21:08, 29-Jan-2018
Book Store Rebirth: Brick-and-mortar shops see sales increase by 2.33% y-o-y
[]
Share
Copied
Traditional book stores are turning the tide. A report issued at the Beijing Book Fair says brick-and-mortar book shops saw sales increase by almost 2.5 percent year on year. It may be small, but it means after a decade of decline, the country's paper book market is recovering.
China's book shops have experienced ups and downs in the past 40 years. From 1978 to 1985 was a boom time. The types of paper books more than doubled. Total sheets printed rose 140 percent.
The downturn started from 2002. In the space of ten years, more than half of the book stores - or over 10 thousand of them- went bankrupt, as e-commerce and digital reading took off.
Government efforts to encourage reading gave book stores a new lease on life in 2013. Some even opened new branches.
In 2017, traditional book stores started to experiment with new types. For some, it was a theme like cats or coffee. Some invited the author of a book to interact with readers.