China News Service, Hefei, August 23 (Chu Weiwei and Liu Honghe) "Bookstores are a dream of a city, and a beam of light is an outlet to the world." This is Cui Zhengyi's wish to establish Hefei Aichi Bookstore. In the past 24 years In, he is also working hard to realize this wish.
When you walk into the Aichi Bookstore in Sanxiaokouxiang Street, Luyang District, Hefei, you can see some rare complete collections, "niche" ancient books, and other books that are usually difficult to find.
"We currently have more than 40,000 books, and more than 20,000 types of standing books. Among them, ancient books and literature and history collections account for 80%, and first-line publishing houses dominate."
In 1997, when he was a young man, Cui Zhengyi discovered that Hefei did not have a high-grade private social science bookstore, so he rented a shop in the downtown area to run the Aichi Bookstore.
Since the sales were all the most popular academic books in the Beijing book market at that time, it quickly alarmed the vast number of scholars in Hefei.
The books that people usually can only choose when they are on a business trip are now available at their doorsteps, and the reputation of Aichi Bookstore has spread ever since.
Cui Zhengyi is sorting out various books. Photo by Chu Weiwei
"At that time, logistics was not developed, and readers' channels for buying books were relatively scarce. They could only be seen in physical bookstores. The flow of people in bookstores was several times that of now." According to Cui Zhengyi, China's book industry was booming around 2000, with all kinds of high-quality books. The endless emergence is a golden age for the development of physical bookstores.
While seizing the opportunity to expand the purchase channels, Cui Zhengyi strictly controls the procurement quality.
"We don't allow a pirated book to enter the bookstore. We strive for perfection in the selection of book editions, rather than indiscriminately." Cui Zhengyi said, "Finding good books for readers and finding readers for good books" is our business philosophy that we always uphold, and we hope to choose for readers. Make every book well, do every service well, and help the whole people to read.
Cui Zhengyi said frankly that after 2010, China's book retail market has undergone earth-shaking changes.
The physical bookstore is facing multiple pressures such as rising rents and staff wages, as well as the impact of online bookstores. It has encountered serious business difficulties. It has also been forced to relocate three times in eight years and is called a "stray bookstore."
"Although the change in reading habits of young people and the'price war' of online books have had a great impact on physical bookstores, the original intention has not changed." Customers are disappointed; on the other hand, I want to continue the bookstore's atmosphere of meeting friends with books and making friends with sincerity.
Although the physical bookstore "Shengjing" is not as good as it used to be, there are still many customers in Aichi Bookstore who are still keen to come. One of them is Wang Zongyu, a student from the 54th Middle School in Hefei.
"Walking into the bookstore, I feel that the whole person can be immersed in the book, which makes people very quiet and comfortable." Wang Zongyu believes that compared with the "cold" network, physical bookstores can feel the "scent of books" more and more. Temperature.
Twenty-four cycles of autumn and winter have allowed the youth who used to sell books to reach middle age, and the Aichi Bookstore continues to exude its own "little light" in the course of several rounds.
Now, Cui Zhengyi and his daughter Cui Shaoyun are running the bookstore together, and the two also play the biggest role of books by recycling old books for replacement. At the same time, they also hope that the bookstore will no longer be "wandering".
"I hope Aichi Bookstore can become a ray of light. He may be weak, but he can guide readers in the dark and warm the city." Cui Zhengyi said.
(End)