Bookseller
Job Description:Booksellers buy books from publishers or wholesalers and sell them to customers.
Job Category:What you will do:
Your day-to-day duties might include:
- serving customers – taking payment, giving advice, answering enquiries and ordering in books
- stock control – assessing the market and ordering new stock
- admin tasks – accounting, distributing orders, arranging deliveries and dealing with returns
In a specialist bookshop, you may have extra duties, like working closely with teaching staff from local schools, colleges and universities to make sure you stock the right text books.
As a bookshop manager, you’ll recruit and train new staff.
Skills:
You’ll need:
- business management skills
- to be able to use a computer and the main software packages competently
As well as:
- customer service skills
- the ability to work well with others (teamwork)
- the ability to sell products and services
- to be thorough and pay attention to detail
- the ability to use your initiative
- persuading and negotiating skills
- excellent verbal communication skills
- organisational skills
Entry Requirements:
You can get into this job through:
- a university course
- a college course
- an apprenticeship
- applying directly
University
You may have an advantage when looking for work if you’ve completed a qualification at university, like a higher national diploma or a degree. Employers will accept any subject, although some may prefer English, humanities or the arts.
College
You can learn some of the skills you need for this job by doing a:
- Certificate or Diploma in Retail Skills (Level 2 in the UK)
- Diploma in Retail Skills (Sales Professional) (Level 3 in the UK)
Apprenticeship
You can get into this job through a retailer intermediate apprenticeship or a retail team leader advanced apprenticeship.
Direct Application
You can apply directly for jobs from school – subjects like English and maths will be required. You’ll have an advantage if you have previous experience of:
- retail or online sales
- customer service
- publishing
You’ll need a broad range of reading interests and an enthusiasm for books.
You may need specialist knowledge for some bookshops. For example:
- comic art for a shop that sells graphic novels
- classic literature for rare or antiquarian books
- art history for specialist art publications
Career tips
You’ll need sound business skills and a good grasp of the publishing and bookselling industry if you want to go on to open your own bookshop. This includes some understanding of online promotion and sales methods or e-commerce.
Working Hours and Environment:
You’ll usually work 37 or 38 hours a week, from 9am to 5pm, often including Saturdays. Evening and weekend work is likely. Overtime and part-time work is often available.
You might be on your feet all day. You may be asked to lift heavy boxes.
Career Path & Progression:
With financial backing and a lot of experience, you could open your own bookshop.
You could also work from home as a book dealer, or set up an online bookshop.