Search for most of the tourist city raiders, there will always be one or two "xx most beautiful bookstores" out to support the façade.
Duoyun Academy and Sinan Bookstore in Shanghai, Southern Song Dynasty Study Room and XiaoShu Library in Hangzhou, Underwater CITIC Bookstore and Johor Bahru Bookstore in Chengdu, as well as Zhong Shuge and Tsutaya Bookstore, which have opened branches all over the country... Search for "the most beautiful bookstore" on the Little Red Book, and you can see more than 50,000 related notes.
However, with the once-popular Internet celebrity stores such as Zhong Shu ge and Yan Ji you, the marketing of the "most beautiful bookstore" is in jeopardy.
According to incomplete research, the earliest ancestor in China to beat the name of "the most beautiful bookstore" to the extreme was Shanghai Zhong Shu Ge.
Rotating bookshelves, glass ceilings, classical table lamps, in April 2013, Zhong Shuge's first store opened in Shanghai Songjiang Times Town, exquisite and unique decoration broke everyone's traditional impression of physical bookstores.
Before becoming the "most beautiful bookstore in Shanghai" certified by mainstream media such as people's dailys, Zhong ShuGe's predecessor, Zhong Shu Bookstore, was founded in 1995 and was forced to close nearly a third of its stores because of poor management.
At that time, Zhong Shu Ge rearranged the interior space of the bookstore in a way unprecedented in China, and the slightly crowded book placement on the first floor formed a strong contrast with the bright and open reading space on the second floor. The founders wanted to use the decoration design of the bookstore to attract people to visit the bookstore and gradually develop the habit of reading, and at first this method seemed to work.
Therefore, Zhong Shu Ge has expanded rapidly throughout the country, and has continuously adjusted the design ideas of bookstore buildings according to the style and characteristics of the landing city, and strives to become the most beautiful bookstore in every province.
After Zhong Shu Ge, many physical bookstores have also learned this business routine, trying to stand out among many bookstores through the comparison of appearances.
Some rely on natural geographical location to attract customers. Duoyun Academy opened on the 52nd floor of the Shanghai Center, and compared with buying books, most tourists just use the guise of the bookstore to climb high and take pictures. But those who want the beautiful river view of the Bund may be disappointed, and there is a cold notice board outside The Duoyun Academy: Consumption is needed.
Some bookstores ascend, while others sink to the bottom. The CITIC Bookstore in Xinglong Lake, Chengdu, adopts a sunken design, and after entering the door and walking down the stairs, the glass curtain wall on one side is the lake, and consumers can read books while seeing swaying aquatic grasses and small fish swimming around.
Some have attracted countless Internet celebrities through their peculiar appearance and unique interior decoration. Shanghai's Green Tile Sports Bookstore has taken the monument valley wind; the Jiantou Bookstore on the Huangpu River has a main Harry Potter Academy style, allowing consumers to shoot Hogwarts blockbusters without leaving Shanghai.
Establish a book office
The "most beautiful bookstores" from Taiwan and Japan also want to share a piece of the pie. Eslite Bookstore took the lead in entering Suzhou and Shenzhen, and in its heyday, Shenzhen Eslite not only sold books and stationery around, but also had catering and jewelry and apparel brands settle in.
Japan's Tsutaya Bookstore's first store in mainland China was selected at the Shangsheng New Office, which was originally a place for Internet celebrities to punch cards, and named itself "the most beautiful bookstore in the world". With a daily limit of 2,000 people, Tsutaya Bookstore needs to make an appointment two weeks in advance in the first few months of opening, and there are even scalpers peddling reservations.
Even the old-fashioned Xinhua Bookstore has opened an Aegean "Light Space" store in Shanghai designed by Tadao Ando under such a trend, and the wrap-around bookshelves are very "photo-friendly".
In the first few years when the "most beautiful bookstore" first appeared, many book lovers scoffed at such marketing, and even became angry because of the large number of tourists posing in the store. In the past two years, most people have seen such a scene and it is not strange.
The survival dilemma of physical bookstores has long been a cliché.
On the one hand, the cost of the impossible reduction of the backlog of water and electricity manpower inventory in the venue, on the other hand, the irresistible trend of electronic reading, coupled with the suicide price war of online book websites, physical bookstores are surviving in the cracks. Many small bookstores face a situation where utility rent is expensive, but often can't sell a book all day.
Data show that in the decade from 2002 to 2012, private bookstores have experienced a large-scale wave of closures, many physical bookstores have closed their doors, and a number of old bookstore brands have entered the cold winter.
Many cultural people have lamented sadly that "the spiritual homeland of contemporary people is declining", and some bookstores have been forced to relocate even if they have not closed their stores, because of rising rents and e-commerce impacts.
A brick-and-mortar bookstore with few customers
In this situation, it seems inevitable that physical bookstores will embark on the road of bimei. Relying on the decoration of the bookstore and the refined pictures on social media to attract people into the bookstore, which in turn promotes them to make a series of consumption: buying books, buying cultural and creative peripherals, drinking coffee, participating in cultural activities, and so on.
Many bookstores opened in large shopping malls need to play the "most beautiful" name to attract passenger flow, enhance the cultural atmosphere of the mall, and become the "cultural responsibility" in the business circle, and the Jing'an Temple store and Xuhui Binjiang store in Zhong Shu Ge are typical of them.
Zhong Shu Ge Chongqing store
On the other hand, developers will also give them some preferential policies, not only to reduce rents, but even to provide renovation subsidies to help bookstores expand.
The most beautiful bookstores did attract a lot of traffic in the early days. At the beginning of the opening of Duoyun College, the number of punch cards on weekends reached 12,000 people, and it was necessary to queue for more than 3 hours; pioneer bookstores and Zhong Shu Ge once became wedding photo shooting destinations, and there would be limited numbers in the peak period.
Long queues are only available to enter the Duoyun Academy
At its peak, Yan Ji was also the darling of capital, raising nearly 200 million yuan in four years, and the passenger flow reached 20 million in 2018.
Under the seemingly lively scene, there is a crisis buried, and most of the traffic attracted by the most beautiful bookstores is not the target customers of the bookstore.
Although there are many well-intentioned books and logical displays in these internet celebrity bookstores, most people who take pictures, punch cards, write notes and send small videos, or come to beautiful buildings do not care about these books that are just decorations in their eyes.
When the task of "visiting here" is completed, most of the "tourists" attracted by the bookstore landscape may never visit these bookstores again, and the most beautiful bookstores will eventually become a one-time punch-in attraction.
In addition, in order to take pictures to look good, many bookstores will put some books in places where readers can't get it at all, and even most of them have become the background board of Internet celebrities.
Over time, people who really love books can't choose good books here, but people who come to take photos and punch cards will not want to visit a second time, and the cold of the most beautiful bookstore is expected.
When the wave of Internet celebrity punch cards receded, the most beautiful bookstores still did not escape the business dilemma of physical bookstores.
In 2020, Shenzhen Eslite closed its store; in 2021, Zhong Shuge also chose to close its branch at Jing'an Temple in Shanghai; Yan Ji was again caught up in the dispute of unpaid wages after successive store closures.
A former employee mentioned in an interview with the "Daily People" that the decoration of each store costs millions, plus rent, water and electricity, manpower, even if there are shopping malls willing to reduce rent, it does not really reduce their operating pressure. And the most beautiful bookstore that is caught in the decoration of the inner volume is not only a few.
Obviously, the name of "the most beautiful bookstore" may attract some traffic, but it cannot fundamentally save the plight of physical bookstores.
Taking Yan Ji as an example, although the store has opened all over the country, it has always relied on external funds for blood supply. However, investors who have not been able to wait for returns have gradually lost patience, lost the supply of funds, and eventually been dragged down by high rents, water and electricity, and labor costs.
Large bookstore chains are stuck in high costs, and small bookstores that focus on "small and beautiful" seem to be more flexible in operation and easier to retain consumers.
Beijing All Saints Book Park, opened in 1993, is not a "beauty" that can be punched in terms of decoration design or book display.
Because of the lack of space piled up on the floor stacked books to the ceiling, the narrow and difficult to walk walkway, and the cat hair on the seats of the wake-up café, none of these can prevent it from becoming one of the most important landmarks in Beijing's Humanistic Bookstore.
Regularly updated rankings with great academic reference value on the walls, and scarce books that are not difficult to find in the store, always bring readers new inspiration and more thinking options. Many small bookstores survive precisely because their owners' unique book selections retain a group of regular consumers.
Cultural critic Li Zhuang believes that in an era of e-book reading and the popularity of online shopping for paper books, a broader sense of "book-related" should be pursued. In the current society, physical bookstores are not only a place to "read books", but a place to "read" books.
The former refers to reading and understanding, and the latter is to use the eyes and cooperate with other organs to complete the comprehensive sense of "seeing", without entering the deep, substantive reading link, and sometimes even without opening the page, you can fully and iron the space of the book.
In this sense, the bookstore is no longer a "book" store, but a book "shop", which emphasizes neither commodities nor knowledge, but a special place built up by books with symbolic attributes (knowledge that can be sold).
Wuhan Baicaoyuan Bookstore suffered a heavy blow after the epidemic
In the end, the "most beautiful" gimmick can indeed bring about a moment of false prosperity, but real readers also know that the noise of "most beautiful" will not last. When more beautiful bookstores appear, traffic and search for hot words, write notes and microblog photos will immediately turn to the new position. When the boom recedes, the readers standing in the bookstore can still stay, which is the real way out for the most beautiful bookstores.
It's as if no matter how many of the most beautiful bookstores there are in Shanghai, what really makes book lovers miss is still the long-departed Monsoon Book Garden.
Resources:
Radar Finance: Yan ji has been exposed and closed again, how can internet celebrity bookstores no longer make money?
CBN: Shanghai Center 52-storey Duoyun Academy exploded, why open a bookstore in a place where every inch of land is scarce?
Daily People: Net red bookstore words a few times, died in the bubble of feelings
Written by: Echo & Potted Plants
Image source Visual China