parking.reading.sharing
A LOCALIZED BOOK SHARING SERVICE:
CREATE A NEW SCENARIO FOR PHYSICAL BOOKSTORE
Supervisor: Prof. Ilaria Maria Marelli
Author: Yang Xiaodan
ABSTRACT.
For many years in the past, the physical bookstore has been the main bookselling retail store. However, with the development of the Internet, online bookstores have substituted the role of book -selling in people's daily lives, and the popularity of e-reading has also changed people's reading behavior and undermine people's dependence on physical bookstores. Under the double impact, the physical bookstore began a variety of transformation attempts. This thesis will analyze the current situation of the physical bookstore transformation, especially in China and figures out the challenges and opportunities of bookstore transformation. The aim is to use service design to explore some new possibili-ties for the bookstore in the future.
BOOKPAR is a localized book sharing service for the bookstore located in a central business district. The concept is using a book sharing box settled around customers’ daily routes to offer updated books for customers living nearby, and an online application service that helps customer more easily get access to the book anywhere anytime by scanning the code labeled on the box. The service is also featured that the bookstore will work as the main info and logistics center to organize book-sharing boxes distrib-uted in its service range. Moreover, the using of the online virtual platform also can help bookstores interact directly with custom-ers and collect targeted customcustom-ers data. BOOKPAR creates a new scenario for the bookstore and customers living nearby.
SOMMARIO.
Da sempre, i negozi di libri sono stati identificati come edifici e spazi destinati alla sola vendita. Tuttavia, grazie allo sviluppo di internet, la vendita online dei libri ha cambiato radicalmente le modalità di acquisto nella quotidianità delle persone, oltre ad introdurre e rendere popolari gli e-book, che hanno modificato le abitudini di lettura e limitato il legame delle persone con le librerie.Consapevoli di queste circostanze, i negozi di libri hanno provato, in modi diversi, a trasformarsi e proporre nuove soluzioni di prodotto-servizio. Questa tesi, analizzerà la situazione attuale e la trasformazione delle librerie, soprat-tutto in Cina, e evidenzierà gli ostacoli e le opportunità di una loro possibile trasformazione. Lo scopo è usare il design dei servizi per esplorare nuove possibilità di sviluppo delle librerie nel futuro.
BOOKPAR è un servizio localizzato di sharing dei libri, ideato per librerie situate nei principali distretti commerciali e nelle grandi città. Il concept si concretizza attraverso dei totem distributori per la condivisione dei libri. Questi distributori, sono inseriti nei tragitti quotidiani dei clienti, in modo da offrire le ultime novità a tutti i possibili consumatori che vivono nel distretto prescel-to. Tale attività, sarà anche supportata da un’applicazione online, in grado di aiutare il consumatore nella consultazione dei volumi, tramite la scansione del codice apposto nel distributore dedicato al book sharing.
Il servizio, identifica le librerie come luoghi informativi e centri logistici per organizzare e distribuire le scatole relative al book sharing nei totem distributori.
Inoltre, l’utilizzo di una struttura online potrà aiutare le librerie ad interagire direttamente con i consumatori e a acquisire dati sui profili d’acquisto. BOOKPAR crea quindi un nuovo scenario di servizio di vicinato costruito intorno all’abitudine di leggere libri, di cui la libreria fisica è l’hub principale, e i distributori sparsi nei luoghi pubblici circostanti sono i touch point di un servizio diffuso.
08. PROBLEMS & OPPORTUNITIS
08.1 Case studies analysisCHAPTER TWO. DISCOVER & DEFINE
05 RESEARCH ON CUSTOMER
05.1 Questionnaires Analysis05.3 Contextual Interviews
04 RESEARCH ON BOOKSTORE
04.1 Characteristic of the bookstore 04.2 New challenges for the bookstoreCHAPTER THREE. DEVELOP
07. CASE STUDIES
CHAPTER FOUR. CREATION
CHAPTER ONE. BACKGROUND
01 THE DEVELOPMENT OF BOOKSTORE
01.1 Bookstore development overview01.2 The impact of Online bookstore
01.3 The rise of e-reading: Change Customer Reading Behavior 01.4 Bookstore’s transformation: Case studies
01.5 Summary: Key points of bookstore transformation
CONTENT .
02 CURRENT SITUATION IN CHINA
03 METHODOLOGY OVERVIEW
03.1 Desk Research03.2 Field Observation 03.3 Questionnaires 03.4 Contextual Interviews
07.1 LITTLE FREE LIBRARY 07.2 U+BOOKSTORE
07.3 JAPANESE BOOK TRUCK & BIBLIOBUS-MILANO 07.4 BOOKCROSSING
02.1 The emerging new bookstores 02.2 Lifestyle bookstores in China
02.3 The Current Situation and Trend of Reading
10.1 Main touch point 10.2 Project Identity
10.3 Book Sharing Box Design 10.4 APP Design 10.5 Web Design 10.6 Service Conclusion
10. CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
11. BUSINESS MODEL
12. FUTURE DISCUSSION
11.1 Business Canvas 11.2 Budget List 11.3 Revenue Estimation 11.4 Business Plan09. CONCEPT GENERATION
09.1 Problems | Missoins | Goal | Service statement 09.2 Concept statement & Value proposition
APPENDIX
REFERENCES & ACKNOLEDGEMENT
06. SUMMARY OF THE RESEARCH
06.1 Insights
06.2 Potential Design Deractions
CHAPTER ONE. BACKGROUND
-fig.01 “ The oldest bookstore in the world.” Bertrand Bookstore, Lisbon | photo by Christoph Diewald
01. 1 Bookstore development overview
“A bookstore is a store that sells books, and where people can buy them. ” (Wikipe-dia, the free encyclopedia.) From Wikipe(Wikipe-dia, the free encyclopedia. For many years
in the past, the physical bookstore has been the main bookselling retail store. However, with the development of the Internet, the rise of online bookstores, represented by Amazon, impacted the physical bookstores with the advantages of low price, convenient purchase channels and quick systematic logistics. Online bookstores have become a trend and substituted the role of bookselling in people's daily lives. On the other hand, the rise of e-reading( multimedia, video, online reading, and multi-mobile devices) have also changed people's reading behavior and undermine people's dependence on physical bookstores. As The Economist said, “The digital onslaught of e-books and Amazon-style
e-tailers have put bookstores in an existential predicament.” Under the double impact
of the online bookstore and electronic reading, the physical bookstore began a variety of transformation attempts. This chapter firstly sorts out the development of physical bookstores in recent years, especially define the impacts of the online bookstore and electronic reading. Then the article reveals the current situation of the physical bookstore transformation and figures out the key points of bookstore transformation in the future by analyzing successful bookstore case studies all around the world.
01 THE DEVELOPMENT OF BOOKSTORE
01 THE DEVELOPMENT OF BOOKSTORE
01.1 Bookstore development overview01.2 The impact of Online bookstore
01.3 The rise of e-reading: Change Customer Reading Behavior 01.4 Bookstore’s transformation: Case studies
01.5 Summary: Key points of bookstore transformation
02 CURRENT SITUATION IN CHINA
02.1 The emerging new bookstores 02.2 Lifestyle bookstores in China
01. 2 The impact of the Online Bookstore
The rapid development and significant increase in popularity of online bookstores over the last decade have caused a considerable impact on physical bookstores. Under the impact of Amazon online bookselling, the largest chain bookstore in USA, Barnes & Noble, has reduced the number of stores year after year due to the problem of loss. In 2013, Amazon online bookselling accounted for 79% of the UK book market.(-fig.02) And in Japan, according to data, the number of physical bookstores shrank from 22,296 in 1999 to 13,943 in 2014, with a decrease of 8,353.
Compared to the physical bookstore, the online bookstore has many advantages. Firstly, Compared with the physical bookstore, online bookstore is more time-saving and labor-saving. Instead of going to the bookstore, customers are free to browse selections of thousands of books and compare prices directly from different retailers to find the best deals. And It is also incredibly easy to buy books at any time, anywhere through the internet. Secondly, the low book prices are a big threat to physical bookstores. As online bookstores do not have store rental cost, they can have more space to reduce the book price. At present, the selling prices of online books are often lower than the prices of physical bookstores. In addition to the above two points, another advantage of online bookstores is the Internet integration. On the one hand, bookstores can use the Internet to form a global supply network, while using the Internet collect data and get big data support. On the other hand, users can get more experience over the internet, for example, personalized book recommendations tailored to customers literary tastes.
01 THE DEVELOPMENT OF BOOKSTORE
THE DEVELOPMENT OF BOOKSTORE 01
-fig.03 THE FORMAT OF BOOK Portable Update fast Editable Huge storage Eye protection Touchable PC
Paper Tablet Phone e-reader(kindle) audio book
DIGITAL BOOK PRINT BOOK
FORMAT KEY
POINTS
-Convenience -Lower book price -Online experience
01.3 The rise of e-reading: Change Customer Reading Behavior
As the development of digital technology, now we are in a world which is full of information. Technology has influenced every step of consumer’s life, including the way they read books. The form of the book is becoming more and more diverse. With the paper books turn to electronic books, people’s reading behaviors have been changed particularly, opting for different types of formats of books. The following table summarizes the existing book format and their own characteristics. Different formats have different features and suit for different reading types.The emergence of new forms of communication and new formats is determining a variety of new attitudes and behaviors that need to be analyzed. With the rise of e-reading, a large amount of reading time is turned to communicate with electronic products. And the content of readings also began consisting of not only text and images but also video, music and even communication available on electronic devices. The book is not only an object but also a distributed network of information. The new information technologies have broadened the industry beyond its traditional boundaries and create new ways of reading. This shift in media consumption habits has a direct impact in the book industry. According to Statista, an online statistics, market research and business intelligence portal, “The e-book industry is here to stay, showing healthy projections. By 2018, e-book sales are forecast to account for about a quarter of global book sales. Consumer e-books alone are projected to generate nearly 20 billion U.S. dollars in revenue by 2018. ”01. 4 Bookstore’s transformation & Case studies
Pinched by online bookstores and e-readings, the physical store has tried to move its transformation and figure out how to counteract online stores and e-readings’ advantag-es by capitalizing on areas in which online storadvantag-es and e-reading are unable to compete. According to the bookstore’s size, target user, and service category, bookstore trans-formation could divide into four types, namely theme bookstore, lifestyle bookstore, creative bookstore and online-offline bookstore.
The first type is the themed bookstore, which is characterized by its subdivision of specific books while providing customers with services that go beyond the limits of book sales. Also, these bookstores are committed to building its value-added cultural services which close to book. Take the book as the core, target the specific user as the main customer and make the customer's cultural consumption as the starting point. These bookstores create a comprehensive and three-dimensional multiservice experi-ence for the customers and create new added value for the book industry value chain. The second type is the lifestyle bookstore. Same with the first type of bookstore, It also takes the book as the core and the culture as the starting point. But the difference is that its book covers all aspects of lifestyles, and its cultural service displays humanities, creativity, art, and life to meet the needs of consumers in all aspects of cultural consumption. The lifestyle bookstore is an organic combination of culture and lifestyle. Compared with the theme bookstores, lifestyle bookstore riches cultural values, a wide range of books, and its customers are also more huge.
Amazon bookstore represents the third type, online-offline bookstore, who use big customer data collected online as a powerful tool to enhance physical bookstore. The fourth type is the creative bookstore which features its unique business model and innovative services. Compared to other bookstores, although the size of this type of bookstore is small, its personality and business model make it unique in the market. For example, Morioka bookstore is famous for its "one room, one book" principle. It sells only one book once a week; BOOK AND BED TOKYO aims to create a bookstore where customers could sleep inside the bookshelves and chat with their neighbors over books. BOOK Truck is Japan's only mobile bookstore, and its business model is unique and simple. Namely, the car is the bookstore. The opening time and address entirely depend on the truck.
Another situation is social reading became more and more popular. What is social reading? Social reading means reading acts while connected to the other people. In addition to the traditional reading together and discussing books person to person, social reading includes a large number of networked functions like sharing and receiving shared information. Social reading is likely to become more common when the evolution of the network-culture progresses and e-reading and e-books become more mainstream. The phenomenon of social reading has emerged due to the impact of technology on the book reading practices, making it possible for readers to interact with the content and other readers.
Social reading is revolutionizing the way anyone reads. While most participants in social media, such as Facebook or Twitter in their personal lives, social media in the form of social reading is expanding into the classroom, making reading more enjoyable and exciting for all readers young and old.
1.Reading as an interactive activity.
Co-reading means collaborative reading.Contemporary innovations in technology have started to provoke questions about the appropriate technological configurations for supporting co-reading.
2. Individual reading vs collaborative reading. (collaborative reading systems) Co-reading is an essential aspect of coordination and sharing of reading.
-fig.04 The type of social reading: physical + digital
BOOK CLUB
ONLINE DISCUSION
CO-RADING
READ & WRITE REVIEWS / RATING
BOOK SIGNINGS
ANNOTATE / HIGHLIGHT / HYPERLINK
Creative Bookstore Lifestyle Bookstore
Theme Bookstore Online-offline Bookstore
CASE STUDY 02 AMAZON BOOKS
Now, the emergence and popularity of online bookstores have led to the closure of a large number of physical bookstores. However, as one of the largest online bookstores, Amazon turned out to be the physical bookstore. Amazon's physical bookstores, unlike most physical bookstores that sell books, optimize offline experiences online. First, Amazon uses big data to shop online where books are concentrated. Second, the idea of Amazon's physical book selection and classification is based on Amzon.com book buyers' ratings, bookings, wish lists, actual sales data, good reads, and bibliography. Books sold in the store are booked in accordance with reader reviews and site bookings, and only books rated at 4+ stars qualify for physical bookstores. On the other hand, Amazon used data to estimate book sales, which greatly reduced book retention. Third, a "review card" was used for the book display. Each book was accompanied by a black card below the book, with an excerpt from Amazon.com book buyers' reviews, total ratings, and barcodes. There are "If you like ..." categories on the two bookshelves in the left corner of the screen, imitating the similarity of the recommended products in online shopping. Amazon Bookstore has become a showcase and brand experience center for Amazon products.
CASE STUDY O1 Books for Cooks
London's Books for Cooks (-fig.05) is a bookshop selling only recipes and wine-related books. The bookstore has more than 8,500 books on food and cooking. From the bookstore owner to the staff are all food lovers. Kitchen, Restaurant, Recipes, Chef, Diner, Food Writer, all gathered in London's Chef Book House. The bookstore is located next to Portobello Market. Customers can go to the market to buy fresh ingredients, and then return to the bookstore to cook according to recipe steps. The first floor has a test kitchen where chef cook attractive dishes every day and guests can have a test (-fig.06). On the second floor is a demonstration kitchen. Every Saturday afternoon, a famous chef is invited to make a cooking lecture(-fig.07). The bookstore also has a small restaurant, where visitors can enjoy the chef's skill. The menu depends on what the market offers each day, and chef cooks step by step according to the recipe on the shelf.
-fig.05 Books for Cooks
-fig.06 test kitchen -fig.07 restaurant
-fig.08 Amazon Bookstore
CASE STUDY 03 DAIKANYAMA TSUTAYA BOOKS
Daikanyama T-Site is a Tsutaya bookstore located in Daikanyama, Tokyo, Japan. The bookstore section consists of three buildings, with a total of 150,000 books and DVDs and CDs for lease of about 130,000 DVDs and CDs, as well as an over-sized cafe shop. There are other services such as pet grooming, camera shops and restaurants and other facilities, to further enhance the artistic atmosphere, and it also opened up a gallery space in the store. At the same time also it did not forget to develop a park green space for Tokyo people to create a composite cultural life. Unlike pure booksell-ers, the bookstore picks the books sold based on lifestyle proposals, which means that all books here are lifestyle-related. TSUTAYA aims to provide consumers with life style proposals through five areas: film, music, sports, education, and information. It is not a bookselling space but is a lifestyle experience store. The bookstore used T-CARD user portraits and big data such as “choice” and “likes” of every accurate behavior to precisely match the bookstore’s supporting services and improve customer perception and satisfaction. Its core competitiveness is relying on the global big data of T-CARD which has built a consumer-space alliance that covers all of Japan. It connects each customer with 640,000 consumption scenarios to better understand consumers. T-CARD currently accounts for more than 50% of Japan's total population. T-CARD's mission is to match diversified goods with diverse people and provide them with different lifestyle
-fig.11 “ The world's famous cook theme bookstore” Books for Cooks
-fig.12 “ The world's famous cook theme bookstore” Books for Cooks
-fig.13 Magazine Street -fig.14 Movie and music -fig.15 Concierge receptionist -fig.16 Restaurant: Ivy Place
proposals. This T-CARD can deduce a tendency like "People who like certain music often eat breakfast in such places", and make the customer's image become three-di-mensional.
-fig.13
-fig.15 -fig.16
-fig.14
CASE STUDY O4 Morioka Shoten Bookstore
The popular mini-bookstore called Morioka Shoten is open in the bustling Ginza, Japan. The specialty of this bookstore is the sale of only one Book. The owner of the bookstore is Yoshiyuki Morioka, who has nearly 20 years of seniority in the book publishing indus-try. He broke the traditional bookstore collection of books in the past by coming up with an idea of selling only one book. The concept of this independent bookstore is "one book, one room". Unlike the traditional bookstore where thousands of books are placed waiting to be known, there is only a daily sale of a handpicked book by the owner of the bookstore, and the shop will correspond to the subject and content of the book, which let the guests into the bookstore is like entering the book world. Through the special book selling way, the mini bookstore gives a deeper understanding of the book and conveys the mood which the author wants.
Creative Bookstore special service cultural activities Lifestyle Bookstore compound industry cultural activities Theme Bookstore professional field cultural activities Online-offline Bookstore big data Types Features Target Users Service
Customer segmentation Customer segmentation Customer segmentation Customer segmentation
01.5 Summary: Key points of bookstore transformation
Through the above cases, I compared the typical characteristics of those bookstores. Then I summed up the concerned points of bookstores transformation.
Point 01 Establish multi-services and service integration.
Providing additional services in a reading environment and gaining profit opportunities through these services is one of the key elements in bookstore transformation. Themed bookstores and lifestyle bookstores are all striving to provide consumers with a variety of appeals to enhance their experience. Consumers and readers are the sole sources of profit for physical bookstores. Providing extra experiences to consumers by providing a wide variety of activities is a great way to add value to the bookstore. It should be noted that there should be a correlation between diversified services and bookstores.
Point 02 The integration of online and offline.
Big data is the key element of the evolution and upgrading of physical bookstores. Online data can help bookstores accurately analyze customer groups, customer behaviors, and preferences, and thus make books more accurately match and select.
-fig.17 Morioka Shoten bookstore
-fig.19 Comparison of different types of bookstores
Faced with the current high operating costs, physical stores placed all the books offline is not easy for consumers to choose, and also a great waste of resources. Physical bookstores can open online-shop to broaden sales channels. Physical stores can retain books which are chosen through data analysis, while online bookstores can use other long-tail products to attract consumers. The physical bookstore becomes the consumer experience center, which strengthens the credibility and awareness of the brand and builds customer loyalty, while the online bookstore becomes the way of data statis-tics and logisstatis-tics turnover. forms the double channel online and offline thus optimizes the offline experience through the online. The bookstore forms a double channel both online and offline and upgrades offline experience through the online data.
Point 03.Customer targeting and segmentation
Establish a high-quality customer database. Clarify the target consumer's demands through data collection and analysis; Accord to different needs of consumers to choose books, purchase, and design marketing activities. The ultimate goal is to establish brand identity and awareness, build customer loyalty among target customer from book selection, cultural service and other aspects of customer experience.
Industry Integration
professional field compound industry customer segmentation
Online-Offline Integration
data
collection customer analysis optimizationLogistics
-fig.20 Key points of bookstore transformation
02. 1 Bookstore transformation: the emerging new bookstore
From 2003 to 2014, the Chinese bookstore industry has been experiencing structural changes. The number of bookstores decreased in the 10 years because of the emergence of online bookstores and digital reading. As XINHUA DAILY TELEGRAPHED REPORT-ED reported, “For 10 years, half of the country's private physical bookstores have been forced to close.” Many bookstores, such as monsoon bookstore(季风书园), Wansheng Bookstore(万圣书园), and photosynthesis bookstore（光合作用）generally began a large-scale bankruptcy and closed down. The popularity and convenience of online shopping and digital book. Under the impact of the online bookstore, physical bookstores stepped into to transition time. Traditional bookstore began to think about changing and redefining the physical bookstore to adapt to the reader’s new habits and needs on reading. As a result, the service model and business model of bookstores have changed. According to the bookstore report from OpenBook, a professional company on statistics and analysis of retail sales in the book industry, physical bookstores have picked up substantially in first-tier cities and second-tier cities since 2015；A large number of new bookstores (such as Eslite Bookshop（诚品
）, Fangsuo Bookstore（方所）, Zhongshuge bookstore（钟书阁）, the Cat's Sky
concept bookstore, etc.) popped up and became popular . And we called those new
02 CURRENT SITUATION IN CHINA
Transformation period 2003-2013 2014-Now Closing period Online Bookselling Digital Reading 2014 Turning Point CITY
Bookstore distribution ratio
BEIJING
CHENGDU WUHAN NANJINGHANGZHOU SHANGHAI
GUANGZHOU
bookstores the lifestyle bookstore or Cross-border bookstore. According to statis-tics, now the lifestyle bookstore is mainly distributed in the first-tier cities and forms the trend of chain stores in China.
In this part, first I will study representative bookstores among the new bookstores in China, and introduce those bookstores from physical space, service, and business model.
-fig.21 Bookstore is in danger of closing down
-fig.22 Bookstore development stage in China
-fig.23 The main bookstore distribution city
Service: Integrated with multi-service
The second bookstore development model is to integrate with other industries. In addition to book sales, bookstores introduce creative products, coffee, fashion, restaurants, home and other industries. As can be seen from the figure(-fig 24), coffee is the most popular bookstore fusion format, and becomes a bookstore’s standard industry. Cultur-al and creative products are the bookstore second favored industry. Meanwhile, various types of cultural activities become an important means of brand to promote and create a good brand reputation by word of mouth. In addition, bookstores are also trying to collaborate with fashion and furniture. It shows that lifestyle bookstores are integrating more and more services to enhance customers’ experience.
Business Model
There are two main business models for lifestyle bookstores in China. One model is represented by Eslite Bookshop. Renting a whole building, Eslite Bookshop business model has two parts. One part is self-employed business while the other part is subleas-ing parts of the area to other brands. Self-employed business determines the brand identity of the cultural mall. The sublease business increases the rental income. The other mode is commercial cooperation with the large shopping mall brand, represented by SISYPHE. As SISYPHE could enhance shopping mall cultural experience, it can rent very cheap or even free shopping mall stores.
Real Estate Company
Self-employed Books Self-owned brand Creative products Cultural activity Cafe&food Catering Retail Others Sublease Operating income Rental income Rent Shopping mall Cooperation brand Operating income Rent Self-employed Books Self-owned
brand Creative productsCultural activity Cafe&food
Purchase expenses
-fig.26 SISYPHE booktore business model -fig.25 The eslite booktore business model
02. 2 Lifestyle bookstores in China
coffe creative ptoducts food/wine speech/activities clothes/accessories exhibition furniture 3C products
-fig.24 Bookstores’ integrated services rankings
Factors affect people reading or buying books
work/study
friends recommended
famous writers recommended book sales list
reader’s reviews
social media recommended others
Trend 04.Social reading is becoming more and more apparent.
The socialization of reading mainly consists of two aspects. One is Internet social network-ing based on social software and platform in the internet era. The social networknetwork-ing includes reviews and list systems of online bookstores, online discussions (such as douban), reading comments and other social functions. The other is offline social, including cultural activities held by the bookstore, the author signings, etc., as well as reading sharing among readers. People are more and more aware of the social needs of reading in these two areas.Although reading itself is a relatively independent act, book selection and reading sharing can influence readers in a diverse manner as social platforms and the development of digital reading evolve.
social media offline book club online bookstore’s
reviews
The way of social reading
According to Amazon’s 2017 Chinese people general reading report and 14th national reading survey data reported by China Press and Publication Research Institute, there are those trends of reading in China.
Trend 01.People's reading needs are on the rise.
The overall Chinese reading volume is still low, but the public reading volume shows a tendency of increasing year by year. Reading amount grows yearly, and 82% people read 30mins every day.
Trend 02. Reading forms is diversified, reading paper and digital book together becomes mainstream.
Diversification of reading forms is based on the diversification of book formats: 85% of people read both paper and electronic books at the same time, and 64% people think electronic reading enhances the overall reading volume.
Trend 03. Most people's reading habits tend to be fragmented and purposeless.
Fragmentation of reading refers to the fragmentation of time and the fragmentation of the content. The main reason is that people's fast-paced lifestyles, the change of reading format (the convenience of electronic formats makes the reader can read anytime, anywhere) and the explosion of the amount of information.
02.3 The Current Situation and Trend of Chinese Reading
The overall volume of electronic reading & book reading together 64% people think electronic
reading enhances the overall reading volume.
>10 BOOKS
<10 BOOKS
Only 33% people have a clear purpose of reading
37% people arranged a fixed time to read
numbers of reading books yearly - 2016
48%
64%
>10 BOOKS
<10 BOOKS
numbers of reading books yearly - 2016
56%
80% 85% 33%37%
78%
17% 5%In the discovering step, the research was firstly conducted with desk research. The aim of desk research is to understand the basic situation of lifestyle bookstores in China, and capture the common features of what these bookstores have and challeges faced by the bookstores today. Meanwhile, for understanding what are the customers’ feelings and expectation to lifestyle bookstore, I use online questionnaires as the main method to deep on customers sides. The goal of these researches is to capture a general structure and images of bookstores and customers, which is helpful to figure out what need to be done for the next step.
Field research is mainly divided into two parts. In one hand, I mainly aimed at the bookstore itself. Through visiting the representative bookstore in Shanghai, I observed the space and services of the bookstore and customers' behaviors in the bookstore. The observed bookstores are four brands, ZHONGSHUGE, SISYPHE, HARBOOK+ and THE MIX SPACE in Shanghai. On the other hand, we conducted in-depth random interviews with bookstore customers and bookstore employees.
CHAPTER TWO. DISCOVER & DEFINE
05 RESEARCH ON CUSTOMER
05.1 Questionnaires05.2 Field Observation 05.3 Contextual Interviews
04 RESEARCH ON BOOKSTORE
04.1 Characteristic of the bookstore 04.2 New challenges for the bookstore03 METHODOLOGY OVERVIEW
03.1 Desk Research03.2 Field Research
03 METHODOLOGY OVERVIEW
06. SUMMARY OF THE RESEARCH
06.1 Basic Insights06.2 Potential Design Deractions
03.1 Desk Research
03.2 Field Research
Field Observation
Contextual Interviews
Questionares
Shopping Mall
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CBD Street
Cultural attractions
/ museums
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Shopping Mall Cultural attractions
/ museums CBD Street
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04 RESEARCH ON BOOKSTORE
04.1 Characteristic of the bookstore
Bookstore research selected Shanghai as the main research city and mainly visited representative bookstore brands, included Zhongshuge, SISYPHE, Harbook +, The mix space, etc. By studying representative lifestyle bookstore brands, this chapter analyzes the characteristics of the bookstore in Shanghai.
Bookstores network distribution：Gathered in the business circle
From the geographical view, Central Business District has become the most popular place for bookstores. Among them, the bookstore located inside the shopping mall has become the mainstream phenomenon. According to statistics from Winners' Big Data Center, 86.7% of the shopping centers have included bookstores. The following site is the pedestrian street in the central business district;In addition, some bookstores cooperate with cultural attractions and museums, open shops in the cultural area / museum.The following table lists the number of major bookstore brand stores’ locations. The main reason for the formation of the present distribution is the rise of the mode of cooperation between the bookstore and the large shopping mall. RET statics, a commer-cial estate consulting firm, reported that around 56% of the emerging bookstore located inside the shopping center, 26% of the bookstore's choices are the crowded street shops/pedestrian street. Shopping mall located in the commercial center, firstly, can provide cheap or even free store rent; And it can offer a large-scale flow of people to bookstores because of its own high people visiting. As SISYPHE, the largest chains bookstore in China, said, "shopping malls bring people to bookstores while bookstores enhance the cultural atmosphere of shopping malls."
-fig.29 The statistic of representaive bookstores’ geographic distribution
OBSERVED TARGET FUNCTION BOOK SELLING CULTRUAL ACTIVITIES RELAXING SPACE FOOD&CAFE CREATIVE PRODUCT
/
/
Create a cultural lifestyle experiece
In terms of space experience, the bookstore collaborates with designers to create a better experience for bookstores. For example, Zhongshuge is known as the “Shang-hai's Most Beautiful Bookstore”; the design of ingenious guiding line in the floor in SISPHYE Bookstore greatly enhances customers experience by figuring out different books distribution. As for service experience, the integration of multi-service helps bookstores stronger customer experience. Through the desk research and field obser-vation, the services of bookstores form a basic service model of bookstores, namely, bookselling, creative products selling, coffee bars, and cultural activities. For example, the mix space directly divides the space into fashion clothes & jewelry, books, exhibi-tions, and coffee bar to bring customers all-round experience. The figure on the below shows the basic offering map of most bookstores.The coffee bar service creates a reading and working space for customers which extends the time for customers to stay in bookstores. The holding of cultural activities and events help to build the brand recognition of bookstores and attract more customers constantly. Now the frequency of cultural activities in bookstores has been increased, and it is basically maintained several times a month. At the same time, the forms of activities are more diverse. The selling of creative products has increased the sales revenue and increased the
customer's choices.
COFFE&FOOD
BOOK SELLING RESTING SPACE
READING SPACE
OFFERING MAP
EXHIBITION LECTURE CULTURAL ACTIVITY
SPEECH
CLOTHES JEWELRY FURNITURE
CREATIVE PRODUCTS
-fig.30 The statistic of representaive bookstores’ geographic distribution
-fig.31 The statistic of representaive bookstores’ geographic distribution
Use social media to promote books and events
Currently, bookstores do not have their own online platforms. The main existing method is to promote and promote bookstores through social media such as WeChat (similar to Facebook). The main functions are two points: First, the promotion and registration of activity and event held by the bookstore, and second, the recommenda-tion of books and online purchase. The figure on the below shows an example of how Zhongshuge, a bookstore brand in China, use WeChat to promote books and activi-ties. The convenience and widespread of social media helped bookstores to promote and advertise freely, but social media still has many limitations. Firstly, in terms of interaction with users, due to the low interaction of social media software, there is only a comment function for customers. The communication between bookstores and users is basically one-way and scattered. On the other hand, social media has a large amount of information. Users often fail to receive information or get lost in the ocean of information. Activities Submit Daily News Bookstore Info Book Recommendation
Activity News Detail
Books News Detail
Registration Form Check in Ticket
Activity Sign Up
Buying Books
On the other hand, I interviewed four bookstores’ stuffs and managers. the bookstore service model and requirements are deeply tapped. The interviews are mainly around four aspects, namely bookselling, cultural activity, creative products and resting space. Interviewed Bookstore: ZHONGSHUGE / SISYPHE / Librairie Avant-Garde;
Interview ways: face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews, social media interviews;
1. Target user: higher education intellectuals; 2. Brand positioning: Humanities and Social Sciences bookstore, the cultural landmark; 3. Income: books do not lose money, the main source of income comes from Cultural and creative
products selling and food selling;
4. The bookstore has a professional team for
book selection and updating;
5. The bookstore has a professional team for event organization. The events are free and mainly aim to form a specific fan culture group, then create
membership system through word of mouth.
6. The bookstore wants to create more brand identified products.
7. Needs: - user data (deepen on user behavior).
1. Target user: Thames town tourists. Mainly white -collar workers and foreigners.
2. Income: 70% of bookstore revenue comes from
books and 30% comes from cultural and creative
products;
3. Book selection & updating: update books half
a month; Cooperating publishers recommend irregularly; Internet big data platform;
Telephone and field customers research (2 or 3 times/month); Compared with integrated bookstores, they tend to focus on specific types of books based on regional features, so the screening of the book is very cautious;
4. Customer loyalty: mainly through the WeChat
platform;
1. Target user: higher education intellectuals; 2. Cultural activities: SISYPHE has a department
for activity planning. Small activities are more
abundant, such as bookclub, handmade
activities, etc. Large-scale activities are mainly
writers meeting. Small activities are held once a month inside bookstore while large-scale activities are held generally 2 ~ 3 times a year in the shopping mall. Both activities are held on
weekend and festivals.The main purpose of
activities is to make word of mouth to establish
brand awareness.
3. The main customers come from the shopping
mall visitors.
Interviewer Answer
04.2 New challenges for the bookstore
The physical bookstores that were suppressed by online bookstores and e-books have undergone upgrades in recent years and have gradually developed their new values. Gao Jing, a senior promoter of SISYPHE Bookstore, believes that the internet and e-books are not competitors to physical bookstores. The emergence of the online bookstore and e-books just makes the book industry more diversity. Gao Jing said, “Like SISYPHE, we pay more attention to the book reading experience and cultural interactive experience based on physical space experience. Readers personally pick up books to read in the warm light and participate in the cultural activities site. This kind of warm feeling is that digital channels are difficult to do.” With the transformation and upgrading of bookstores, online bookstores and e-reading are no longer competi-tors in bookstores, but more of a partner. And now, physical bookstores are facing new challenges.
Challenge 01. Optimize the bookstore distribution layout:
In city network planning, the bookstore should consider its service radius; the distribu-tion of large bookstores or cultural landmark bookstores in city centers has already formed. But with the rising of people’s reading need, people’s demand for spiritual and cultural experience is getting higher and higher. According to the China Youth Daily’s report, “81.7% of interviewees hope to open a physical bookstore at their own doorstep”. Bookstores should set up center-level, district-level, and community-level bookstores according to the city's classification system. Only when the bookstore's layout enters people's daily activities, will people pay more attention to it. However, the biggest problem for the existing bookstore is the choice of address and cost. How to get rid of the cooper-ation model of relying on the shopping mall and create a bookstore that can penetrate into people's daily life is a challenge; on the other hand, how to meet the different needs of readers through different levels of bookstore types is also worth considering.
Challenge 02. The integration of internet
With the development and progress of the Internet, bookstores have begun to focus on integrating with the Internet and new technologies. How to use big data, cloud comput-ing, artificial intelligence and other technologies to build bookstores and enhance user experience is the future development direction of bookstores. The in-depth using of Internet technologies and new media will boost the future construction of bookstores, making it easier to purchase books and make reading services more user-friendly. Just as Liu Wentian, chairman of Shandong Xinhua Bookstore, believes that “the conve-nience of online bookstores in the future and the experience of physical bookstores will complement each other, jointly build a new ecological environment for the devel-opment of bookstores and create a sales model to better meet readers' diverse and multi-level cultural consumption needs."At present, the integration of bookstores and
05.1 Questionnaires Analysis
In order to jump into the customers' shoes in the third step of the study, I developed and an online questionnaire to get more information about their attitude and exception of the bookstore. The questionnaire was taken by 134 people from first-tier cities in China, expecially in Shanghai. The questions are set with different objectives. In the below, I picked up the main questions which is helpful to get some outcomes.
QUESTIONS DETAILS
No.1-4 From a general way to know the basic info of people and the basic situation most people towards bookstores.
No.05-08 Understand the frequency of customers to go to the bookstore and the reasons why they go.
No. 09-10 Exploring what kind of service or experience people have in the bookstore. No. 11- 12 Experience on activities&events on Bookstore
85.7% 21~30 5.7% 16~21 8.6% >30 BASIC INFO 01-04:
03.WHAT IS YOUR JOB? 02.WHAT IS YOUR GENDER?
阅读的碎片化 31.4% Office workers 14% Freelancer 48.6% Students 5.7% Boss 61.6% Female 37.4% Male
01.WHICH AGE RANGE ARE YOU IN?
the Internet is basically the use of big data on the Internet to collect and analyze readers' preferences and needs. However, as the senior promoter of SISYPHE bookstore, Gao Jing believes that different from the nationwide coverage and service scope of online bookstores, the service scope of physical bookstores have regional restrictions. Its main users and service objects are based on the geographical service scope of bookstores, so big data can only be given a rough image. So bookstores need small data of a group of people which is covered by its geographical service scope to help bookstores conduct in-depth service and analysis of segmented customers.
Although bookstores are constantly trying out new technologies, no matter if they are unmanned bookstores or smart bookstores, they have only stayed in the application of technology and have not formed a systematic service model. The application of these new technologies has brought a fresh experience to customers. But the experience does not bring long-lasting and effective experience interaction to the user. Therefore, in the future, the bookstore must pay more attention to how to use the Internet and new technologies to bring users a complete and systematic experience and help the bookstore to create brand loyalty for the users.
05 RESEARCH ON CUSTOMER
09.WHAT KIND OF ACTIVITIES YOU WILL DO IN THE
BOOKSTORE? BUY BOOKS 58.6% 44.4% 13.1% 19.2% 21.2% 65.7% 2% READING & WORKING SPACE
SOCIAL READING CULTURAL ACTIVITY BUY CREADTIVE PRODUCTS HANG OUT
OTHERS OUTCOME 02:
From these few questions, we can figure out that the frequency of people going to bookstores is mostly monthly and just a few of people go every week. Usually they visited bookstores on weekends. The most important factor affecting people going to bookstores is distance and mood while the reasons for attracting people to bookstores are diversified, books are no longer a single cause.
EXPERIENCE ON THE BOOKSTORE 09-10: 04.WHICH KIND OF BOOKSTORES
YOU ARE INTERESTED?
HABITS TOWARDS BOOKSTORE 05-08:
05. THE FREQUENCY OF GOING TO THE BOOKSTORE
06. WHEN DO YOU GO TO THE BOOKSTORE?
30.3% 1～2 / month 5.1% 1～2 / week 21.2% Never 43.3% 2~3 / year 77.8% weekend 6.1% weekday/after work 16.2% other time 85.7% 21~30 5.7% 16~21 8.6% >30 OUTCOME 01:
Through cross-contrast analysis, it is found that the groups of which choose the lifestyle experience bookstore as their favorite type of bookstore is more of younger generations, 21 to 30-year-olds, work and students participating in half.
07. WHAT IS GREATEST
ATTRACTION OF BOOKSTORE TO YOU?
08. WHAT DOES INFLUENCE THE FREQUENCY OF YOU TO GO TO THE BOOKSTORE ? BOOK SPACE FEELING CREATIVE PRODCUTS CULTURAL ACTIVITIES OTHERS 66.7% 65.7% 33.3% 26.3% 4% 52.5% 21.2% 23.2% 49.5% 4% Geographic
location Bookstore activities Book updating Dependon mood Other
ATTITUDE TOWARDS BOOKSTORE ACTIVITIES 11-12:
11.HAVE YOU EVER TAKE PART IN
ANY ACTIVTIES HOLD BY BOOKSTORES? 10. DO YOU BUY BOOKS IN THE BOOKSTORE?
12.WHAT KIND OF FACTORS DOES INFLUENCE YOU TO TAKE PART IN ACTIVITIES?
LACK OF INFOMATION
TIME MANAGEMENT UNREASONABLE
58.6% 39.6% 39.6% 43.4% 13.2% 7.5% NOT INTERESTED IN TOPICS
LOCATION IS NOT CONVENIENT EXPERIENCE NOT GOOD EXPERIENCE NOT GOOD
58.5%
0/times
30.2%
1~2/times
OUTCOME 03:
Bookstores are no longer a place for bookselling, and activities of people in bookstores are diversifying. Bookstores have become a space for people to integrate reading, social and cultural exchanges.
OUTCOME 04:
People have great interest in the activities organized by bookstores, but the participa-tion rate is low. The main reason is the lack of informaparticipa-tion and the inconvenience of geographical location. At the same time, people have different needs for different themes and types of cultural activities.
Do not often buy books, only buy favorite books; Reading in the bookstore;
will look at the book price online or whether there is an electronic version;
69.8% 43.4% 30.2%
Play phone Rest play phone Buying/Consulting Buying/Ordering Asking/Talking Take notes Listening Stand&Reading Talking&Reading Walking&Watching Chatting Reading Take photos 05.2 FIELD OBSERVATION
Based on the four outcomes of the questionnaire survey, I dig a deeper understanding of customers' thinkings through field observations and context interviews. Field obser-vations are mainly obserobser-vations of customer behaviors in bookstores for a more in-depth understanding of outcome 03. According to the results of the previous bookstore research, the bookstore was divided into three major spaces, namely bookselling & creative products selling, coffee bars, and activity&event space, which helps to organize and summarize in the observation process. Through observation, it has been found that the activities of customers in bookstores are diversified and will change in different functional space.
OUTCOME 05
The figure on the right shows the photos of observation, divided by the space functions. For analyzing the customer behaviors, I position them according to the social attributes and staying time in the below. Focus on the space function and customer behaviors, we can figure out that the bookstore is not only a space for selling books and products, but also becomes a cultural space where people can chat, read, work and take part in cultural activities. Selling service attracts customers go to the bookstore while cultural service makes customers stay a longer time in the bookstore.
Private acitivity
Social acitivity
Stay for a long time
Stay for a short time
Buying/Consulting Walking&Watching
Chatting Rest Listening Asking/Talking
Stand&Reading Take photos Reading/Working/Studying
Buying/Ordering Teaching
-fig.34 The photos of bookstore observation
Interview in the bookstore
CUSTOMER 01.
-Female -23 years old -Office worker
Q1. Like to go to bookstore; around 1~2/ month; Q2. Have a look; Reading books;
Q3. Stay for an entire afternoon;
Q4. Bookstore environment and book types;
Q5. Have participated once.Feel just so so. Not interested about the topic;
CUSTOMER 02.
-male -21 years old -student
Q1. Like to go to bookstore; around 1~2/ month; Q2. Read books & Buy books;
Q3. Stay 3~4 hours mainly for reading; Q4. Depending on books types;
Q5. Did not participate. no information & no time;
CUSTOMER 03.
-male -61 years old -Unemployed
Q1. Like to go to bookstore; around 1~2/ week when children go to school; Q2. Read books;
Q3. Stay 1~2 hours mainly for reading; Q4. Depending on books whether like or not; Q5. Did not participate, no time & not interested;
CUSTOMER 04.
-female -35 years old -HR
Q1. Like to go to bookstore; around 1~2/ month; Q2. Read books & Buy books;
Q3. Stay 2~3 hours mainly for meeting friends;
Q4. Environment is important, both to read and chat with friends ;
Q5. I attended the reading salon years ago, and really like the experience. But now there is no time.
CUSTOMER 05.
-male -5 years old -child
Q1. Mom take him to go to bookstore around once a week; Q2. Read books & Buy books;
Q3. Stay 3~$ hours mainly for readingwith mom; Q4. Like bookstors where have children’s reading space; Q5. Never participate. No infomation about it;
CUSTOMER 06.
-female -40 years old -housewife
Q1. Like to go to bookstore; around 1~2/ week; Q2. Find books & Buy books & Read books; Q3. Stay all day if the time is ok;
Q4. The first is the environment, the other is the type of book.
Q5. I would like to participate if I know the activities, but the message is not well-informed, I alwasy missed.
CUSTOMER 07.
-male -24 years old -boss
Q1. Like to go to bookstore; around 1~2/ month;
Q2. Mainly read books and walk around, but less buy books; Q3. Stay 1~2 hours mainly for reading;
Q4. Environment is the most important;
Q5. Have participated and more like exhibitions and writers to share. If the activity I am interested in, I will participate.
CUSTOMER 08.
-female -25 years old -nurse
Q1. The first time; Rarely go to the bookstore because of the long distance; Q2. Read books & Buy creative products;
Q3. Stay 1~3 hours; Q4. ?
Q5. No; Lack of infomation & Long distance;
CUSTOMER 09.
-male -35 years old -IT
Q1. Passing the bookstore; Q2. Read books & Buy books; Q3. Stay 1 hours;
Q4. Environment and books are more attractive; Q5. No; Lack of infomation;
05.3 CONTEXT INTERVIEW
In the meantime, customer interviews were made during the visit. The purpose of the visit was to conduct a more in-depth understanding of the reasons and thoughts behind the customer's behavior based on the findings of the questionnaire survey. Before the visit, according to field research and questionnaires, I summed up a general custom-er journey map. The customcustom-er journey map is divided into four areas which are based on bookstore's offering, namely, bookselling, cultural activities, reading space and creative products. In the interview part, I used the customer journey map as visual tools to engage interviewees in a scenario and opens their mind to the open questions. The customer journey map is in the below. For the interview. I totally interviewed 13 interview-ees. The figure on the right records the interviews.
-fig.35 Customer interview
OUTCOME 06
The relationship between people's frequency and distance to the bookstore
According to the survey, it can be found that distance is the most important reason for people to go to bookstores. Therefore, during the interview, I made a further question to the customer's acceptance of bookstore geographic status. The interview showed that the distance of the bookstore and the frequency of customers' visits to bookstores showed a negative proportion increase; the interviewees indicated that they would normally only go to the bookstores in the central business district near their work or home location, and their psychological acceptance range was 3km to 5km; Many interviews indicated that the general situation for visiting a bookstore is “when going to the shopping mall, I encounter a bookstore and will go to have a look.” For bookstores within 1 km, the interviewer stated that “If the bookstore is near home, I will visit it when going to or back from work. Look at what's new, but shouldn't stay a long time;"
OUTCOME 07
The next part is mainly interviewing the bookstore experience. Concerning bookselling, bookstores have been seen as the central place for users to access paper books; with the advent of e-books, their portability and low prices have lowered the threshold for people to read books and buy books. As a result, the attitude of paper books has changed; But e-books cannot replace the reading experience of paper books. Compared with e-books, for paper books, people tend to buy books with collectible value. Online bookstores have become an essential way for people to buy books. However, compared to online bookstores, bookstores can provide users with the ability to touch books and read books before they buy books, which is what online bookstore cannot do. Therefore, bookstores are increasingly regarded as a space to read books and encounter with books. Interviewers indicate that “when I find a book want to buy in a bookstore, I will first go to see if there are digital versions or online selling or second-hand versions and buy the cheapest one. Only the books that they want to treasure will be purchased at a higher price. " On the other hand, the reading groups of the books are mainly young people who tend to be 20 to 30 years old, working or studying in Shanghai. Most of them are not locals and rent a house. With the gradual increase of young people stepping in big cities, such as Shanghai, one interviewee, who rents a house in Shang-hai, indicated that the paper books' storage and handling is a big problem for them.
"Every time I move house, books will be a headache for me. "
HOW DISTANCE AFFECTS PEOPLE GOING TO THE BOOKSTORE? DISTANCE 3km 0km 81.7% 90.6%
Interviewees want a physical bookstore to be within 1 km away from home;
3km is the maximum distance that interviewees will go.
WHAT DOES INFLUENCE THE FREQUENCY OF YOU TO GO TO THE BOOKSTORE?
52.5%
21.2% 23.2% 49.5%
4% Geographic
location Bookstore activities Book updating Dependon mood Other
SUMMARY OF THE INTERVIEW
Bookstore
Bookselling
Cultural sharing
Buy books for reading Buy the right to read books; Buy books for collection; Book
06.1 BASIC INSIGHTS
Insight 01 Integration and Innovation of the Internet
On the one hand, using the internet to improve the interaction between the bookstore and the customer; According to the field investigation and interview, we can see that the services of bookstore basically occurred inside the bookstore. Before coming to the bookstore and after leaving bookstore, there is no experience and interaction between the bookstore and customers. The Internet, which is no limitation of time and geograph-ical restrictions, is a good way to can help bookstores fill users’ blank experiences outside the bookstore. On the other hand, the internet can help bookstores to establish its own high-quality customer base. The bookstore can use the high-quality database to consistently improve bookstore service which is more suit for what target customers needs. At present, because of the cooperation with the shopping mall, most visitors to bookstores are coming from the large people flow of shopping mall. The bookstore itself does not form a stable customer group. Bookstores need to establish its own loyal customer base by suit for the need of its target customers and offering personalized book selection and promotion activities.
Insight 02 The Convenience of Bookstore
Considering the convenience of bookstores, there are two pain points need to be fixed. One is how to avoid and reduce the inconvenience caused by bookstores' distance, and meet the user's demand for bookstores at door; The other one is, with the change of users' attitude towards paper books, how to provides users with more convenient access, reading, and purchasing paper books.
06 SUMMARY OF THE RESEARCH
06.2 POTENTIAL DESIGN DIRECTIONS
01 BOOKSTORE AT DOORBased on the user's demand for close bookstores, a small bookstore is established within 1 km of the user's daily routes to maximize the user access to the bookstore, which is similar to the existing newspapers stand, etc. The aim is to provide users with a small bookstore which allow the user to visit every day and recommend high-quality books based on users' preference.
02 BOOK SHARING SERVICE
Considering the user's changes in the attitude and behavior of reading and buying paper books, changing the characteristics of the existing bookstores from bookselling to book sharing, which meets the user's most convenient use of paper books, and reduces users' concerns and troubles in purchasing and storing paper books.
03 ONLINE PLATFORM
Make use of the convenience of the Internet to enhance the experience of users outside the bookstore, such as recommending books and activities to users online. The estab-lishment of an online platform can reduce the possibility of users' information missing and lack, while an online community can increase the interaction between bookstores and users, improve the user's stickiness and awareness of bookstores, and allow bookstores to better collect user needs and preferences data.
According to the desk research and field research, I summarized insights from both the bookstore and the customer.
02. BOOK SHARING SERVICE 03. ONLINE PLATFORM 01. BOOKSTORE AT DOOR
CHAPTER THREE. DEVELOP
07.1 LITTLE FREE LIBRARY
A little free library is a small, accessible book exchange boxes in front of a house or on a street corner for neighbors who can freely take a book or return a book.It is a nonprofit service, that Todd H. Bol firstly started in 2009. And it also has a nonprofit website, where people can register for a new little free library and check out the little free library all around the world. As its website wrote, “Little Free Libraries have a unique, personal touch and there is an understanding that real people are sharing their favorite books with their community. These aren't just any old books, this is a carefully curated collection and the Library itself is a piece of neighborhood art!” Based on the same idea and aim, there are some other types of the little free library, which not only offers books but also want to create a reading space for neighbors.
07. CASE STUDIES
07.1 LITTLE FREE LIBRARY 07.2 U+BOOKSTORE07.3 Japanese Book truck & Bibliobus-Milano 07.4 BOOKCROSSING
08. PROBLEMS & OPPORTUNITIS
08.1 Case studies analysis07 CASE STUDIES
The chapter2 summarized the three potential design directions through the research. During this chapter, I will follow the three directions to find out some case studies that can be used for reference in the future development and explain them one by one.
neighbor
exchange
online
community
03 DEVELOP
DEVELOP 03
The Story Pod by architecture studio Atelier Kastelic Buffey is a compact, mobile library located near Main Street in the town of Newmarket in Toronto.
‘Little Free Library’ in New York, designed by artist and architectural designer Chat Travieso.
07.2 U+BOOKSTORE
On July 16, 2017, U + BOOKSTORE debuted the book sharing service. Readers can come to the bookstore, and by using the "U+BOOKSTORE" App, pay an online payment of 99 yuan deposit. Then they can borrow 2 books totaling less than 150 yuan by scanning the book's code and they need to return within 10 days. "The original intention of book-sharing service is to eliminate reading costs for readers, reduce reading barriers and improve reading frequency." Xu, the owner of the bookstore, said that some parents will buy a lot of books for their children, but as the children grow, these books will be useless, which resulting in a certain amount of waste. Therefore, for these reasons, U+BOOKSTORE decided to enable book-sharing service to promote the effective use of book resources and limited borrowing time could urge everyone to study.
online
sharing
-fig.37 Case study: u+bookstore
Little Free Library at 4th Street Farms
07.4 BOOKCROSSING
Bookcrossing is a nonprofit book-sharing service which is founded by Ron Hornbaker in March 2001 and the website,BookCrossing.com, launch on April 21, 2001. As the website explained, “BookCrossing is the act of giving a book a unique identity. so, as the book is passed from reader to reader, it can be tracked and thus connecting its readers. BookCrossing is the act of releasing your books "into the wild" for a stranger to find, or via "controlled release" to another BookCrossing member, and tracking where they go via journal entries from around the world. ” Customer can freely go to the website, register and apply a BookCrossing ID, label a book and pass / release / cross the book as you want.
Another public service which is similar to bookcrossing is Books on the Underground in London. The only different point is the way of releasing a book. Books on the Underground ensure “books traveling the London Underground, to be found by lucky travelers who then read them, hopefully, share online that they found them (!) and return them to the tube for the next book finder. ” In addition to the official website, it also uses social media, such as Instagram, Facebook, etc. for publicity and interaction.
mobile
sharing
travel
07.3 Japanese Book truck & Bibliobus-Milano
Book truck is the only mobile bookstore in Japan. The bookstore is a truck full of books and where the bookstore opens is determined by where the truck moves. The opening space and time of Book truck will be sent to the Facebook page in advance. Sanda Mita, the Owner of the bookstore, every weekend will be invited to participate in a variety of markets to exhibit and sell books. The type of books in the bookstore varies according to the event theme and location. For example, if go to a coffee exhibition, books will be more about coffee books. Mr. Mita said, "Finding a suitable book for yourself in a bookshop which is full of a wide variety of books is very difficult and I want to create a chance for a kind of people in a specific scenario to meet books, just like an encounter with a good movie. " Same as the book truck, the Bibliobus is also a traveling library that since 1984 in Milan. Its loyal readers can find it in some squares of the city and the Readers can borrow the book with a certification card and the duration of the loan is 30 days. Readers can book books and find the library’s stable arriving space on the official website.
mobile
online
-fig.38 Case study: book truck, bibliobus -fig.39 Case study: bookcrossing
Service
little free library
Second-hand book sharing among nerghbors;
Second-hand book
selling service; Vending machine;
1) The quality of book; 2) Low participation; 3) Limited books; 4) The randomness of book; 1) Far distance; 1) The randomness of location and time;
1) The randomness of book;
2) Limited books 1) The randomness of location and time; 2) Limited books; Bookstore’s book
renting service;
Mobile bookstore;
Second-hand book sharing all around the world;
Truck as a bookstore;
Label book;
Release book on public space;
Follow the book online; Bookstore;
Stable book box; Take one, return one;
U+Bookstore
Bookcrossing & Books on the Underground
Green Reading Book Truck & Bibliobus
Value How it works Problem
mobile - nearby stable - nearby
Old & limited books
New & updating books
08.1 CASE STUDIES ANALYSIS
At the same time, by analyzing the case studies from three sides, namely value propo-sition, how it works, and problems, I concluded the figure on the below which shows the comparisons of different services. From the figure, we can figure out that for books sharing service, the main problem which the existing service cannot satisfy is how to guarantee the quality and quantity of books based on the preferences of local custom-ers, and how to share the book more efficiently and systematically for customers. And the position map (fig.40) shows the possible opportunity.
little free library Greening Reading Bookcrossing
Books on the Underground
Book Truck
Bibliobus opportunity
08 PROBLEMS & OPPORTUNITIS
-fig.40 POSITION MAP ANALYSIS
