24-hour bookstore: book + coffee + cultural and creative products business model

For readers who like to read at night, books are an integral part of their lives. "Books are Life" Bookstore provides pictures

Night reading scene in Sanlian Taofen bookstore. Photo taken by our reporter Han Dong

On July 29, the national 24-hour seminar on innovation and development of bookstores was held in Beijing, which was the first gathering of representatives of 11 24-hour bookstores across the country. At this seminar, heads of bookstores such as Beijing Sanlian Taofen 24-hour Bookstore, Hangzhou "Yueshu" 24-hour Bookstore and Shenzhen Book City 24-hour Bookstore sat together to discuss the business model of 24-hour bookstore, sustainable development and the transformation and upgrading of physical bookstores. In the words of Fan Xi'an, deputy general manager of China Publishing Media Co., Ltd. And former general manager of Life Reading Xinzhi Sanlian Bookstore, "it connects us 24 hours a day."

At the one-day seminar, a reporter from China News and Publishing News noted that although only 11 24-hour bookstores attended the meeting, the special service introduction of each bookstore basically covered the current appearance of the national 24-hour bookstore. Not only that, a number of 24-hour bookstores and book bars have been born one after another, so 24-hour bookstores are called a cultural phenomenon.

Birth: depends on the good policy of the country

Taking a comprehensive view of the 24-hour bookstore across the country, the first to detonate the concept of 24-hour bookstore is the life reading new knowledge Sanlian bookstore. At 5: 00 p.m. on April 4, Sanlian Bookstore posted a few words on its own media, such as Douban.com Sanlian Station and Sanlian Bookstore Weibo, which immediately aroused widespread public attention: "it's spring, the late night of the spring breeze, the cinema is cleared, and the store is closed." we have a desk and a lamp here for people who love to read and think-stay here as long as you want. " "when the city enters midnight, the bookstore is the light." There are not many words, but it is not only a prelude to the opening of a 24-hour bookstore in Sanlian Bookstore, but also a prelude to the birth of 24-hour bookstores in various places in the future.

Talking about the reasons for the successful opening of Beijing Sanlian Taofen 24-hour bookstore, Zhang Zuozhen, deputy general manager of Sanlian Bookstore, believes that it is the result of a series of favorable policies successively issued by the state. Zhang Zuozhen said that at the end of last year, the state issued a policy of exempting physical bookstores from 13% value-added tax, and Sanlian Taofen Bookstore received 1 million yuan of special funds for the development of the central cultural industry. this fund provides economic support for the transformation and upgrading of Beijing Sanlian Taofen Bookstore.

On April 23, Beijing Sanlian Taofen 24-hour bookstore officially opened after trial opening, becoming the first 24-hour bookstore in Beijing. Just as the eyes of the national media focused on this time, the Xinhua Bookstore on Jiefang Road, located on Youth Road in Hangzhou on May 18, also heard the news of opening a 24-hour study. This study, called "Yuetan Tree", soon became a "cultural dating place" for young people in Hangzhou and attracted the attention of the society again. Since then, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Qingdao, Zhengzhou, Xi'an. For more than three months, the news of opening 24-hour bookstores, whether from state-owned publishing and distribution enterprises or from private entity bookstores, has sprung up one after another, resulting in the birth of this cultural phenomenon.

With regard to the birth of the 24-hour bookstore, Wang Meng, a famous writer, commented on the official opening of the 24-hour bookstore in Beijing on April 23: "it is a blessing for all of us that there are better and better bookstores in Beijing."

Exploration: a model for the transformation and upgrading of bookstores

With the impact of the current network era, publishing and distribution enterprises in urgent need of transformation and upgrading has been put on the agenda of many enterprise leaders, how to transform book distribution enterprises? How to upgrade? Opening a 24-hour bookstore may be an experimental model.

Wang Zhongyi, chairman and general manager of Zhejiang Xinhua Bookstore Group Co., Ltd., said: "in fact, we have been struggling with how to transform and upgrade physical bookstores several years ago. Simply extending the business hours of the bookstore is not a solution. " A few years later, a solution came out, which was to open a 24-hour bookstore, and what helped Wang Zhongyi make up his mind was the addition of Phoebe Cafe, a private company. Wang Zhongyi said, "if the two families don't cooperate and I alone do it, to be honest, it's very difficult for me to make up my mind. If a coffee bar is open all night, I think it will be very difficult for him to do it. But if the two families do it together, it will be done. "

In Wang Zhongyi's view, if a bookstore does not sell books, it will not be called a bookstore, and it is very difficult for a bookstore to sell only books. So today, when the business of physical bookstores is quite challenging, the two sides have jointly launched a 24-hour study, hoping to retain more people reading for Hangzhou at night.

Shen Yi, general manager of Phoebe Cafe, deeply agrees with this. "We want to promote the return of a paper-based culture," Shen said. I think the paper-based culture will return sooner or later. How can we lead this return today? What I think of is to create an environment in which people who like to read books can sit down and read at night, and people who do not like reading can also want to take a book and sit there after seeing this environment. "

Today, the 24-hour "Yuetan Tree" study in Hangzhou, which carries good wishes, has been open for more than two months. with regard to the sales situation that operators are most concerned about, Wang Zhongyi's view is that the current focus should not be on sales growth, because 24-hour bookstores cultivate a cultural value greater than economic value. 24-hour bookstore is a testing ground for cooperation between Xinhua Bookstore and private capital, and may be a model for Xinhua Bookstore to explore transformation and upgrading.

Service: building a public reading system

Positioning the book bar as a combination of business and industry, which is not only operational, but also has a strong public welfare. It is Yin Changlong, general manager of Shenzhen Publishing and Distribution Group, who puts forward that the 24-hour bookstore can be part of the construction of urban public cultural service system. Taking the 24-hour book bar in Shenzhen Book City as an example, Yin Changlong introduced its process from losing money for five years to turning losses into profits.

In 2006, Shenzhen Book Mall opened. In the mode of the combination of the big book city and the characteristic bookstore, the 24-hour book bar was born with the Shenzhen Book City. What Yin Changlong and others did not expect is that the 24-hour book bar continued to lose money in the first five years, and the Central Book City can only be made up for by other aspects of income. The turnaround comes from the change of the business model of 24-hour book bar in the past 3 years. In Yin Changlong's view, the profit point of the book bar is that it solves the problem of supporting services for readers.

Let the book bar have the smell of smoke and fire in the world. Yin Changlong believes that this is the biggest difference between the book bar and the bookstore. From the simple smell of books in the book bar to the smell of coffee and bread, this supporting service is exactly what readers can accept and need.

Yin Changlong believes that a developed public cultural service system emphasizes convenience and provides services anytime and anywhere, and the 24-hour book bar is precisely in line with this characteristic. One is that it is always. In the middle of the night, the bookstore is closed, and the 24-hour book bar can provide the service of buying and reading books. Second, it is random. Every city can not have a large book city, but there can be a lot of book bars, which can appear at home at any time in a relatively light and flexible way to meet the needs of residents and readers. From now on, the problem of public cultural services is the imbalance of resources, especially in some remote areas, the flexible and convenient characteristics of book bars can effectively solve the problem of equalization of public cultural services.

"opening a bookstore is different from opening a rice shop, a vegetable store and a fruit store. The difference is that the bookstore has the meaning of the soul. The government should take the book bar as part of the construction of the whole city's public cultural service system. " Yin Changlong called.

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24-hour bookstore memorabilia

1. On November 1, 2006, Shenzhen Book City opened its 24-hour book bar. The longest 24-hour bookstore in mainland China has spanned nearly eight years, with a record of 65000 hours without lights out or closing.

2. In March 2012, Shanghai Volkswagen Book Company Fuzhou Road Store began to "do not close". There were only five deals between dawn and dawn on the first day of business, but its continued operation has already had a group of die-hard fans.

3. On April 23, 2014, Beijing Sanlian Taofen 24-hour bookstore officially opened after a trial period of more than half a month, becoming the first 24-hour bookstore in Beijing, bringing the concept of 24-hour bookstore on fire.

4. On May 18, 2014, Hangzhou Xinhua Bookstore also received the news of opening a 24-hour study. The 24-hour bookstore, called Yuetan Tree, soon became a "cultural dating place" for young people in Hangzhou.

5. On May 24, 2014, outside an inconspicuous orange building on the east side of Tianming intersection of Songzhai South Street in Zhengzhou, the Book is Life Bookstore officially opened as a 24-hour open bookstore.

6. On June 21, 2014, Han-Tang Book City and Wanbang Book City in Jiahui, Shaanxi Province, launched a 24-hour trial operation. Jiahui Hantang Book City Xiaozhai shop is open 24 hours every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and Wanbang Book City Xiaozhai store is open 24 hours every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. The two book cities work together to complete a 24-hour round-the-clock "Wanjia Night Reading".

7. At 0: 00 on July 12, 2014, 1200bookshop, a 24-hour bookstore on Sports East Road, Guangzhou, opened.

8. On the evening of July 18, 2014, Mingshu Island, the first 24-hour bookstore in Shandong Province, was unveiled on the second floor of Qingdao Book City.

Where is the profit point of the 24-hour bookstore?

On July 29, representatives of 11 24-hour bookstores across the country made their first collective appearance at the national 24-hour bookstore innovation and development seminar. At the meeting, how to find a better profit point for the 24-hour bookstore? It is the topic that the participants are most concerned about.

A reporter from China News and Publishing News noted that the three business models of Beijing Sanlian Taofen 24-hour Bookstore, Hangzhou "Yueshu" 24-hour Bookstore and Shenzhen Book City 24-hour Bookstore are relatively mature. They generally join hands with private capital and operate in bundles with coffee shops and creative products, which is considered to be an effective model accepted by both readers and operators. this business model basically represents the development trend of today's 24-hour bookstores.

For the purpose of implementing this business model, the words of Zhang Zuozhen, deputy general manager of Life Reading Xinzhi Sanlian Bookstore, are representative: "compared with e-commerce, physical bookstores have no advantages in variety, price and purchasing convenience. Readers come to the bookstore not only to buy books, but also to experience a cultural way of life, and what we need to do is to provide readers with a comfortable environment, cordial and intimate service, and to create a high-quality platform for thinking and communication. let them fully enjoy the fun of visiting the bookstore, so that they can continue to attract readers to patronize. "

Let people change into passenger flow, let passenger flow into customers, is undoubtedly the purpose of the above three 24-hour bookstores to implement the business model of book + coffee + cultural and creative products. In the view of the operators of the three bookstores, if the three difficult problems of letting readers into the store, being able to stay after coming in, and being willing to spend after being retained can be solved, the 24-hour bookstore, big or small, can survive.

Accordingly, the detailed services and concept services provided by the 24-hour bookstores are also worth studying. "We require that as long as there is a reader, nine salespeople will serve the reader." Zhang Zuozhen revealed the mystery. "in the past, we used to hold activities during the day on Saturdays and Sundays, but now we hold reader meetings and book signing activities consciously after 8: 00 or 9: 00 p.m., and the results are very good." Xu Yue, deputy general manager of Zhejiang Xinhua Bookstore Group Co., Ltd. And manager of Hangzhou Xinhua Bookstore, also has his own tricks.

"opening a 24-hour bookstore is not a simple extension of time, but a change in business philosophy." Wang Zhongyi, chairman and general manager of Zhejiang Xinhua Bookstore Group Co., Ltd., was right to the point.

Indeed, from the operating effect, the performance of Beijing Sanlian Taofen 24-hour bookstore is eye-catching. As of July 27, 2014, Beijing Sanlian Taofen 24-hour bookstore has a total retail sales of 2.2 million yuan at night, with an average of 20,000 yuan at night; 4.73 million yuan during the day, with an average daily sales of 43000 yuan; and a total retail sales of 6.93 million yuan, with daily retail sales of 63000 yuan. The total net profit of Sanlian Bookstore in the first six months of this year was 1.57 million yuan, 3.78 times that of last year. Such a good performance is unmatched by other 24-hour bookstores, and its innovative spirit has won the approval of other attendees.

On the basis of the business model of book + coffee + creative products, where is the future of 24-hour bookstore? The reporter noticed that innovation is undoubtedly a topic that can not be avoided all the time. Yin Changlong, general manager of Shenzhen Publishing and Distribution Group, suggested that the 24-hour bookstore is not only a bookstore with human fireworks. It should also be a platform for communication, a platform for gathering creative products, a space for public cultural activities, and a space for literary and artistic activities.

From the reporter's point of view, this proposal will undoubtedly enrich the connotation of the 24-hour bookstore. After all, the 24-hour bookstore is born due to social needs, as long as the business model meets the needs of readers, readers will not abandon it.