KINGSTON BOOKSHOP’S $1-B EXPANSION

Kingston Bookshop has pumped approximately $1 billion into a new distribution centre on Lyndhurst Road in St Andrew as its wholesale business takes a larger share of sales. The company told the Jamaica Observer that business-to-business (B2B) sales now account for approximately 25 per cent of revenue, up from just under 20 per cent about four years ago as it widens the range of products supplied to schools, bookstores, pharmacies, offices, and other businesses across Jamaica. That growth had begun to stretch an operation that was still being run from three separate warehouse properties on King Street in downtown Kingston. The new Lyndhurst Road facility, which became operational in May 2025, brings warehousing, purchasing, and business-to-business sales together in one location and gives Kingston Bookshop significantly more room to handle stock. Director of Strategy and Innovation Shauna Fuller Clarke said the company had reached the point where its old warehouse arrangement no longer matched the scale of the wholesale business.

Customers enter a Kingston Bookshop location during the back-to-school period. The company says more parents are using its layaway programme, which allows them to make a deposit and pay towards books and school supplies over time. (Photo: Karl McLarty)

“As that side of the business grew, so did our warehousing and operational requirements. At one point we were operating from three separate warehouse locations, so the decision to develop the Lyndhurst Road facility was a strategic one,” Fuller Clarke told the Business Observer. “It allowed us to consolidate our warehousing, B2B sales, and purchasing operations in one location, creating a more efficient operation and, importantly, enabling us to provide better service to our customers.” The approximately 42,000-square-foot facility includes a 39,000-square-foot warehouse and another 3,000 square feet for the company’s B2B sales and purchasing teams. Kingston Bookshop previously operated with about 34,000 square feet of warehouse space across 72, 74, and 80 King Street. The gain at Lyndhurst Road, however, is larger than the difference in floor space suggests. Fuller Clarke said the height of the building and the racking system allow the company to make far greater use of vertical storage, taking usable capacity to the equivalent of approximately 50,000 square feet. “The investment was, therefore, about much more than simply adding square footage. It was about creating the infrastructure to operate more efficiently, improve inventory management, and better support our retail and B2B customers,” she said. The expansion comes more than three decades after Kingston Bookshop first moved into wholesale distribution. The company said that business began with stationery in the 1990s and later expanded into textbooks, general books, games, and technology products. It has recently added sports gear and equipment, particularly for schools.

Kingston Bookshop’s 80 King Street property in downtown, Kingston. The company is considering new uses for some of its former warehouse locations, including a possible mix of its own operations and commercial rental space, an approach it already uses at 31 East Plaza in Portmore, St Catherine, where Script Cafe operates alongside Kingston Bookshop. (Photo: Karl McLarty)

That widening product range has helped Kingston Bookshop deepen its relationship with existing wholesale customers rather than relying only on traditional book sales. “As our customers seek to diversify their own product offerings, we have been able to respond by supplying more of what they need rather than limiting our B2B operation to traditional books and stationery,” Fuller Clarke said. The company now supplies customers in all parishes through its own delivery fleet.   New plan for former warehouses The move to Lyndhurst Road is also changing how Kingston Bookshop uses its downtown real estate. The company has already vacated 72 King Street, which was leased, while an expansion of its retail footprint at the 74 King Street head office is under active consideration. That leaves the other warehouse property, at 80 King Street — one of its busiest retail stores — as the likely candidate for a mix of Kingston Bookshop operations and commercial rental space similar to what the company has adopted in Portmore, St Catherine, with the Script Cafe. The location is particularly significant given its position along one of downtown Kingston’s main retail corridors, where a large volume of shopping activity is concentrated. “One option under active consideration is expanding our retail footprint at 74 King Street, while another property may incorporate a mix of Kingston Bookshop operations and commercial rental space, similar to the mixed-use approach we have successfully adopted at our 31 East Plaza location in Portmore,” she said. The possible expansion downtown comes after Kingston Bookshop closed its Boulevard location earlier this year, but Fuller Clarke said that decision should not be read as a pullback from physical retail. She told the Business Observer that stores remain Kingston Bookshop’s largest sales channel, even as wholesale contributes more and online purchasing continues to grow. “The two decisions should not be viewed as Kingston Bookshop moving away from physical retail. They reflect our ongoing assessment of how and where we deploy our resources across the business,” she said. “Our physical stores remain our largest sales channel, while B2B now represents approximately 25 per cent of sales and continues to grow. We are also steadily seeing increased purchasing through our e-commerce platform.” Kingston Bookshop is continuing to invest across those three areas, but Fuller Clarke said expansion will be driven by where the company sees a commercial case rather than simply adding more locations. “Our focus is not expansion simply for the sake of adding locations. We are looking at how we can strengthen the business across our retail, B2B, and digital channels while improving the customer experience and the efficiency of our operations,” she said. That investment is being made at a time when one of Kingston Bookshop’s most important retail periods has produced little growth. Fuller Clarke disclosed that revenue from the company’s stores during the 2026 back-to-school period was broadly similar to 2025 and, after accounting for inflation, the company considers sales relatively flat year on year. The company continues to see strong demand for early childhood and primary-level material, including supplementary resources for Primary Exit Profile preparation, but purchasing at the secondary level has become more selective. Parents have access to the Government’s textbook rental programme, second-hand books, online resources, and are increasingly deciding which items must be bought immediately and which can wait. “Given the cost of preparing children for school, particularly for households with more than one child, parents are understandably making very deliberate choices about what they purchase,” Fuller Clarke said. According to the company, workbooks and other books considered essential tend to be purchased first, while stationery and other supplies are sometimes bought later. The company is also reporting a rise in parents choosing to pay for purchases in instalments. “We have also seen more parents taking advantage of our lay-away programme, which allows them to make a deposit and pay towards their purchases over time,” Fuller Clarke said. “That provides families with another way of managing the cost of back-to-school preparation without having to meet the entire expense at once.” The investment at Lyndhurst Road also leaves Kingston Bookshop with additional capacity that could eventually support more business outside Jamaica as well. The company has previously supplied special orders to customers in smaller Caribbean islands, although Jamaica remains its main wholesale market. Fuller Clarke reasoned that while the new facility puts Kingston Bookshop in a better position to pursue opportunities elsewhere in the region, the cost of distribution will determine how aggressively it moves. “The cost of moving stock across the Caribbean can be significant, so both demand and logistics are important considerations in determining where and how we expand. We, therefore, see the Caribbean as an area of opportunity, but one where expansion has to be driven by sustainable demand and commercially viable distribution arrangements,” she said.