Supermarket giant Tesco agrees to advertise small Wirral book store

Jan 6 2010 by Liam Murphy, Liverpool Echo

SUPERMARKET giant Tesco was persuaded by a Wirral bookshop to promote it.

Heswall’s independent book store Lingham’s is located just across the road from Tesco and has faced stiff competition from the supermarket, particularly over sales of best-selling titles.

Partly out of frustration at this, manager of Lingham’s Eleanor Davies, wrote to the chief executive of Tesco, Sir Terry Leahy, suggesting a way they could help each other.

Mrs Davies said the idea came after seeing an interview with Sir Terry in which he admitted a certain amount of guilt over the threat his supermarket chain posed to smaller shops.

Mrs Davies said: “I Googled him and just sent an email and said to him to put your money where your mouth is. We are constantly having problems being undercut by Tesco. They sell some mainstream books far cheaper than we ever could.

“But we’re not just a shop – we have poetry evenings, book clubs and readings.”