A type of book, a store, how to quickly "absorb powder" tens of thousands of book friends? How to survive the impact of COVID-19? In Xiongda Tea City, a large tea wholesale market in Kunming, Yunnan Province, this bookstore named "Cat Cat" is using its own perseverance and development to strive to break through from the dilemma of physical bookstore operation and the impact of the epidemic.
In this tea city, the cat and cat bookstore "nest" on the second floor of a shop. The scale of the bookstore is not large, covering an area of only about 180 square meters, and the turnover last year was more than 3 million yuan. As a physical bookstore, the results under the epidemic have been quite eye-catching. In the first four months of this year, the bookstore sold more than 2,600 more books.
On April 21, 2022, Zhou Chonglin was in front of the Cat Cat Bookstore. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Jiang Wenyao
In April, Kunming was cloudy and sunny. Zhou Chonglin, 42, walked into the Cat and Cat Bookstore in a long shirt, and a plaque of "Tea Industry Revival" hung on the wall, exuding quiet and simplicity. In recent years, because of his works such as "Tea War" and "The Basics of Tea", he is quite famous in the field of tea culture.
In this large tea wholesale market full of all kinds of tea merchants, the cat bookstore is not alone - its roots are rooted in the "tea pile", selling only tea-related books, and currently has more than 5,000 copies of various tea books in the world and more than 200 rare ancient books. There are no dim sum, cultural and creative products common in some "net red" bookstores, nor can you hear popular music, only the aroma of tea and books.
In 2015, in a deep alley in Xiongda Tea City, Zhou Chonglin and his wife set up a bookstore. As the scale grew, the bookstore moved to its current location in 2019. "Soon after the bookstore moved, the epidemic came, the flow of people was greatly reduced, the business was dismal, and it was impossible to hold on to just a little improvement." He said.
On April 21, 2022, Zhou Chonglin read a book in the library. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Jiang Wenyao
In order to maintain the operation of the bookstore, Zhou Chonglin, as a tea culture scholar, bookstore owner, anchor, self-media practitioner and other multiple roles, began to break through the road.
In August 2020, he and a tea company jointly launched the "See tea culture" tea book exhibition, exhibiting classic tea books such as "The Complete Book of Tea" and "Tea Classic". Relying on the 160,000 yuan that the company subsidizes the exhibition every year to offset the rent, the bookstore can survive.
No one can read a book. Cat Cat Bookstore starts with the surrounding tea merchants, tea customers and communities. Relying on more than 300 tea merchants in the tea city, bookstores and many tea merchants have formed a cooperation model of "buying books and sending tea, buying tea and sending books", bookstores hold tea parties, tea merchants help bookstores promote, tea culture and tea industry develop together, and bookstores also usher in the first batch of fixed readers.
On April 21, 2022, Zhou Chonglin introduced tea books to customers. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Jiang Wenyao
In cat and cat bookstores, all books are laid out on the shelves on the front, and the title of the books is clear at a glance, which is very different from the way most bookstores are placed with the spine facing outwards. In order to attract readers, the bookstore has also created a one-stop "see, buy, borrow" experience, which can borrow books or photocopy materials.
Nowadays, many tea merchants, tea farmers, college teachers, tea lovers, etc. have become the main consumption force of cat bookstores. "If the bookstore is gone, the tea city will only have tea and less culture." In the past two months, I have bought more than 2,000 yuan of tea books to read and send to customers. If you understand tea culture, you will prefer this cup of tea in your hand. Liang Hongwu, a tea merchant in Xiongda Tea City, said.
Revitalize more resources and let bookstores go a long way. At present, Cat And Cat Bookstore has launched the "Tea Bookstore Cooperation Program" with hundreds of tea companies to jointly write local tea knowledge. On this basis, these companies regularly order books at Cat Andu Bookstore, bringing in about 400,000 yuan in revenue every year. In addition, the bookstore also held 24 solar terms tea parties and book clubs with enterprises, and carried out more than 300 activities.
On April 20, 2022, the bookstore held an offline reading and tea tasting activity. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Jiang Wenyao
At present, many physical bookstores have chosen to move bookstores to the "cloud", and at the beginning of this year, Cat Andi Bookstore also began to open micro-stores and do live broadcasts. Relying on his thick knowledge of tea culture, Zhou Chonglin quickly let the bookstore "suck powder". "The teacher said well, bought it!" "On this platform, you can not only buy good tea, good books, good utensils, but also learn professional tea knowledge." In the live broadcast, many readers actively interacted, and the enthusiasm for buying books was also quite high.
Now, Cat And Cat Bookstore broadcasts two hours of book sales every afternoon, and every Thursday night a tea book party, each live broadcast by hundreds of people to 2,000 to 3,000 people to watch, up to a maximum of nearly 20,000 viewers. Zhou Chonglin said with a smile: "In the past, I was worried that it would not be good, no one would read it, and no one would pay the bill, but now I was worried that the book would not be sold and shipped." I also became friends with some of the viewers in the live room. ”
On April 21, 2022, Zhou Chonglin signed the book ready for sale. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Jiang Wenyao
In the office area of the bookstore, a full schedule table is conspicuous - tea party preview, tea company negotiation, dialogue writers, book clubs... These make the cat and cat bookstore step more and more solid, and the influence is getting bigger and bigger.
"Books are our foundation. In the future, I will continue to use bookstores as a position to connect more authors, publishing houses and bookstores to spread Chinese tea culture to the world. Zhou Chonglin said.
Planner: Hu Qinghai
Coordinator: Liu Zheng
Text reporters: Ji Zhepeng, Wang Mingyu
Video reporters: Sun Min, Jiang Wenyao
Edit: Gemdale