Trends · data through September 2026

Bookstores in London

Iceflower tracks 474 stores from 307 bookstore chains in London. Daunt Books grew fastest over the last year, ahead of Foyles and Waterstones.

Rankings come from real card and bank transactions across a panel of 130M+ US and EU consumers. We publish relative growth and rankings, never revenue figures. About the data

Tracked chains
307
Tracked stores
474
Consumer panel
130M+

Growth ranking

Fastest-growing tracked bookstore chains

Ranked by year-over-year growth of share of tracked local spend. Arrows show movement in the rankings since last year. Each dot in the chart is one tracked chain: bigger market position to the right, faster growth higher up, more tracked stores in a bigger dot. Colors match the store map below. Daunt Books and Foyles sit in the high-growth half.

# Chain YoY growth
RankChainRank movementYoY growth
1 D Daunt Books logo Daunt Books - +15.3%
2 F Foyles logo Foyles - +13.9%
3 W Waterstones logo Waterstones - +9.4%
4 K Kiosk - -3.8%
5 W WHSmith logo WHSmith - -13.7%
6 H House of Books - -43.0%
  • WHSmith
  • Waterstones
  • Sackville News
  • City Lit
  • Castle News
  • Welcome News
  • Hatchards
  • Other tracked chains

Store footprint

Store map

474 tracked store locations in London. The 7 largest tracked chains are highlighted.

  • WHSmith (102)
  • Waterstones (50)
  • Sackville News (1)
  • City Lit (1)
  • Castle News (1)
  • Welcome News (1)
  • Hatchards (1)
  • Other tracked chains

Top tracked chains by store count

  • 1 W WHSmith logo WHSmith 102
  • 2 W Waterstones logo Waterstones 50
  • 3 K Kiosk 4
  • 4 D Daunt Books logo Daunt Books 3
  • 5 H House of Books 3
  • 6 F Foyles logo Foyles 3
  • 7 N NK News 3
  • 8 F Fait Maison 2
  • 9 S Sai News 2
  • 10 C Chadwell Food and Wine 2
  • 11 M Marble Arch News 2
  • 12 T TGJones logo TGJones 2
  • 13 I Indigo logo Indigo 2
  • 14 R Ripple News 1
  • 15 B Brick Lane Bookshop 1
  • 16 A Abbs Cross Food & Wine 1
  • 17 S Shiv Newsagents 1
  • 18 A Amy News 1
  • 19 S Scotts logo Scotts 1
  • 20 E Enfield News and Wine 1
  • 21 S Stoke Newington Bookshop 1
  • 22 M Mikes News Food and Wine 1
  • 23 T Two Boys Newsagents 1
  • 24 M Manford News 1
  • 25 L Lime Store 1
  • 26 F Fairdeal News 1
  • 27 K Kevin Newsagent 1
  • 28 A All Wines 1
  • 29 T The Dover Bookshop 1
  • 30 M Mag One 1
  • 31 M Mellows Newsmart 1
  • 32 E East London Book Shop 1
  • 33 A A Place In Space 1
  • 34 S Sainath News 1
  • 35 L Leopold News 1
  • 36 M Meads News 1
  • 37 E Eureka! 1
  • 38 J James News 1
  • 39 F Foresthill Food & Wine 1
  • 40 S South Kensington Books 1
  • 41 S Shloimy's Judaica 1
  • 42 S SVK News Agent 1
  • 43 O Offord Newsagents 1
  • 44 F Finlay's 1
  • 45 P Pipes & Pouches 1
  • 46 A Artwords 1
  • 47 B Belgrave News 1
  • 48 R Rahi News 1
  • 49 T The Book Elephant 1
  • 50 S SPL70 News 1

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