Chinese e-commerce company Dangdang.com plans to open 1,000 bookstores over the next three yeas, in "shopping malls, supermarkets and towns," according to China Retail News.
The first store opens in December in Changsha, Hunan, and will be have almost 13,000 square feet of space. The stores will offer the same prices as the company offers online.
China Retail News said that according to OpenBook, a Chinese book retail market research firm, bricks-and-mortar bookstores in China had sales gains of less than 5% from 2008 to 2010, then a gain of 6% in 2011, and then decreases in 2012 and 2013.
In other Chinese bookselling news, Taiwanese bookseller Eslite opened its first store in the People's Republic yesterday, Cihan reported. The four-story flagship store in Suzhou City is open 24 hours a day and stocks 500,000 books, handicrafts, jewelry and kitchenware. It also has a cooking studio, visual lab, tea house and a lecture room.
Eslite has 43 branches in Taiwan and one in Hong Kong.