| Sumario: | This article presents information on half-price offers made by various companies related to the book industry. WH Smith Ltd.'s early start to the festive high street war forced Waterstone's Booksellers Ltd., Borders, and Ottakar's PLC to follow suit. Each is running a blizzard of half-price offers, with the same books suffering a palimpsest of stickers. The price-cutting has been all about increasing topline sales and drawing customers into stores, thereby stimulating extra purchases. On the first count it worked initially: November sales through BookScan were up 4.8% by volume and 3.2% by value on last year. The second count is even more questionable. The high-volume, low-margin end of the market is generating the bulk of the growth. Sales directors at the largest publishers, rewarded through archaic volume-based bonus structures, ceded several percentage points on trading terms each season to hit targets.
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