Secondhand Bookshop in East Anglia

Everyone’s idea of a dream vocation is running a secondhand bookshop in the English Counties. Most will never do it, most wouldn’t want the hassle of setting up a new business, but if you are serious, we can sell you your dream, ready to go. Perhaps you are retiring from a high pressure job and want to take life a bit slower, maybe you just want to get away from the rat-race, or you really do want to live the dream?

Our secondhand bookshop has been trading from the same prominent high street location in the lovely Suffolk seaside town of Felixstowe for over forty years and is well-known both locally and regionally. We are the largest such shop in East Anglia and attract customers from all over the UK and beyond. We also have major online sales through our own website and via ABEbooks and Amazon

Whilst we sell a wide range of books on most subjects, our specialist stock of Transport books (some 30,000) is the largest and best in the UK with many regular customers all over the world.

The business is profitable and can be sold in two ways:

1/ The physical retail shop (leased) with all fittings, existing shop name, staff and a stock of around 50,000 books (retail value around £250k), but excluding our internet stock, website, online accounts and existing limited company.  You can walk in and get instant sales, but you will need to set up your own trading entity, bank account, payment systems etc. We would retain the internet stock, websites and existing Limited Company. You would, of course, be free to set up your own online sales, websites etc. Existing shop sales are around £110k per annum. We would provide you with help and support for up to 12 months to get established.

2/ The whole package – the existing Limited Company, the Shop (and a leased warehouse), staff, Bank  account,  online selling accounts (which are quite difficult to set up now for a newbie business), social media accounts and a huge stock (c.100,00) of  books with a retail value of around £1m.  We currently have around £420k of stock listed online and a massive reserve stock, much of which is still waiting to be catalogued. Current t/o of the Company is around £280k p/a with a large gross profit. Again, we would provide detailed help and support for up to 12 months. This would be a very simple transaction by means of the sale of the shares in the current company, so you get everything you need - shop, stock and websites!

So, you want to live your dream?

Option One won’t cost you the earth - we are looking at around £60k for the shop and non-internet stock, this could be staged over several payments as an earn out with a minimum down payment of £20k.

Option Two is the rather more expensive choice, but will give you a highly profitable business ready to go from day one with expected salary/earnings of £80k per annum and would establish you as the leading transport bookdealer in the UK and a serious internet seller.  However, this comes at a price - £250k – but that is less than you would pay for just for the stock if you were setting up from scratch, so you are getting the shop, warehouse, fittings, websites, online accounts etc for free!

But if it’s that good, why are we selling?  Simple – we’re getting older and have been book dealing for over 25 years and it’s now time to wind down. There is still good business to be had in second hand bookshops and internet sales grow every years, so we’d love to pass the business on to someone else to continue its development.

Felixstowe is a very popular Edwardian seaside town, well connected via the A14, just over an hour from Cambridge and easily accessible from all of Suffolk, Essex and beyond. It is one of the driest and sunniest places in the UK with a good all year climate which attracts visitor even in Winter.  There is an hourly railway service to Ipswich from where direct trains run to London, Cambridge and Norwich. We have lots of local independent shops, many cafes plus the usual seaside amusements etc.  Felixstowe Port on the nearby River Orwell is the UK’s largest container terminal and visitors love watching the world’s largest ships coming and going.

If you are serious about our offer, then get in touch with us by emailing and we can take things further, but please note we will require proof of funds before we undertake any meaningful conversations – dreamers must have money as well as dreams!