On January 9, the "2024 China Bookstore Conference" co-sponsored by the China Book Publishing Industry Association and Anhui Xinhua Publishing (Group) Holding Co., Ltd. was held in Beijing. With the theme of "Innovation, Reshaping the Value of Bookstores", this year's China Bookstore Conference aims to encourage bookstores to innovate management, services, change ideas, set a benchmark for bookstore innovation, and promote bookstores, as the main position of cultural propaganda, to create a new situation in propaganda, ideological and cultural work with an innovative and high-spirited attitude at a new historical starting point, and to play a greater role in the construction of a cultural power in the new era.
Innovation is an important driving force for the development of enterprises and a new requirement for bookstores in the new historical development period. Constantly opening up a new situation in propaganda, ideological and cultural work in the new era, bookstore practitioners have a heavy responsibility on their shoulders. Let innovation stimulate vitality, how should innovation benchmarks conform to the trend and build a reading culture consumption mode that is compatible with the times?What are the experience of bookstore management innovation and service innovation worthy of attention?What is the basic consensus for the future development of physical bookstores?These questions were answered at this China Bookstore Conference.
The transformation and upgrading of physical bookstores has achieved phased results
Dong Yiwei, deputy director of the Printing and Distribution Bureau of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee and first-level inspector, pointed out in her speech at the "2024 China Bookstore Conference" that 2023 is the 45th anniversary of China's reform and opening up. Over the past year, we have done a lot of work in implementing the "14th Five-Year Plan" development plan for the publishing and distribution industry, promoting the high-quality development of the industry, improving industry laws and regulations and creating a good market environment, and strengthening the supervision of the publication market. 2024 is the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and it is also a key year to achieve the goals and tasks of the 14th Five-Year Plan.
In his speech at the conference, Ai Limin, chairman of the China Book Publishing Industry Association, said: "At present, the transformation and upgrading of physical bookstores has achieved phased results. In 2016, 11 ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Supporting the Development of Physical Bookstores" to encourage the development of physical bookstores, and China's physical bookstores ushered in a valuable period of development. At present, the number of physical bookstores in the country is stable, and some provinces and cities have increased slightlyA large number of specialized and new bookstores have come to the fore and shown good development prospectsReading services have penetrated more widely into all fields of cultural construction and public cultural services, and have become the leading force in national reading activities. However, he also pointed out that the publishing and distribution industry still faces many challenges and uncertainties in the process of promoting the high-quality development of the industry. In particular, the income tax exemption policy enjoyed by the publishing and distribution units to transform into enterprises is about to end, the policy dividend and demographic dividend caused by the continuous decline in the birth rate will no longer exist, and the promotion speed of digital teaching materials may be faster than we expected, and the iterative development of new technologies is beyond our imagination. These factors will have a profound impact on the development of the industry. Therefore, the industry should continue to take reform as the driving force, development as the first priority, and innovation as the way to break the situation, continue to promote innovation in operation and management, integrated development and innovation, service mode innovation, and positioning innovation, constantly tap the cultural value of bookstores themselves, tell the cultural stories of bookstores, and explore various effective methods for the sustainable development of physical bookstores, so as to achieve "no one has me, and no one has me".
As one of the organizers of this year, Anhui Xinhua Distribution (Group) Holding Co., Ltd. and its subsidiary Anhui New Media have been working steadily and innovatively, and have accumulated many successful experiences in innovation and transformation and upgrading. Jin Tao, Secretary of the Party Committee, Chairman and General Manager of Anhui Group, said in his speech that from the era of planned economy where supply is less than demand, to the Internet era when supply and demand are stable, and then to today's era of digitalization and artificial intelligence impacting everything, bookstore practitioners are constantly exploring, adapting, adjusting and trying under the influence of the tide of the times, and they are all doing one thing: how to rejuvenate bookstores. China's bookstore industry is in a period of profound change and a critical period of industrial transformation and upgrading, and only by reshaping the value of bookstores with joint innovation and building a new industrial pattern of bookstore alliance can we form a scale effect and enhance the ability to resist risks. To reshape the value of bookstores, we need to respond to the spiritual needs of readers in an all-round and multi-angle way and meet the desires of cultural lifeWe need to position ourselves as cultural demonstrators, so that bookstores can be integrated into urban development and become a spiritual harbor for public cultural service spacesWe need to bring forth the new, create a new model of cross-border integration, and build a new multicultural ecology.
In 2023, Anhui Xinhua Distribution Group will integrate Hefei Sipailou, the largest old store in Anhui, into new elements of science and technology, create new consumption scenarios, and try to build a new digital bookstore "Yuan Bookstore", which has been recognized by readers and bookstore practitioners since its opening. On January 28, 2024, the Group will release the IP brand image of Xinhua Bookstore "Yuan Xiaoao" in Hefei, Anhui Province, implying that "reading" is the first place, and promotes the transformation of bookstores from form to connotation, from offline to online, from ground stores to cultural space, and to achieve new leapfrog development.
A new exploration of the value of bookstores under the combination of integrity and innovation
In his keynote speech entitled "Rethinking the Value of Xinhua Bookstore", Zhang Kewen, member of the Party Committee of Anhui Xinhua Distribution (Group) Holdings, shared with the participants from five aspects: "Strengthening a core value and promoting the industrial chain with the value chain", "Based on the two markets, promoting the integrated development of online and offline", "Connecting the three integrations and reshaping the industrial value of Xinhua Bookstore", "Focusing on four aspects to promote the digital transformation of bookstores" and "Achieving five strengthenings and reshaping the relationship between bookstores and readers". Zhang Kewen said that in the context of the new era, the market environment has forced Xinhua Bookstore to innovate and upgrade, and the mission requires Xinhua Bookstore to improve quality and efficiency. To this end, Xinhua Bookstore must firmly maintain the core value of publishing and the distribution goal of "finding readers for good books and good books for readers". In 2023, online sales will account for 88% of the entire book sales channel, and have become an important way for readers, especially young readers, to buy books. To this end, Xinhua Bookstore e-commerce must have its own way of playing. In 2023, Anhui Xinhua will focus on the segment of children's books, create a characteristic children's vertical e-commerce, and strengthen and expand the children's book market segment. The first is to form a matrix online main position integrating platform e-commerce, live broadcast e-commerce, short ** e-commerce, and content e-commerce. The second is to cooperate with the publishing houses that produce "good books" to jointly develop new products, customized explosive products, and unique products on the whole network, so as to ensure the scale and profit of exclusive sales, and finally form a win-win industrial chain integrating content production, book customization, and exclusive sales. In addition, Zhang Kewen also said that it is necessary to vigorously promote the innovative and integrated development of bookstores through diversified integration, public cultural service integration, and cultural and tourism integration, expand the boundaries of bookstores, broaden the extension of bookstores, and further tap the new value of bookstores.
Li Hui is the founder of Chongqing Book Center and the founder of Johor Bahru Bookstore, a cutting-edge book retail brand. He shared his new thinking and practice on the topic of "Four-Hour Slow Life Solution for Urban Women – The Innovation Road of Johor Bahru Book House". Johor Bahru Book House defines the user group as "women between the ages of 25 and 40 who love reading and socializing, and love a better life", which reflects the value of bookstores in terms of book selection, product display, content output, etc., reflects the value of cognition and user value, embodies life aesthetics, and outputs high-quality content with cultural temperament. Through emotional value and interactive socialization, it provides users with a new immersive consumption experience and rich immersive social scenes. Currently, books, coffee, food and beverages and on-site events are the four major formats that underpin Johor Bahru Bookstore's business model. From the perspective of innovation and interaction, Li Hui put forward his own solution: on the B-end or G-side, through the optimization of tourism public services, the integration of culture and tourism of "bookstore + tourism", enrich cultural experience consumption, enhance regional competitiveness, and realize the integration of culture and tourismOn the C side, through brand direct sales, rooted in first- and second-tier cities, thousands of stores and thousands of faces, the composite space of cultural temperament brings accurate user flow;On the B-side, we use space building, cultural empowerment, community operation, and brand cooperation to achieve business empowerment.
From 2022, Henan will vigorously implement the "Ten Strategies" and accelerate the construction of ten "Henan", one of which is Scholarly Henan. At the China Bookstore Conference, Ren Zhenmao, Secretary of the Party Committee, Director and Deputy General Manager of Henan Xinhua Bookstore Distribution Group, shared Henan Xinhua's practices in the reshaping of reading space in recent years with the theme of "Let Xinhua Brand Continue in Innovation and Integration". In the construction of the store, Henan Xinhua started from the excavation of revolutionary culture, historical culture and regional culture, and explored the construction of Xinhua Bookstore store into an experience space to display the above three types of culture. Zhongyuan Book Building focuses on the theme of "inheriting red genes and telling red stories" from multiple dimensions such as reading space remodeling, multi-format implantation, humanistic aesthetic integration, and service function improvement. With the theme of "one word, two axes, three paintings, and eight scenes", Kaifeng Book City skillfully integrates the rich culture of the ancient capital of the Eight Dynasties with the brand of Xinhua Bookstore. In addition, there are Luoyang Book Purchasing Center with "Heluo Culture" as the core, Shangqiu Book Building with "Yin Shang Culture" as the core, and Hebi Book City with "Qihe Culture" as the core. The Shangzuo Reading Experience Center, which will be opened before the Spring Festival, is located in Henan Publishing Industrial Park, which takes the majority of Generation Z as the core audience, focuses on the Yellow River culture and reading culture, and uses immersive, social, digital, metaverse and NFT expressions to create a creative experience center of "Hall N in District 1", covering the whole industrial chain of content production, digital intelligence technology, cultural and creative research, reading services, etc., and building a new cultural reading experience space with Central Plains cultural symbols. In order to lead and drive the people to actively participate in the experience and get close to the spiritual and cultural life of the people, Henan Xinhua has carried out more than 12,000 activities such as various cultural experiences, book recommendation reading, mobile book sales, and Huimin Book Fair.
In February 2023, the first offline bookstore in the country, which has 60 million followers, opened in Shanghai. In terms of book selection, the "mixed knowledge team" composed of top students has specially listed a "mixed knowledge book list";In the creation experience area, citizens can observe the comic creation process of "Brother Bastard" and the team guysIn the "Mixed Knowledge Small Universe" with a sense of science and technology, readers can design their own exclusive "Mixed Brother" avatar and print the pattern on cultural and creative products to become a unique giftThe bookstore has also set up a pop-up area for knowledge sharing, providing a platform for readers to exchange cultural exchanges and display. Chen Lei, the founder of the bookstore, shared his process of opening and building this bookstore from zero in more than two years at the bookstore conference. He said that the original intention was to build a physical platform to communicate, communicate and build trust with readers, and the content IP also needed to be presented in a more diversified and multi-dimensional way. Bookstores are no longer a single function for selling books, but a terminal for urban leisure and even socialization. Therefore, it is a comprehensive experience terminal of eating, drinking, and playing + culture.
Jiang Chuanyang, member of the Party Committee of Zhejiang Publishing United Group, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Zhejiang Xinhua Bookstore Group, shared Zhejiang Xinhua's thoughts on several basic issues in the transformation of physical bookstores with the title of "Strengthening the Basic Consensus of Physical Bookstores and Reconstructing the Offline Chain Management System" at the bookstore conference. He pointed out that the reform of the book industry in the past 20 years can be summarized as "the process of forming a unified market for national publications with the change of Internet channels as a breakthrough", and we have completed the process of more than 200 years in the process of other countries developing towards modernization in 20 years, and it has been completed in the way of channel changes, which is the deep-seated reason for the great impact and deep impact on physical bookstores. In the traditional era, the value of bookstores is more reflected in the "** of goods", which is a channel system based on the flow of goods, and this function is currently more transferred to online. Regardless of the external level of goods flow, physical bookstores have a unique underlying value of cultural interaction logic in the fields of cultural communication and habit formation, such as cultural scene creation, cultural atmosphere creation, cultural consumption experience, and cultural exchange agitation.
In recent years, Zhejiang Xinhua has been committed to building three-dimensional distribution channels, taking into account both online and offline, and seeking balanced development of channels. In the first half of 2023, Zhejiang Xinhua will classify and manage the types of stores in the province, which are divided into four categories: benchmark stores, standard stores, and specialty stores. Focusing on the construction of store vitality, we will focus on two tasks: on the one hand, we will promote the "cloud project" of physical stores and deepen the construction of the Qiantang Hongshu platformThe second is to continue to create reading brand activities such as "Zhijiang Good Book Festival", "Spring Breeze Reading Festival", "New Youth Talk" and "Bookstore School". Based on the above cognition, Zhejiang Xinhua understands that "innovation" is to deeply cultivate the provincial market in Zhejiang Province, continue to carry out reading cultural services with extensive influence, further explore the cultural value of Xinhua Bookstore, and realize the resonance of physical stores at the same frequency with local economic and social development at the level of cultural value.
She Jiangtao, former secretary of the Party committee and general manager of Phoenix Publishing & Media Co., Ltd., put forward his own question with "How far can Xinhua Distribution go": in the network era of continuous upgrading of information, data, digital and intelligence, Xinhua Publishing is facing the challenge of omni-channel, and how far it can go is an increasingly real question. She Jiangtao believes that in order for Xinhua Distribution Group to achieve steady and long-term development, it must do several things well. First, solve the problem of the magnification of the caliber of traditional services: teaching materials, tutorial books, and party and government reading materials are the traditional foundation, but they are not the way out and the future. The caliber of primary and secondary education services and large customer services should be larger, the connotation of students' extracurricular reading materials and party and government reading materials should be richer, and the ability to package topics and provide knowledge services should be stronger. Second, solve the problem of G-end services: establish a digital information-database for books and digital resources, improve the service capabilities of urban public libraries, university libraries, and various libraries, and use them as new business growth points. Third, solve the problems of offline C-end: first, it is necessary to eliminate the thinking of book stores in general, strengthen the positioning and area planning of physical stores, and borrow third-party resources to open effective bookstoresThe second is to improve the multicultural service function of the community and users, and gradually change from simple subcontracting to characteristic self-operation, so that the positioning of the bookstore and multicultural services are integrated, rather than mechanical patchwork or even random piling up;The third is to strengthen the construction of the store manager and sales staff, the store manager is the soul of the bookstore, without a good store manager, there will be no good bookstore;Fourth, improve the chain procurement and supply capacity of the headquarters, improve the ability of physical bookstores to independently purchase and cultural products, and optimize the structure of books and cultural productsFifth, do a good job in cultural activities and sales inside and outside the store, do a good job in the cultural, knowledge, and ideological services of thematic book exhibitions, and do a good job in the sales services of thematic packagingSixth, strengthen the in-depth integration of social stores and make full use of the content resources and new marketing resources of the publishing house. All of the above requires an all-round improvement of the cultural capabilities of Xinhua Distribution. Fourth, solve the problem of online C-end: on the basis of absorbing the practical experience of self-operated e-commerce on third-party platforms, strengthen the construction of self-owned e-commerce. Self-owned e-commerce should form a closed sales loop with the new marketing resources of the publishing unit, realize the introduction of traffic, and expand the traffic poolCooperate with publishers in terms of open products, phased exclusive products, and exclusive products to prevent disintermediationAt the same time, it will continue to improve its capabilities in vertical, content, and new fields, improve its drainage ability and monetization ability, form a closed loop with profitability, endow itself with new channel capabilities, get rid of its dependence on platform e-commerce, and get rid of the constraints of the business logic and rules of platform e-commerce.
The China Bookstore Conference is a public welfare forum aimed at sharing industry issues and industry experience, starting from the first Bookstore Conference in January 2018, this year is the sixth year of the China Bookstore Conference. Each year, the bookstore conference sets a different theme according to the development of the industry in that year, and strives to look back on the development of the physical bookstore industry in the previous year, focus on industry issues, and look forward to future development trends.
Guangming **Quan**Reporter Han Han).