygiene and staff friendliness. I always found the staff OK. There was however a nearby shop which specialised in transport related books at bargain prices which I suspect offered some competition to Ian Allen.

 

[deltic]

Looking at the company accounts shows that it is now principally a property and car dealership company. Publishing brought in less than 10% of turnover. The accounts written in May refer to the desire to sell the London shop and Masonic publishing operations. The publishing operation has been loss making for at least 5 years and accounts from 4 years ago referred to a long standing decision to get out of it.

 

[danorak]

I've always found the Ian Allen staff to be perfectly friendly. If anything, they may even have been too tolerant of people who just wanted to stand at the till and chat about some obscure aspect that only the real hardcore could possibly know about. I wish them well in what is a difficult jobs climate at the moment. A farewell visit after 28 years of shopping there seems in order.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Very sad but inevitable I guess.

 

[pdeaves]

Must disagree with your remarks over personal hygiene and staff friendliness. I always found the staff OK. There was however a nearby shop which specialised in transport related books at bargain prices which I suspect offered some competition to Ian Allen.

I suspect Tubeboy may have meant the customers' hygeine, not the staff's.

 

[ANDREW_D_WEBB]

Must disagree with your remarks over personal hygiene and staff friendliness. I always found the staff OK. There was however a nearby shop which specialised in transport related books at bargain prices which I suspect offered some competition to Ian Allen.

The bargain bookshop was on the corner diagonally opposite the Old Vic. When this building was redeveloped it relocated to a unit on the north side of Lower Marsh, but has been closed for several years now.

The only ‘specialist’ transport bookshop in the capital is at the London Transport Museum. This has no where near the range that Ian Allan carries. Some of the smaller publishers/ self published authors will doubtless lament the loss of this institution.

 

[theironroad]

The bargain bookshop was on the corner diagonally opposite the Old Vic. When this building was redeveloped it relocated to a unit on the north side of Lower Marsh, but has been closed for several years now.

The only ‘specialist’ transport bookshop in the capital is at the London Transport Museum. This has no where near the range that Ian Allan carries. Some of the smaller publishers/ self published authors will doubtless lament the loss of this institution.

Pretty sure the bargain bookshop is now a Starbucks or possibly another chain coffees shop .

 

[ANDREW_D_WEBB]

Pretty sure the bargain bookshop is now a Starbucks or possibly another chain coffees shop .

The actual building the bargain bookshop was in was demolished and replaced with a taller building, part of which is occupied by a branch of a chain cafe

 

[Capybara]

It's a Pret. The shop on Lower Marsh was part of a terrace which has been completely redeveloped.

 

[Taunton]

Looking at the company accounts shows that it is now principally a property and car dealership company. Publishing brought in less than 10% of turnover.

It's a shame, what the "old man" built up has pretty much gone. Travel agency sold off. The "property" is little more than their various former premises rented out. Their car dealerships, where they used to have the franchise for several mainstream brands across Surrey, have now retreated to one site which does oddball American import cars, situated up a residential road.

 

[swanhill41]

I think the son who has run IA group for last 30 or so years,must be past retiring age.