Physical bookstores need "blood transfusion" and more need "hematopoiesis"
"Last Saturday, our daily sales amounted to nearly 50,000 yuan, returning to the level before the epidemic." Zhu Bing, the store manager of the Xuhui store in Shanghai Zhongshuge, has some excitement. In order to meet the "World Book Day", this "China's most beautiful bookstore" launched a late-night study service from April 17 to May 7, and implemented a 40% discount on all books and cultural and creative products from 8 to 10 every night.
The Zhongshuge Xuhui store was born in 2018. Before that, it has never done any discount activities. It is possible to come up with such a strong promotional method, largely thanks to the recently released "Ten Measures to Promote Cultural Consumption" in Xuhui District. For bookstores, Xuhui District will grant a subsidy of 20% of the turnover of physical bookstore operating units whose total operating income reaches or exceeds 40,000 yuan during April and May 2020, with each bookstore not exceeding 100,000 yuan.
With these subsidies, it is tantamount to giving the bookstore an activity, and corresponding popularity. On the second day of the preferential activity, before the book sales approached the epidemic, the coffee break area also had a rare 100% attendance. This just reflects the original intention of this measure to promote cultural consumption: through subsidies, encourage physical bookstores to hold promotional activities, and drive the return of consumer groups. The government should not provide support like sprinkling pepper noodles, but use leverage to pry the market more precisely.
From the point of view of the bookstore, due to the greater preferential treatment, in the case of sales growth, the profit has not increased correspondingly, but the popularity brought is very precious. "Many customers may come to our bookstore through this event, like the style of our store, and have since become a regular visitor to the bookstore. Therefore, the current event is to prepare for future development." Zhu Bing said.
However, promotional discounts are definitely not a long-term plan for physical bookstores. What about the popular book takeaways and live broadcasts?
Zhu Bing believes that the effect of book delivery is not ideal. The variety of books on the takeaway platform is definitely not as good as the current three major websites for book sales. Furthermore, readers' demand for buying books is generally not as urgent as eating. Similarly, live broadcasts have limitations for physical bookstores. Readers may turn to buy on other e-commerce platforms when watching live broadcasts. Physical bookstores are not unique to live broadcast audiences.
If the physical bookstore can survive or even regenerate in the epidemic, it is still necessary to practice internal skills.
The first is to establish the reader's personal feelings for the bookstore, that is, the bookstore's stickiness to customers. "The decoration style and overall atmosphere of the bookstore are of course very important, but if you don't do enough work in the selection and placement of books, customers may come once or twice, and after the freshness, you are not very interested in coming again." Zhu Bing said. Therefore, the staff of the bookstore needs to communicate effectively with customers relatively regularly, and grasp the preferences of customers, so that they can recommend suitable books more accurately and provide personalized services such as ordering books for customers.
It is equally important for bookstores to grasp and anticipate social needs. Recently, a book called "Anti-fragility" has become a best-selling book in Zhongshuge Xuhui store, and nearly 1,000 copies have been sold so far in March. The best-selling of this book is not accidental: by the author of "Black Swan", the theme and content of "Benefiting from Uncertainty" are very positive during the current epidemic; this book was once by the mayor of Xuhui District Fang Shizhong recommended that it has driven the sales of this book to a certain extent; it is also important for the bookstore to stock up at the first time. It is necessary to have a strong decision-making power to purchase hundreds of copies of this "old book" published in 2014 at a time. While this book was selling at Xuhui store, almost all online e-commerce companies were out of stock and could only "book". "The sales period of a book may be 1-2 weeks. After the window period has passed, you may be able to buy it on other platforms."
In Zhu Bing's view, the biggest change that the epidemic has brought to Zhongshuge Xuhui Store is to pay more attention to out-of-store sales and do a good job outside the bookstore. At present, there are many out-of-store projects in Xuhui store, such as cultural distribution, various cultural lectures and other activities in the community and streets; another main way is to do data for the school library, book selection, procurement, labeling, shelf, Data import, the entire one-stop service is provided by bookstore staff. At present, Zhongshuge Xuhui Store has served nearly 300 primary and secondary schools, and has achieved a service that the online bookstore cannot.
Zhu Bing, who has worked hard at home and made differentiated services, has been in the book industry for more than ten years and has always maintained confidence in physical bookstores.
(Reporter Ren Peng)