Sales soar for bookstores during holiday promotion
Bookcases with Chinese New Year decorations at Shanghai Book City on Fuzhou Road in Huangpu District.
More than half of the 60 local brick-and-mortar bookstores that took part in a Spring Festival promotion organized by city's publishing industry association saw an increase in sales over the same period last year.
During the seven-day holiday, the overall offline sales of these bookstores soared to 8.5 million yuan (US$1.27 million), while their online sales were more than 4.2 million yuan, according to the association.
Between February 11 and 17, 14 Xinhua Media bookstores had sales of 2.7 million yuan and 67,000 visitors, five Duoyun bookstores had total sales of more than 1.1 million yuan with nearly 40,000 visitors and the Shanghai Foreign Language Bookstore had 760,000 yuan in sales with nearly 8,000 visitors.
During the promotion, many of the bookstores attracted visitors with activities such as exhibitions, lectures, calligraphy practice and making handicrafts.
An illustration with iconic Shanghai landmarks at an exhibition in Minhang's Light Space Xinhua Bookstore.
The Light Space Xinhua Bookstore in Minhang has been featuring an exhibition called "The Shanghairen," with drawings from 100 Chinese and foreign illustrators depicting the way Shanghai looks in their minds. The illustrations include vessels on the Bund with Lujiazui in the background, shikumen (stone gate) houses, women dressed in qipao (a traditional body-hugging, one-piece dress), construction workers building the city and the matchmaking corner at People's Park. The exhibition runs through Sunday.
