Interesting article rebutting the "Waterstones opens unbranded/secret/undercover/replace-with-your-preferred-adjectival-synonym-for-deceptive bookshops" at
https://www.marketingsociety.com/the-li ... -good-news. The sentence "Until recently, Rye, Harpenden and Southwold had no book shop." was the clincher for me.
In addition, I heard James Daunt, the MD of Waterstones, also the founder of the independent book retailer Daunt Books, interviewed on Radio 5 Live on Monday about this and he gave a cast-iron, no ifs, no buts assurance that Waterstones would never ever open a local brand bookshop (i.e. not branded over the door as Waterstones but as something like Southwold Books or The Rye Bookshop) in a location where there is already an independent bookseller.
The interview I heard is at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08g473j for about five minutes at 2:21:40 into the programme for the next 26 days. He was also on Radio 4's Today programme and that interview is at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08g4h89 for about five minutes at 2:39:05 into the programme for the next 25 days. I think both interviews are worth a listen if you're interested in this topic.