Pending the reopening of stores on May 11, many bookstores have already set up a click & collect service to provide customers with a book they have ordered. Bookstores are among the sectors hardest hit by the containment measures put in place since March 17 to fight the Covid-19 epidemic.
By the fifth week of containment, book sales were only a third of their level in 2019, according to a study by the GfK institute published Friday by the professional magazine Livres Hebdo . In one year, the fall in activity dropped 68.9% in value. However, bookstores are companies known for their fragility.
Open bookstores are listed
Many booksellers have therefore decided, without endangering their staff or their readers, to allow them to obtain books published before confinement. To get a book, you order it online and then you come to pick it up in your bookstore, taking care to bring your compulsory exit certificate by checking the box: "travel to make essential purchases".
No question, however, of entering the bookstore, leafing through books, strolling. In short, everything that contributes to the pleasure of going to a bookstore. The initiatives of the booksellers are listed on the site "jesoutiensmalibrairie.com". The Livres Hebdo site publishes an interactive map which lists the bookstores offering click & collect . Monday morning, there were 219 bookstores in this case.
"A wall of debt" to avoid
"Economically, we know that this reduced activity will not compensate for our losses or the administrative ban on the reception of the public in our bookstores which is required until May 11 at least", however tempers the president of the Syndicat de la librairie française (SLF) Xavier Moni. The 3,200 independent bookstores in France are awaiting financial aid from the State to avoid chain closings. "We need a common fund to help the bookstore" and favor a subsidy system to avoid that the booksellers find themselves facing "a wall of debt", he explains.
An emergency envelope of 20 million euros has already been released for the culture sector, including 5 million for the book. In addition, the National Solidarity Fund has committed to pay aid of 1,500 to 2,000 euros to each bookstore and is preparing, for the second level of aid financed by the regions, to bring this amount up to 5,000 euros. .
Culture
Coronavirus: Why do guests and TV hosts pose in front of their libraries?
Economy
Deconfinement: You are a trader and will reopen your store on May 11 with specific measures, tell us
- Confinement
- Sale
- Society
- Bookstore
- Books