Reading into an online age

Physical bookstores in China look set to live out their last days even as their cyber counterparts expand on the back of imported offerings, reports Yang Yang in Beijing.

On a Saturday morning in Beijing's Wangfujing Street, the Foreign Language Bookstore sported a banner to promote its "big summer exhibition of imported books".

Staff members on the ground floor tried to sell an Oscar-movie collection to customers. The most eye-catching shelves stocked best-selling novels of blockbusters such as The Hobbit and Twilight; best-sellers like Eat, Pray, Love and The Time Traveler's Wife; and classics like Jane Eyre and Romeo And Juliet.

At the nearby Wangfujing Bookstore, posters pointed to imported offerings on the third floor. Most parents and children gathered on the second floor, where teaching materials were sold, but the third floor tried to attract them with "an exhibition of imported books for children".

The summer holidays seem to provide a good opportunity for physical bookstores like the Foreign Language Bookstore and Wangfujing Bookstore to draw more customers. Students are expected to have more free time to browse the shelves and parents usually hope their children can improve their competitiveness in crucial exams by reading more books and doing more supplementary academic exercises.

But few readers could be seen at the two bookstores on the weekend.

On the third floor of the Foreign Language Bookstore with its specially imported books, a lone fourth-grade boy from Suzhou, Jiangsu province, seemed engrossed in an English book about making the US movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Ma Duan, a material science graduate student from Beijing University of Technology, browsed a shelf of Ernest Hemingway books at Wangfujing Bookstore.

"Although I read quite slowly because I have to check words that I do not understand, I like reading original books, and English is very important for my studies and career," he said.

"Occasionally I come here for a look but I usually buy books from online stores like Amazon and Jingdong," Ma said.

Going online

The dearth of customers seems to reflect the sunset industry of physical bookstores even as their online counterparts stand poised to take over.

Latest statistics from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television showed that in 2012, China imported 1.5 percent less foreign books compared with 2011.

As one of the leading online shopping platforms in China, Jingdong started selling imported English books in June 2011. Sales in 2012 grew by 200 percent compared with those in 2011 and 2013.

On Jingdong's online shopping system, children's books, inspirational self-help books and novels of hot movies such as Twilight top the English sections, said its spokeswoman, who declined to give her name.

Amazon, the largest online bookstore for imported books in China, stocks almost 6 million imported books for the Chinese market. Book categories include literature, business, English study and children's books. Book selection has expanded by almost five times since 2010.

Amazon China also sells books in French, Spanish and other languages.

Academic books previously formed the largest part of Amazon's sales, but novels, children's books and dictionaries have become increasingly popular.

The online shopping giant has also seen the expansion of reader groups from scholars and foreign businesspeople in China to students, financial managers and common company employees.

As Chinese people are generally improving their language capability, imported literature has also become one of the largest sections in sales. Young people, especially college students, are reading more English novels, according to Amazon research. The US is the largest imported source.

But its largest growing section is imported children's books, with Chinese parents placing more emphasis on their children's English ability.

The best-selling list of business management books, becoming similar to those in source countries, also indicates that their readers expect to acquire firsthand original business management knowledge.

Jingdong predicts that the sales of imported books will continue to grow.

"More people are learning languages, not only English, but also Japanese and French, so they will hope to see more imported books. Japanese books are quite popular," Jingdong's spokeswoman said.

"In terms of publishing quality, we can see that the publishing industry in the West is more advanced and professional. As a result, if readers can understand the language and accept the pricing, they will tend to buy imported books. Moreover, the renminbi exchange rate has been growing in recent years and Chinese people have stronger purchasing capacity; pricing is not one of the most important considerations for Chinese readers," she said.

"The time needed for our import sources to fill our orders are shorter, so readers can get their goods more quickly and they really have many choices," she said.

Selling more

Smaller online bookstores are also experiencing increasing sales.

The decade-old Blue Fountain is one of the largest online bookstores in China that specifically sells imported books.

"Our company's sales have generally been growing fast recently. Since last year, our monthly sales have been consistent at the level of 300,000 yuan to 400,000 yuan. The sales for the first half of the year doubled from that in the same period last year," said Roc E, project manager of the company.

For Blue Fountain, best-selling book categories include original novels that have been adapted into popular movies and professional medical books.

E said the growth is expected to continue.

"More Chinese people are acquiring adequate language skills to read original books. The increasing internationalization of business also requires businesspeople to read firsthand the latest business information and knowledge. And lastly, there are more expats in China. They are more willing to buy original books through local book dealers," E said.

Academic books, traditionally forming the biggest section, is also expected to maintain growth.

Oxford University Press started to promote imported books at its Beijing office less than five years ago and it has experienced stable annual growth of 10 percent.

In the coming three to five years, the growth may continue at the current rate or is expected to slow down, said Ivy Yu, the manager in charge of its sales of academic books.

"But this observation is based on my business focus on academic books," she said in an e-mail response.

Yu said almost all the imported books OUP sold in China were the English versions. Every year, about 3,500 new book titles would be launched and the book titles being offered total 300,000.

"Our customers are basically high education institutions, scientific research institutions, public libraries, and some hospitals and government institutions that need to do research," she wrote.

Globally, readers can order books on OPU's website but it also cooperates with Amazon to sell books. Domestically, OPU launched the sales of imported academic books on Amazon last year, although the electronic business is still not its major channel. Its biggest customers are still the institutions mentioned, Yu wrote.

Less physical

Like Ma Duan, Zheng Xiaoqian from Nanjing University seldom buys books at physical bookstores.

Zheng, 31, is a doctoral candidate of English literature. She has to read a lot of English academic books to complete her dissertation.

"We seldom buy academic books these days since you can borrow them from various libraries and those books are generally expensive," she said.

Zheng said she had not gone to physical bookstores for a long time since they are far from the university and the Internet is a very convenient way to buy almost any book worldwide.

Zheng often visits online bookstores, including Book Depository and Abebooks.

Book Depository offers global buyers free mailing and it generally takes two weeks to one month for Zheng to get her books from the website.

"Most of the books that I buy are literature, especially novels," she said.

"Another good thing about buying books online is that big sellers such as Jingdong and Amazon often offer big discounts on imported books, which are really cheap and convenient."

Contact the author at yangyangs@chinadaily.com.cn

Readers pick up books at a library specializing in English publications. The library was launched by a Chinese-Canadian in Shenyang, Liaoning province, and is so far the largest of its kind in the city with more than 50,000 original English publications. Zhang Wenkui / for China Daily