SUCCESS FOR KENILWORTH BOOKSHOP AS IT BUCKS RETAIL TRENDS

Unlike the Petersfield Bookshop in Hampshire which hit the national headlines after going a whole day in January without selling a single book, one independent Warwickshire bookshop has enjoyed its most successful year thanks to many new customers choosing to shop there.

Luckily for the Petersfield Bookshop, a desperate tweet by an employee was spotted by author Neil Gaiman who retweeted it to his more than two million Twitter followers who inundated the shop with orders.

However Kenilworth Books, in the town’s Talisman Shopping Centre, attracted more visitors and organised more successful events than ever before in 2019.

Christmas was especially successful for the shop, with a 20 per cent increase in sales on 2018 and 400 people visiting the shop on December 23 – a record for a day’s trading.

Judy Brook, Kenilworth Books’ owner, put the success down to the hard work and enthusiasm of her team and their many regular customers, as well as a noticeable increase in new customers re-discovering the pleasure of shopping on their local high street.

She said: “We’ve had a really extraordinary year. On top of the really phenomenal sales in the shop, over the last year we’ve organised events on a larger scale than ever before.

“Nearly 400 people joined us for the publication event of Chocolat author, Joanne Harris’ latest book, The Strawberry Thief.

“We’re hoping this trend carries on and with authors such as Dan Snow and Sophie Hannah appearing at events this year, we’re confident of further success.”

Judy took over Kenilworth Books in 2014 and has seen year-on-year increases in sales during that time.

A unique pay-as-you-go community and working space in the heart of Coventry has opened its doors to the public.

Based in Spon Street, Ziferblat is unique because visitors do not pay for the items that they use but instead pay for the time that they spend there.

It costs eight pence per minute for the first hour of a person’s visit and then five pence per minute after that. There is a payment cap of four hours or £13.80, but there is also weekly and monthly subscriptions for people to explore.

Guests have access to facilities such as WiFi and unlimited food and drink.

Elena Ignateva, director of Ziferblat Coventry who is also studying for her Master’s Degree at the University of Warwick, recognises that the city has a huge amount of potential.

“With Coventry being UK City of Culture next year and with so much happening and a huge amount of development going ahead in the city centre, we wanted to be a part of that.”

Warwick tech company secures a series of global contracts

A Warwick technology company is proving to be a world leader in its field after securing a series of global contracts.

Abicom International was founded by David Edwards in 2001 and moved into the University of Warwick Science Park’s Warwick Innovation Centre in 2015.

The company’s projects include a CCTV initiative in India, connecting videoing technology over long distances, and teaming up with the navy in the United States on long range communications.

Abicom is also working on video streaming technology that could have a huge impact on motorsports. The company has joined forces with a leading motorsport telematics provider to create a system that increases the efficiency of wireless technology, which improves communications and video streaming speed capacities at events.

David said: “We are working with clients throughout the world and it is great to see these projects developing and how we can strengthen WiFi to apply it in so many different ways.”