Nanning, September 9 (Huang Xiaotong) Nanning, Guangxi has quietly emerged a number of unmanned bookstores, which are located in major shopping malls and subway stations in Nanning, using limited spaces such as elevator corners and walls to set up self-service bookshelves to open to customers in a fully open mode. According to the announcement in the store, customers only need to take the selected books to the weighing place to weigh, and they can buy them at a price of 5 yuan per pound, and they can take the books away after scanning the code to pay.
Nanning quietly sprang up a number of unmanned bookstores. Photo by Huang Xiaotong
An unmanned bookstore near Nanning Pedestrian Street in Guangxi Province sells mostly second-hand books, collected from all over the country by owner Ding Dazeng, from teaching materials to humanities and social science books, magazines, picture books, recipes to novels.
The bookshelf is labeled "genuine books, 12 yuan / jin", and the purchase process is written in detail. Customers can read the books on the shelves at will, if they pick the books they are interested in, just put the books on the scale to weigh, scan the code to pay, convenient and fast.
Since its opening in May, the unmanned bookstore has been virtually free of book thefts. Ding Dazeng, the owner of the shop, believes that readers prefer books, respect knowledge, respect culture, and will not steal books.
When asked why he opened an unmanned bookstore, Ding Dazeng said that it would be difficult to survive by relying on the traditional bookstore model. In the era when the Internet sales model hits physical bookstores and electronic reading impacts physical book reading, physical bookstores are innovating ways to "fight back". Unmanned bookstores are an innovation that provides consumers with a convenient way to access paper books by adopting a new "unmanned" model.
Citizens reading books in an unmanned bookstore. Photo by Huang Xiaotong
Unmanned bookstores make full use of the edge of shopping malls and subways to set up a 30-centimeter bookshelf for people to read, which can minimize water, electricity, and labor costs, while relying on the flow of people brought by shopping malls and subway stations to obtain certain passenger flow and sales support.
In the course of his business, Mr. Ding found that although book theft incidents were rare, the loss rate of books was relatively high. During the reading process, children may accidentally damage DVDs, postcards and other book accessories. In order to reduce such uncivilized behavior, keep books clean and complete, and improve customers' reading and purchasing experience, Mr. Ding installed surveillance in the store.
Talking about the future, Ding Dazeng hopes that unmanned bookstores can continue to open, pass on knowledge, and also transmit integrity. (End)