Source of header image: IC photo
If you live in an island and can only keep three things, what would you choose?
This is a long-running story, and it has many similar questions.
This is a question often mentioned since people were young, whether in books, in class, or on television. Except for some clever answers, it is generally accepted as the “correct answer” or “standard answer”. Be sure to include books.
During the epidemic, the metaphor of “Desert Island Asking Questions” has been reflected realistically. What are the necessities of the “Desert Island” segregated at home?
Masks, disinfectants, food, fruits and vegetables, game consoles … On these living soils, different flowers will naturally grow.
Mr. Fu, who is holding the “Origin of Political Order” in his hospital bed, has been given special significance from an external perspective;
On the other side, the one-way space bookstore made a voice of “going out of loneliness and defending the bookstore”, bluntly requiring “crowdfunding to continue life.”
After the whole society entered a special state of tightness and emotional tension due to the epidemic situation, many things that were neglected in the quiet life of the past and covered up in the noisy voices became apparent.
The status quo of physical bookstores, especially independent bookstores, is also a manifestation. We can clearly find that the “help cycle” of independent bookstores and publishing institutions has become shorter in recent years.
Bookstore clearance requests, social crowdfunding assistance, and good luck can have official support-these years, the story of independent bookstores is almost so “dying” and “holding.”
What does the existence of a physical bookstore mean? When did the alienation of an independent bookstore begin? Where is the bookstore business going?
1. Feelings of an independent bookstore, a book retail business
In a one-way space call for help, it is estimated that due to the epidemic, bookstore revenue in February is expected to decline by more than 80% compared to previous years. The only shop left is “Only 15 books can be sold on average every day, half of which are bought by colleagues who love books as they are.”
Xu Zhiyuan specially recorded the audio for help. After the article was published, in addition to the huge volume of transmission and response, there were alsoMany questioned the suspicion of harvesting.
The bookstore industry is essentially a business.
What’s the basic reaction of a store in a difficult business situation, and it needs cash flow urgently?
Clearing out inventory, so the crisis of bookstores in these years is often accompanied by promotions of clearance and discounts.
And in the “crowdfunding plan” of one-way street (also known as self-help member plan) There are no other publications besides Reading.
Although it is called “membership plan”, crowdfunding in one-way space is actually a composite product of “stored value card + membership service”.
Nanjing Pioneer Bookstore also successively launched the “173 Reading Alliance” event of “Bundled Books + Offline Activities”, and the follow-up “storage card + study tours” similar to the one-way space.
In essence, this is a type of prepaid consumption, commonly known as “card processing”. The crux of the so-called “consumption feelings” is actually here.
During the epidemic, the survival of bookstores is very grim.
On February 5th, the China Physical Book Alliance Book Meng once conducted a survey on the status of bookstores and found that 85.84% of the bookstores did not have any source of income after closing. If the epidemic continues, 77.62% of bookstores persist for less than three months. 73.94% of bookstores believe that even if they resume business, their income will not reach half of their previous level.
But in fact, the survival dilemma of independent bookstores has always been hidden in the domestic book retail industry.
The Report on the Physical Bookstore Industry in China 2019-2020 shows that there are more than 500 bookstores closed in China in 2019, but the number of newly opened bookstores exceeds 4,000.
This seems to conflict with our impression that the bookstores in the market are gradually disappearing, the popularity of e-commerce books, and the bookstore industry is not making money?
The report also describes three prominent features of the bookstore industry in 2019:
First, influenced by the policy, campus bookstores, especially college bookstores, have become the focus of construction, and rural bookstores and community bookstores have flourished. This is partly a policy-oriented result and has a strong public nature;
The second is the upgrade of traditional bookstores in physical bookstores.The transformation has been intensified. Many state-owned Xinhua bookstores have invested a lot of money to carry out bookstore environmental transformation and function enhancement. This is the transformation of large state-owned bookstores;
Third, the construction of large book cities is still continuing, and some large book cities have been completed and put into use. This is the policy orientation of “urban landmarks”.
On the other hand, in the entire publishing industry, Jiao Fu cannot be ignored.
Unlike other publications, from the perspective of demand resolution, Jiao Fu is closer to standardized products, and the large-scale profit of individual books is very impressive. According to data, Jiao Fu ’s market share in the entire publishing industry About 20%, but it accounts for about 60% of the profits of the entire publishing industry.
For the teaching aid market, due to the particularity of the education system, although it is facing the impact of online education and quality education, the industry standardization is relatively more mature, and the teaching aid market still has strong stability.
At the county level, apart from the state-owned Xinhua Bookstore, the best business must be a bookstore selling teaching aids next to the school.
Queen Xiong, English Weekly, Five-year College Entrance Examination, Three-year Simulation, Huang Gang dense scroll, Xiao Xiurong, Xu Tao … This is the road to education “advanced equipment” that is difficult for students in the domestic education system to avoid. .
The National Publication Development Industry Report 2019 shows that in 2018, the total sales of national publications were 374.379 billion yuan, an increase of 1.08% year-on-year; the total profit was 28.283 billion yuan, a decrease of 36.15% year-on-year; the sales volume of online publications was 596.65 100 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.75%, accounting for 15.94% of the total national publication sales.
The top 20 distribution units for sales of publications achieved sales of 115.824 billion yuan, accounting for 31.49% of the country’s total sales of publications. Among them, 16 are Xinhua Bookstores, 2 are online bookstores (Jingdong, Dangdang) , 1 is a postal company, and 1 is a book import and export the company.
Slow scale growth, severe profit decline, high industry concentration, and prominent state-run dominance … This is the basic reality of the current domestic publishing industry.
In addition, due to rising paper prices and stricter review of book numbers, average book market prices have risen; on the other hand, physical and digital simultaneous releaseIt has also become a new trend in book publishing. (CITIC Publishing is a representative) .
Coupled with the impact of e-readers such as Kindle and various reading software, the tendency of price-first consumption has further worsened the sales of physical books.
The profit of the publishing industry has been difficult to grow on the content itself. After all, even digital copyright and publishing giants such as reading and palm reading are extending to the IP industry chain.
After clearing these more panoramic perspectives, and then look at the details, it will be easier to understand the business status of independent bookstores.
A bookstore has fallen, and people haven’t found books in it, and nobody cares.
2. Business boundaries of independent bookstores
After understanding book retail, we naturally deduce such a conclusion:
Selling books cannot save an independent bookstore, and I am afraid that independent bookstores do not make money by selling books.
The independent bookstore is the most modern market segment of the book retail industry. It is characterized by “starting with books and taking space as the core”-space experience, cultural activities, cultural and creative products, and even some online community services. And so on, the added value of cultural services that extend around “books.”
This is a cultural interpretation of the different dimensions of reading space, reflecting the independent bookstore’s alienation towards the complex “cultural landmark”.
The relationship between bookstores and commercial real estate is also very deep between urban space and commerce.
Beijing Kaiju has measured the single store cost of small and medium-sized bookstores after the survey. Taking a 500 square meter bookstore as an example, the monthly turnover is 300,000 yuan. After deducting various expenses, the expected net profit is only 0.9 million .
(Bookstore Cost Calculation, Beijing Open Book)
Among them, rent will be the largest long-term cost. Some bookstores admit that rent accounts for nearly 50% of the total cost.
In the epidemic situation, many physical bookstores are facing a situation where revenues have basically stagnated, but still need to pay fixed costs such as rent and labor.
Shu Meng’s survey analysis report shows that the main projects of small and medium-sized bookstores are still single, relying mainly on books and stationery to generate revenue.
(The main project of the bookstore under investigation, bookstore)
On the other hand, independent bookstores with brands have the cost advantage of commercial real estate partners, and it is easier to obtain policy subsidies. Compared with small and medium bookstores, the risk is more controllable.
Siwei’s chairman Jin Weizhu once revealed that Sisyph’s rental cost accounts for no more than 10% of revenue. This is a long-term lease between bookstores and shopping malls. Don’t worry about rent increases for at least 8-10 years. This is lacking. Small and medium bookstores with brand power cannot be compared.
After the outbreak, many national commercial real estates have given rent reductions and preferential conditions,
Analysis of the book Meng, the conditions for the brand chain bookstores to enter the commercial complex are generally superior to those of ordinary small and medium-sized physical bookstores. They adopt low rents or commission deduction points or even phased rent-free policies. The actual impact of rent factors on these bookstores is not significant. Big.
In terms of billing period, the brand bookstore’s billing period is generally half-yearly or annually, and there is not much pressure on the supplier’s payment. Benefiting from the high density of commercial real estate, operating cash flow should not be a problem for manpower expenditure; , Well-known bookstores can generally get the city’s governmentIn Beijing, for example, 239 bookstores have received relevant support policies. Some well-known chain bookstores have multiple stores on the list, and it is inferred that they can receive more than one million yuan in subsidies.
Thus, the most difficult situation for independent bookstores is small and medium-sized bookstores with low visibility.
Returning to Sisyphus, Fangsuo, Unidirectional Space, Pioneer and other well-known independent bookstores, you can find the entanglement between these bookstores and commercial real estate, as well as the commercial characteristics that are alienated from it.
As mentioned earlier, large commercial real estate developers are willing to give these well-known independent bookstores very high rental discounts, and even periodic rent reductions.
For the real estate side, the existence of these bookstores has a similar role to cinemas, large supermarkets, Starbucks, and even Hermès, Prada, LV and other stores.
A commercial real estate building located in the center of the city, without a “style” independent bookstore, is as unimaginable as a movie theater and a luxury store.
To some extent, these independent stores are also developing a new kind of cultural luxury after “consumption space”.
If you want to read a book, buy it on Kindle, download it in mobile phone reading software, and buy online in e-commerce, it is very fast and affordable, and after crowded crowds, go to the CBD to buy, in fact, more There is a posture of “assumption”.
Urban people are enjoying a kind of coffee after shopping, watching movies and walking to one-way spaces, Sisyphus, and other independent bookstores. It is an occasional near-field event of public figures and cultural celebrities. The theme cultural event organized by the bookstore may also make friends.
The independent bookstore, this “urban cultural space” that has been alienated from a simple bookstore, has become part of the overall cultural experience in commercial real estate.
The books bought by independent bookstores should be put in the Prada shoulder bag that I just bought.
In recent years, cultural and creative businesses derived from independent bookstores have also become very common. In addition to stationery and other stationery, some daily necessities have also been culturally labelled excessively.
Some excerpts, joint backpacks, slippers of the same style ……… “form is bigger than content” is a cultural creation that is comparable to stealing money.
(Thirteen expensive gift boxes with slippers)
Like the “Island Questioning” we did at the beginning, the worship of books has become a social norm, and in the pursuit of consistency with others, it has become part of self-social identity.
Finally, book worship is internalized into a social morality, even if it is only formal.
In this process, universal cultural worship is more manifested as self-presentation, and people show their inner taste or cultural identity through something more obvious.
Goffman believes that the more special value things are recognized and appreciated, the more and more worthless things will be faked.
Calendars, bookmarks, handbooks, canvas bags … The popular online celebrity cultural and creative products and check-in locations in recent years are all in line with this cultural psychology and are an ideal self-presentation. .
Even books, bookstores themselves have been, ever, now, and in the future, tools for self-presentation.
From this point of view, independent bookstores use books as the center to build a cultural space, and extend the strategy of cultural experiences such as cultural and creative products, catering, and events. In fact, they are catering to the surface presentation needs of such consumption spaces.
In addition, branded independent bookstores are moving towards membership (storage value cards) , which helps to bundle core audiences .
For a bookstore, the entrant is actually a “visitor” identity. After buying and paying, they become “users.”
I am at ” Life and Death of Content Paid “ mentions that what people pay is not even the value of the content itself, and this also applies to the payment strategy of independent bookstores.
The independent bookstore is not just a place to sell books, but has become a content product that integrates retail, cultural interpretation, space life, and community services.
But the difference between the form of stored value card and content payment is that content payment is generally a “buy and get” transaction behavior, while the prepaid form of stored value card has disguised financing. Suspect.
The “Administrative Measures for Single-Purpose Commercial Prepaid Cards (Trial)” promulgated and implemented in 2012 clearly stipulates that companies issuing single-purpose prepaid cards should file records in a timely manner, provide financial status information, and provide part of the funds received in advance (20%) Entrust commercial banks to conduct supervision to curb over-issues and over-issues by card issuers and reduce the risk of funds received in advance.
In addition, at the end of 2019, Beijing’s seven departments drafted the “Opinions on Strengthening the Management of Prepaid Consumer Markets (Draft for Solicitation of Comments)”, detailing prepaid consumption in various fields such as retail, education, catering, and tourism. Requirements, put forward different measures such as filing, security deposits, and disciplinary measures to strengthen the risk management of funds for prepaid consumption.
One-way space and Pioneer Bookstore’s stored-value cards all involve commercial prepaid card models in retail and cultural tourism. Under the trend of capital risk control to be applied to small, medium and micro enterprises, and in a wide range, it must also be considered. To policy compliance.
3. Story of the bookstore
Borges said: “If there is a paradise in the world, it should look like a library.”
The survival of the independent bookstore has led to the thinking that do we still need physical cultural space?
This is related to another important question. Can cultural space really nurture culture?
“Desert Island Question” and “Paradise Library” are two assumptions of extreme situations, and their spread represents a kind of cultural worship among the crowd.
Bookstores are naturally a symbol of urban culture, butAs sex becomes more and more prominent, the bookstore business is not only a cultural issue related to books and publishing, but also involves wider business decisions-book cafes, communities, activities, study tours … … the boundaries of independent bookstores continue to widen.
Independent bookstores growing in the most prosperous commercial areas of the city, their existence is increasingly similar to luxury stores such as Hermès, Prada, and LV, building a brand sense similar to the latter, and expanding the consumer experience And the ceiling has become a new way of survival.
The significance of cultural space is that services extended from culture can naturally cultivate and guide the vision of public culture, rather than becoming a book-themed store.
In addition to branded independent bookstores, there are many small book cafes, record stores in small cities on the edge of the city or in third and fourth tier cities, and bookstores next to universities. They may have limited collections and few regular customers, but they are still A new story happened.
Like the Shakespeare bookstore that was once hidden in Paris, the letter whispers recorded at 84 Charing Cross Street in London, and the love affair witnessed by the Notting Hill bookstore, the story of the bookstore continues in secret until it is Find.
In the story of the readers meeting, the bookstore is a kind of romanticism regardless of age, and reading is a loneliness from life to death.
I thought of what Liang Wendao said: Modern loneliness is not a period, it is always a question mark.
Reference:
[1] The total number of bookstores in China exceeds 70,000. From “diversification” to “learning fields” Xinhua News Agency.
[2] How to make a small and medium bookstore profitable—costs. Beijing Kaiju. 2019.03.13
[3] The call of brick-and-mortar bookstores under the epidemic—A survey and analysis report of over 1,000 brick-and-mortar bookstores. Issue observation. 2020.02.05. Issue observation
[4] Sisyph’s trade secrets, unfinanced and unlisted, how to open 100 stores in 1 year. Economic Observer. 2019.05.18