A house full of unpopular archaeological books, it is rare to have two or three customers a day, which is the normal situation of humanistic archaeology bookstores in the past. Not long ago, because of a report, the story of the bookstore sticking to ten years and selling 5 million yuan per year spread on the Internet, and many readers came to visit, so that the owner Hong Xia tasted the taste of popularity for the first time. She was surprised to find that "the turnover of the physical bookstore in December is comparable to the turnover of the whole year of last year." ”
The 103 shelves are full of professional archaeology books
Coming out of the Garden Bridge subway station and passing through several sparsely populated streets and alleys, the Humanistic Archaeology Bookstore is on the first floor of a small black building, and the signboard composed of six large red characters is quite traditional.
Walking into the bookstore, there is a feeling of traveling back in time to the 90s. The two rooms, totaling 125 square meters, are crammed with rows of bookshelves that are high to the ceiling, and the shelves are densely packed with archaeological and cultural books. To make the most of the space, the shelves are so narrow that only one person can walk through, and a stack of cardboard boxes is pushed along the side, which contain books ordered by the institution.
Interestingly, on each bookshelf hangs a wooden sign on which is written with a brush "Heaven", "Earth", "Xuan", "Yellow"... Hong Xia, a 34-year-old shopkeeper, explained: "The bookshelf was originally marked with 26 English letters, but as the shelves grew, the letters were not enough, so they were replaced by "Thousand Character Text". At present, the bookstore has a total of 103 shelves, more than 10,000 kinds of books, more than 60,000 volumes. ”
There is almost no decoration in the store, and the couplet hanging on the bookshelf " to know the ancient things outside the body, and read thousands of books in the store" has become the most appropriate "advertising slogan". The books in the store are classified and sorted according to the "Chinese Archaeological Bibliography" as a reference book, including archaeological reports, research monographs and conference (personal) anthologies, museum research and exhibition catalogues, oracle bones, simple books, ancient texts, inscriptions, epitaphs and other documents, bronze, bronze mirrors, jade, pottery and other artifacts research, grottoes, murals, Han portraits, bricks, sculptures and other art categories, Silk Road, Western Archaeology, Historical Geography and other historical and cultural categories. It is these seemingly unpopular books that allow Hong Xia to say with great confidence: "We are the only professional independent bookstore in the country with the theme of archaeology and literature." ”
There is a reading area of 103 in the store
The annual sales of nearly 5 million yuan rely on professionalism
Founded in June 2012, the founder of the Humanities and Archaeology Bookstore is the wife of Xu Hong, an archaeologist and researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. At that time, Hong Xia was still a student of historical philology at Capital Normal University and worked part-time in bookstores.
Soon after the bookstore was founded, there was a boom in online bookstores, and many physical bookstores closed their doors. Humanistic archaeology bookstore also opened an online store, at first just wanted to be a window for display, did not expect to pay more and more attention to the people, and gradually began to have researchers and institutions to find bookstores, batch orders. "Archaeological books are relatively niche, customers want to buy if they can only search from store to store, but we can buy them in one stop." Moreover, such books will not be discounted wildly on large e-commerce platforms. The bookstore also compiles a detailed bibliography, which can quickly issue a personalized book list according to different needs, and the clerk is also very familiar with the types and contents of the books, and can introduce them in a targeted manner.
Professional enough and persistent, the bookstore from the early days of the difficult to run, in the archaeological circle also made a name. Now, the niche bookstore has an annual turnover of 5 million yuan, institutional customers contribute nearly 3 million yuan, online stores about 1.8 million yuan, and physical stores sell 120,000 to 150,000 yuan. "Although the annual revenue is 5 million yuan, the annual cost of entering the book can be deducted from more than 3 million yuan per year, plus labor, rent and office expenses, and the annual profit is less than 200,000 yuan." The only profit that was there became a collection of books in the library.
Some "treasure books", Hong Xia locked it in the cabinet and never sold it, and readers in need could only read it in the store. "For example, this book "Liulihe West Zhou YanGuo Cemetery" is now very rare on the market." Hong Xia revealed that some of these books are sold to the last one, some are high-priced books she bought from the Internet, and some are high-priced books of seven or eight thousand, "Leaving them is not for appreciation, it is hoping to give play to the value of the book and be continuously read." ”
During this time, after the bookstore became popular on the Internet, many readers braved the cold to find it, which also made Hong Xia realize, "In addition to professional researchers and students, in fact, there are many readers who love archaeology and literature, and we will better serve these readers in the future." For the label of "net red bookstore", she also did not resist, "According to my personal observation, the bookstore is more for our books, which is one of the things that I am particularly happy about." ”
Hong Xia
Post-85s shopkeepers regard bookstores as a lifelong career
From part-time clerk to store manager to "second-generation bookstore owner", Hong Xia has witnessed every step of the bookstore's development. During this time, she also left for a while, wanting to see the outside world, and went to a cultural company to work in new media. "But I always feel that something is missing in my heart, a little less spiritual satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment." On the other hand, as a graduate student majoring in history, she was not willing to give up her major. So, a year later, I returned to the bookstore.
"I didn't expect that my new media work experience would also be used in bookstore promotion." Under her care, the bookstore's Weibo and WeChat public accounts will promote new books every day, and have accumulated more than 300,000 fans. This also allows readers from all over the country and even abroad to know the humanistic archaeology bookstore.
After graduation, some of Hong Xia's classmates became teachers, some went to museums, and her family also suggested that she go to the civil service examination. But she felt that as long as she did the work she liked, she was very happy. "Opening a bookstore has been a dream I've had since high school, so as long as there are no big changes, I'm doing it as a lifelong career."
With its unique positioning and business philosophy, the Humanistic Archaeology Bookstore has been rated as a "special bookstore" in Beijing for many times, and recently won the title of "Demonstration Bookstore" in Beijing in 2021, and these honors have also given Hong Xia the motivation to persevere. "The Beijing Physical Bookstore Support Project has been called a charcoal in the snow during the epidemic, not only directly helping the bookstore to tide over the difficulties from the economic point of view, but also supporting and affirming the bookstore practitioners spiritually, so that we can go further on the road of selecting good books and serving readers."
In Hong Xia's view, the successful experience of archaeological bookstores is not something that can be summed up in a simple sentence or two, but she firmly believes: "If you can insist on deep cultivation in a certain field, even professional bookstores can survive, but they need the first three to five years of investment and persistence." ”
All along, Hong Xia also has a dream, that is, she hopes to create a "bookstore + library" model, but she is suffering from the high rent and cannot find a suitable venue. Now, she also wants to extend an invitation to social institutions to cooperate: "If we can, we will work together to provide readers with a better reading environment and reading experience." Bookstore + library, this is also my personal ultimate ideal for bookstore management. ”