Eight bookstores opened in Beijing in eight years, the last three closed recently


  "Yanjiyou·Today's Reading" Becomes the Yellow Flower of Tomorrow


  In 2014, Yanji's first store in Beijing, "Reading Today", opened in Chuangye Street, Zhongguancun, Haidian District; by the end of 2018, Yanji opened a total of 8 stores in Beijing, realizing Dongcheng, Xicheng, Haidian, Chaoyang, The main urban areas of Daxing and Changping are fully covered.

Today, 8 years later, news of the closing of Yanji's last few stores in the capital - Liangmaqiao Guanshe Store, Wukesong Store and Financial Street Store has been reported one after another.

The closing of 8 stores one after another means that Yanji has withdrawn from Beijing across the board.

  After several setbacks, on July 5, a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily called a store in Yanjiyou's headquarters in Chengdu.

The operator confirmed that Yanjiyou’s stores in Beijing had indeed been closed and retreated, and Yanjiyou’s Chengdu headquarters was relocated to Tianfu New District.

  visit

  The last three stores have been closed

  In the "Nationwide Store Address" column of Yanjiyou's official WeChat account, the address navigation and store display photos of the three stores in Beijing Guanshe, Financial Street and Wukesong are also published.

But in reality, they are all closed.

  On the evening of June 24, a reporter from Beiqing Daily saw at Yanjiyou’s store in Guanshe shopping mall next to Liangmaqiao subway station that a notice posted by the property department of Guanshe South District on June 18, 2022 stated that Guanshe The lessee Yanjiyou's contract has expired and has withdrawn from the Guanshe South District project.

A clerk of a nearby clothing store said, "This Yanjiyou bookstore has closed for more than a month! Most of the books in it have been moved." The person in charge of the shopping mall property company, surnamed Yang, introduced, "Yan Ji You's contract in the official residence expires on May 15, which is a normal termination."

  At 17:00 on June 25th, a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily came to Huaxi LIVE Wukesong Commercial Complex and saw that the door of the "Yanjiyou·Today's Reading" bookstore was locked. The company's letter of termination of the lease contract to Beijing Yanjiyou Cultural Services Co., Ltd.

The notification letter stated that Yanji has long-term defaults such as arrears, and as of June 14, 2022, owed more than 548,000 yuan in rent and property fees.

  In the afternoon of the same day, a reporter from Beiqing Daily visited Yanjiyou Beijing Financial Street store located in Fuxingmen Financial Street Shopping Center in Xicheng District, and also found that the door of the store was locked, and a notice to readers and customers was posted on the fence next to it, saying that because of The lease with the mall has expired, and the bookstore is scheduled to close on March 26, 2022.

  investigation

  Beijing Yanji is involved in another 51 lawsuits

  According to public information, in 2006, Yan Jiyou's predecessor, Today Reading Bookstore, was founded in Chengdu.

Since 2008, Reading Today began to enter the commercial center and expanded to Beijing, Shanghai, Kunming and other cities.

Yanjiyou is positioned as an urban innovative cultural and life integrated store, which mainly provides comprehensive cultural services for urban youth aged 18 to 40, and provides new design-led new lifestyle products for the new generation of young people on this basis. , such as new food, new accessories, new home, new ornaments, new animation products, new sex toys, etc., is committed to creating an urban cultural space covering bookstores, cafes, art galleries, cultural and creative living halls, and creative incubation places.

According to the information of "Qichacha", Sichuan Yanjiyou Cultural Communication Co., Ltd. was established in October 2014 and has completed 4 rounds of financing. The investors include well-known institutions such as Jingdong Technology and Xinghan Capital. The total financing amount is about 240 million yuan. .

  Also in 2014, Yanji opened its first store in Beijing, "Reading Today". The store is located in Chuangye Street, Zhongguancun, Haidian District. In 2016, it opened its first flagship store in Daxing.

By the end of 2018, Yanji had opened a total of 8 stores in Beijing, covering the main urban areas of Dongcheng, Xicheng, Haidian, Chaoyang, Daxing and Changping.

  Eight years later, Yanji not only exposed the arrears of funds in Beijing, but also involved many lawsuits.

According to the "Qichacha" platform, Beijing Yanjiyou Cultural Service Co., Ltd. was involved in 51 legal lawsuits, 19 business risks, and 11 sensitive public opinions.

Corporate legal persons are also listed as dishonest persons subject to execution, and as many as 11 records of high consumption are restricted.

  The "Qichacha" APP also shows that the total amount of newly executed cases in several subsidiaries of the Yanjiyou brand exceeds 23.73 million yuan, and most of the related cases are sales contract disputes.

  reason

  The rapid opening of the store leads to a break in the capital chain

  Beijing is not the first city that Yanjiyou has withdrawn across the board.

According to public information, in November 2021, the second black gold flagship store in the country, the Yanjiyou Guangzhou K11 store, announced the withdrawal of the store, and Yanji withdrew from Guangzhou; in April 2022, the last store in the Xiamen area of ​​Yanjiyou announced the withdrawal. Store; in mid-May, the last store of Yanjiyou in Hangzhou, Hangzhou Joy City store, was revealed to be closing soon, and the store has been officially withdrawn; in June, all stores in Yanjiyou’s Xi’an area were withdrawn...

  At present, there are only 6 stores left in the "Yanjiyouyundian" applet.

  He Qicong, an associate professor at the Institute of Cultural Innovation and Communication of Beijing Normal University, who has long been engaged in the study of the physical bookstore business, said that Yanji went from an online celebrity bookstore to a sad departure from Yanji. He said that Yanji was backed by capital to quickly open a store— It is said that the founder of Yanjiyou once said that he would "quickly open 100 stores in 16 cities across the country".

A common method for such a rapidly expanding consumer brand is to quickly build offline consumer terminals in core cities across the country, and accordingly quickly expand the total asset plate in order to seek more financing or even go public.

Some reports pointed out that Yanji mostly relies on external funds for blood supply, and when investors cannot wait for a return, they lose the patience to continue investing.

The break in the capital chain is estimated to be the direct cause of Yanji's large-scale closures.

  way out

  Bookstores should not only have appearance but also content

  What enlightenment does Yanji's withdrawal from first-tier cities across the country bring to the chain bookstore format?

He Qicong believes that, in the final analysis, the core of bookstores is to provide high-quality cultural services for reading and books.

Without this core, the advantages of physical bookstores that are different from other consumption spaces will cease to exist.

  "In the end, in Beijing, a cultural center with high-quality bookstores, if there is no clear and differentiated profit model and brand positioning, and there is a lack of unique cultural services for reading, it will only attract attention with high-investment exterior design and decoration, except because it is beautiful. In addition to attracting tourists to check-in online red stores, it is difficult to retain readers and stay in consumption. If things go on like this, high investment and low output (consumption) in expensive locations do not match, it is estimated that it is difficult for investors to continue to maintain the investment rhythm. Unfortunately, Such a bookstore brand with countless fans." He Qicong said frankly.

  In He Qicong's view, SKP RENDEZ-VOUS, pageone, Zhongshuge, Yonghe Shuting and other bookstores do better in terms of comfortable environment and exciting content to achieve high-quality cultural consumption complexes. These well-known bookstores in Beijing hold hundreds of exhibitions every year. Output of public reading cultural activities.

Each of them has created a unique industry profit point through "bookstore +" cross-industry cooperation, government cultural service procurement, and exporting cultural space models for enterprises.

Another example is Jiantou Bookstore Guomao Store, which is backed by the parent company's background in the financial investment field, and has developed a series of courses related to investment and wealth management, financial strategy, etc., which are very attractive to adult customers in Beijing and Shanghai.

"You must know that for independent bookstores, the cost of developing a course is quite expensive. Because there is only one store, it is impossible to quickly return to the book. However, chain bookstores, with their advantages in layout across the country, can outsource the developed courses to the whole country. Chain stores around the world carry out tour learning lectures for repeated use, so as to dilute the cost and speed up the return of profits.” CITIC Bookstore relies on the rich content resources and copyright resources of CITIC Publishing to expand online reading and knowledge payment, and the profit model is also very clear. long.

  At the same time, He Qicong emphasized that the impact of the new crown epidemic has lasted longer than people imagined, and the difficulties of offline bookstores are inevitable. Bookstore brands that refuse to develop online and offline integrated products, only focus on the form of the space environment, and do not practice internal skills are inevitable. Will be eliminated, "We can regard this period as an opportunity for the industry to reshuffle. Looking back on this experience many years later, the real survivors will be the best with high quality, tenacious vitality and a clear development operation model. bookstore."

  Text/Coordinator by reporter Zhang Enjie/Liu Jianghua