Chinese bookstore chain Xinhua has opened the country's first employee-less, 24-hour bookstore, in Tongzhou, a district in southeast Beijing, and plans to open another 19 such stores in the city before the end of 2018, the Beijinger reported. The stores, part of the "Xinhua Lifestyle Store" brand, will be located near universities, government offices and shopping malls.
The fully automated bookshops require customers not only to register with their real names through WeChat, a messaging and social media app developed by Chinese software company Tencent, but also have their faces scanned before entering the store. And instead of having staff members on hand to recommend books, the stores will offer "precise and humanized" book suggestions based on customers' purchasing history.
The Tongzhou store is 30 square meters, or a little over 320 square feet, and located within the gigantic, 80,000-square-meter (approximately 860,000-square-foot) Beijing International Book Mall, which maintains normal business hours. The Beijinger noted that while the automated store is convenient, it has a small selection limited to bestsellers and is not frequently updated. It does, however, have a robot, with which customers can interact.
According to the Beijinger, Xinhua's new stores are part of a trend of both bookstores and staffless stores opening in Beijing: there are now at least five 24-hour bookstores in the Chinese capital, and automated convenience stores and supermarkets have proliferated, with many of those open 24 hours a day as well.