The decline of physical bookstores is a common problem worldwide, but is especially severe in Japan due to a rapid aging population. As an avid reader, who always dashes to the nearby bookstore wherever I visit to check out content people care about, I am keen to learn any new business solutions in this area. In this post, let’s take a look at some of the innovative things Japanese booksellers are doing in this headwind.
current problem
An aging population and the exodus of younger workers to cities make it difficult to run a bookstore in Japan. More and more bookstores are closing and 26％ of municipalities don’t even have one, creating a cultural void. Data released by the Japan publishing trade organization shows that sale of book and magazine is trending down year after year, although the decline briefly softened during the pandemic. At the same time, ebook sales are rising year after year with a big drive from manga. Perhaps more alarming is the fact that even the number of new publications is declining.
innovations to draw people in
The reason behind why people purchase something is often not straightforward. Let’s take a vase for example. When someone buys a vase, she might think that she is trying to arrange some flowers. When we ask further, “what do you want to get from the vase?”, she might notice that she wants to decorate a room with the flowers. Ask the same question again, and we gradually get more upstream to the rationale of the purchase, i.e., she wants to beautify her living space. In subsequent questioning, we come to realize that the vase is just a means to a goal (to live in a beautiful space). We thus have broadened our choices, as we can achieve the same goal with different options, such as repainting a wall, buying a new curtain, or simply decluttering the space or rearranging existing furniture.
In a similar way, we can ask why people buy books. There is a myriad of reasons, and by expanding our thinking through this exercise, we come to realize that a bookshop exists not just to sell books, but offer multiple services satisfying different intrinsic needs. This is clearly visible in the new and heartful business models operated by creative people we’ll meet below.
community hub
ENCROSS’ reading room, where people are encouraged to read and mingle. Photo credit: CCC official site
The Nobeoka Station Square Complex ENCROSS aims at community revival, by pairing a Tsutaya bookstore with spaces that promote local culture to train passengers who pass by, while functioning as a civic space to host cultural events every week. Another similar project in Karuizawa, a favorite summer retreat area in Nagano, strives to be a community center where people can work, eat, and learn together in a forest setting.
Photo credit: Seikosha official site
Seikosha in Kyoto takes community hub to another level by acting as an information center for the neighborhood. Owner and founder Horibe views a bookstore as a learning place where humans meet the unknown. He views a bookstore as a middlemen connecting not just creators and readers, but also shops and neighbors/visitors, mandating the owner to always keep a pulse of the neighborhood. He spends as much time outside the store as inside, and knows all the nooks and nuances of every shop in his area. In this way, he acts as an unofficial concierge for anyone who comes in. He doesn’t peruse internet data on sales, policy changes or new constructions, but gauge sentiments and trends via in person interaction. Each encounter becomes his data to build on his recommendation engine so he knows what to suggest to the next visitor.
exhibition space for meet and greet
Photo credit: Morioka Shoten official site
With the motto one book, one room, Morioka Shoten in Ginza selects and sells only one book each week and curates an art exhibition or event inspired by the book. Owner Morioka used to work in conventional bookstores, which he deemed was overloading readers with choices. His approach is to help readers choose better. With only one book and a tiny room, readers can understand the offerings deeper and have a more intimate chat with Morioka, other readers and the featured creator.
The tiny space thus doubles as meet-n-greet to facilitate creator-reader interaction, promoting in person encounter in this digital era where it’s easy to binge consume content at home. By driving such interactions, Morioka aims to provide opportunities for freelancers to expand their networks and improve their skills. In this sense, Morioka Shoten is not just a bookstore but more as a bazaar for people to forage ideas and showcase themselves. Morioka also runs a paid offline member club for idea exchange, book reading, and paid tours to exhibition and antique markets. His goal is to promote social exchange around a particular subject, instead of pushing many choices at one time.
emporium for discovery
My previous post has explained how the Tsutaya T-Site acts as a place for discovering new lifestyle offerings. In fact, T-Sites are flourishing in business, whereas the regular Tsutaya chain stores selling/renting regular books and music are declining. As CCC founder and CEO Masuda said in his book, “the problem with bookstores is that they only sell books”. It seems that people enjoy the value-added service of recommendations and cross-segment sell, as well as the novelty of discovering new information and products.
hybrid shop
Hirakata T-Site, a mega-complex of books, food, and goods. Photo credit: CCC official site
Nikkei news has reported that Tsutaya has closed nearly 1/3 of its original rental stores in recent years, and pivoted them to hybrid stores offering shared workspace and selling higher profit margin goods. Travelers to Taiwan would be familiar with this model, as the local chain Eslite has been well-verse in such operation for over a decade, by creating bookshops that more resemble a cultural complex, partnering with local craftsmen to feature their goods and food, and have a modern and trendy vibe. In fact, booksellers in China are also bucking on the same hybrid trend and are reported to be doing very well despite the proliferation of mobile content in the country.
community library
Sancacu and it’s rented bookshelves. Photo credit: Dohi Junya’s blog
sancacu is a community-run library in Yaizu, Shizuoka Prefecture. It has been featured by NHK and inspired a wave of mintosho - everyone's library around the country. The premise is that citizens can rent a shelf cheaply (which covers the operating cost of the space), and display their collections which others can freely borrow or purchase. Readers are also encouraged to leave their notes in the books for others to view and discuss, drop a note or gift for the shelf owner, or volunteer to become a storekeeper. Sancacu founder Dohi Junya views the rented shelves as a venue for people to express themselves, promote their own businesses or make impromptu connections.
Dohi is proud to revitalize the abandoned shopping arcade (shotengai) near Yaizu train station with this unique space, and offers expert-led talks on various subjects where neighbors of every age are welcome. In fact, his vision is much grander, running Sancacu as a social design experiment to create a self-governing community operated entirely by citizens, in the headwind of a shrinking population, tax base, government structure and an increasing number of vacant properties. By revitalizing these vacant spaces (such as post offices, banks that close due to lack of use), he aims to promote agency and autocracy in citizens to own private spaces that implement public changes they want to see. He challenges citizens to not merely complain about the town or the library, or wait for their government representatives to change anything, but to think about what I can do to make it the way I want it to be?
Even though Sancacu’s major activity is not in selling books, I include it in this post because of the reasons in my introduction, i.e., the behavior of reading or visiting a bookstore isn’t solely driven by book purchase, but can be anything from trying to connect with others, driving changes, understanding what’s going on around, etc. In this sense, I would say Sancacu has fulfilled multiple jobs!
human recommender
Some bookstores prosper due to the owner’s very sophisticated curation skill in a specific genre, offering books not available anywhere. For example, celebrity creations such as Matsuura Yataro’s COW BOOKS is a hotspot due to his reputation in purveying out of print art books. In comparison with AI, a human domain expert has years of field experience with his/her accumulated knowledge and connections. The Seikosha approach as a human hub that is knowledgeable in every ups and downs of a small local neighborhood is also hard to replicate by machine. Horibe from Seikosha is widely regarded as expert recommender and curator, back from his days as store manager in Keibunsha Ichijoji bookstore that became a tourist attraction due to its collection quality. He acquires his collections directly from authors and publishers, bypassing the fixed Japanese distribution network of wholesalers, and thus ensuring that he has a unique selection based on his daily observation of visitors and the surrounding environment.
pop-up curation
An example popup curation. Photo credit: Ika Bunko official site
Some creative booksellers run pop-up stores that do not have a fixed physical space, but rather host contracted events with bookstores. Ika Bunko is one of those that has been running for over a decade, collaborating with physical bookstores to curate a chosen theme with both books and gifts. Themes vary from “sacred places”, “cool middle-age men”, “deep sea”, etc. In doing so, it reduces the risk of fixed assets and minimalize its operating cost, bringing flexibility to what it can do.
paid per use
Bunkitsu’s entrance hall, which doubles as an exhibition space where it is free to browse. Photo credit: Bunkitsu official site
Bunkitsu opened in 2018 and is a pay-per-use bookstore providing a comfortable place to read (or as the founder says, fall in love with) books. The business model consists of a 1500 yen entrance fee, which covers free tea and coffee and as much time as you like to read or work there. It also offers additional fee-based services such as cafe food, and a concierge. Its vision is to be run like a museum or theater, encouraging readers to explore new subjects in its 30000-book-collection in which none is alike.
The modern design magazine shelf doubles as an exhibition area, curating on a monthly theme and inviting readers to open each cell to explore a specific subject further. Photo credit: enjoytokyo.jp
Tables with piles of related books organized around a particular subject, inviting the reader to treasure hunt. Photo credit: Bunkitsu official site
Another niche they provide is a personal selection service, in which a user can spend 30 minutes with a Bunkitsu staff in a phone consultation for their favorite subject 3 days in advance. When you visit, you can pick up 10 books handpicked by staff, together with 10 bookmarks explaining the choices! They see their strength in helping users select or discover a new book in an era when everyone is busy.
conclusion
In the above, we can see that a lot of these bookseller are contrarians, as they think there are experiences that can’t be replaced by digital technology. For example, interacting with others to learn or gather first-hand data that can’t be acquired online, invoking the 5 senses via touching books and art pieces, lighting in a store, enjoying the display of objects, listening to talks, and sensing a space’s ambience. Other entrepreneurs are keen to leverage their industrial knowledge in publishing and buying to hand pick books for each discerning customer. Still others offer a vibrant gathering place to revitalize a forgotten area of the town, and instill a sense of citizenship and social responsbility in neighbors. The shops might vary in size and scope, but they all share the same vision that reading and discussion can bring positive changes to people and society. Together, they all act like navigators, providing directions to those who are drown in information overload and rekindling the warmth that only human interaction can provide. I’m so happy to see all these endeavors blooming and can’t wait to revisit them soon to share my passion in books!