UK SIC 2007 · 47610
Retail sale of books in specialised stores (SIC code 47610)
Retail sale of books in specialised stores is UK SIC code 47610. It sits in division 47 (Retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles) of the SIC 2007 list. On the August 2026 Companies House register, 2,373 active UK companies list 47610 among their SIC codes. 2,072 of them list it first.
Division 47 covers selling goods to the public. One code towers over it: 47910, retail via mail order or the internet. It is the default choice for the UK's huge ecommerce and marketplace-seller population. Other non-store selling uses 47990. Physical shops register by what they stock. Convenience and food stores use 47110, clothing 47710, pharmacies 47730, florists and pet shops 47760, and dozens more specialised-store codes exist. Market and stall traders have their own run of codes, 47810 to 47890. Mixed general stores fall into 47190. The code alone tells you how a retailer trades.
Related SIC codes
47300, Retail sale of automotive fuel in specialised stores47620, Retail sale of newspapers and stationery in specialised stores47230, Retail sale of fish, crustaceans and molluscs in specialised stores47722, Retail sale of leather goods in specialised stores47430, Retail sale of audio and video equipment in specialised storesWho prospects SIC 47610 companies
Few divisions get sold to this hard. Marketing and SEO agencies, payment providers, ecommerce platform resellers, fulfilment houses, courier account managers and bookkeepers all hunt retailers. The steady stream of new 47910 companies is the prize. Each one needs a storefront, payments and shipping on day one. Filing deadlines give accountants a natural opening for cleanup work. Growth between accounts hints at rising order volumes. A shop-based code plus the poor-website filter is a ready-made pitch for anyone selling ecommerce builds.
Lead generation for agency owners →How to read SIC 47610
SIC 47610 is a five-digit code, and the digits are not arbitrary. The first two, 47, are the division, retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles. Add the third and you have group 476; the fourth narrows it to a class, and the fifth to the subclass, which is the level Companies House actually asks a company to pick. The whole division sits under section G, wholesale and retail trade, the broadest tier there is. Reading a code left to right therefore goes from a whole sector down to one activity.
More on how SIC 47610 is built
A company chooses its own codes when it incorporates and can change them on any confirmation statement. It may list up to four, and Companies House does not check whether they are right. That is why 47610 is worth reading as a claim the company made about itself rather than as a verified fact, and why the first-position and any-position counts above differ.
Measured on the August 2026 register, the busiest registered-office post towns for 47610 are London (563), Manchester (49), Birmingham (42), Leicester (38) and Edinburgh (30). Those are registered-office locations, which is where the paperwork sits rather than necessarily where the work happens, so treat them as where to start looking rather than as a service area.
Using SIC 47610 as a filter
2,373 companies is 0.05 per cent of the 5,190,464 active companies on the UK register, and ranks 47610 36th most used of the 44 codes we track in division 47. That is the pool before any filter. Whether it is a big market for you depends on what you sell, but it is the number every other filter on this page cuts down from.
More on filtering by SIC 47610
Almost everybody who uses 47610 means it: 2,072 of 2,373 companies put it first, leaving only 301 carrying it as a secondary code. That makes it an unusually clean filter. You can match on the code alone and trust that the companies you get really are in this line of work.
These companies are spread out. London is the largest single cluster at 24 per cent and the top five post towns together hold only 30 per cent, so the remaining 70 per cent sits across the rest of the country. A regional filter narrows this list without gutting it, which makes it a reasonable code to work territory by territory.
In practice the code on its own is rarely the whole filter. Pair 47610 with an incorporation date to catch companies in their first months, when they are still choosing suppliers, or with a filing deadline to reach them while the year end is on their mind. A worked example for this code: 47610, registered office in London, incorporated in the last ninety days, which turns a 2,373 company pool into a list you can write to in an afternoon. Add the poor-website filter if what you sell is a website, or a recent change of officer if you sell to whoever just took the job. Every company you pull carries the Companies House record, the director's name, a verified website and a verified email, and the ones we cannot complete are not charged.
Where SIC 47610 clusters in the UK
ACTIVE COMPANIES BY REGISTERED-OFFICE POST TOWN · COMPANIES HOUSE REGISTER, AUGUST 2026
SIC 47610 companies, as leads
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About SIC 47610
How many UK companies use SIC code 47610?
2,373 active UK companies list 47610 (Retail sale of books in specialised stores) among their registered SIC codes. Each company may register up to four. Of those, 2,072 put it first. The figures come from the August 2026 Companies House register snapshot, and count active companies only.
Should my online shop use 47910 or the code for the products I sell?
Use 47910. It is the accepted code for retail over the internet, whatever you sell, and most online-only sellers pick it. The product codes such as 47710 describe specialised physical stores. If you trade both ways, register both. A company may hold up to four SIC codes. Pick them at incorporation, or amend them on a confirmation statement. There is no approval step.
I run a physical shop and also sell through my website. Which codes do I need?
Register the specialised-store code that matches your shop, such as 47710 for a clothing store. Then add 47910 for the online side. Companies House allows up to four codes per company, so covering both channels is easy and costs nothing. Update the mix on your CS01 confirmation statement whenever the business changes shape.
Find UK SIC 47610 companies
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