WH Smith is paying £9.4m for bookshop.co.uk, parent company of The Internet Bookshop, which offers 1.4m books for sale to customers on the Internet across the world.

Ordering via the Internet is big business

The deal marks the latest stage in the group's turnaround following last year's takeover approach by Tim Waterstone, which, although it was rebuffed, put the City spotlight on WH Smith's performance and triggered a massive restructuring programme.

And it comes just weeks after WH Smith's £68m purchase of the high street stores of rival John Menzies and the £300m sale of specialist bookshop arm Waterstone's to a consortium including EMI and Mr Waterstone, the chain's founder.

Unveiling The Internet Bookshop deal, WH Smith chief executive Richard Handover said: "The electronic commerce market is currently relatively small, but we expect it to develop significantly over the next few years.

"The WH Smith brand had good potential to trade competitively in this market, particularly as the customer base broadens."

Book lovers can now buy their books off the shelves and the Internet

Under the terms of the agreed deal, WH Smith is offering 265p cash per share, against 85p per share on Friday.

Bookshop.co.uk chairman Simon Preston said: "The offer by WH Smith is an attractive one for our shareholders, unlocking the value of bookshop.co.uk."

Its catalogue lists 1.4m books, 50,000 CDs, videos and computer games and last September it added 400,000 US titles to its database.

Bookshop.co.uk was formed in 1992 by Darryl Mattocks as an information technology consultancy and it began retailing on the Internet in 1994.

Three years later its shares were listed on the Ofex market for small, growing companies.

WH Smith said the on-line market for books was estimated at around £200m, expected to grow to £800m by the year 2000.