I hope it helps you.

Dalian Book City is located in the downtown area of this coastal city. There are many surrounding commercial facilities and huge passenger flow. The day I went also caught up with the weekend, so the customers in the book city were in an endless stream, which was particularly prosperous. Although Dalian Book City is divided into four floors, only one floor sells books. Except for a large video store at the entrance and several counters in selling groceries beside the passage, all other stores are independent bookstores. The business area of bookstores is generally larger than that of bookstores in other cities in China, but the facilities for displaying books are equally simple. However, many bookstores here have made neon lights, which is relatively rare in the domestic book industry.

Bookstores in Dalian Book City are mainly divided into two categories: one is the bookstore dealing with books for students and exams, which accounts for the vast majority; The other is a bookstore that specializes in selling social science books, and there are about seven or eight such bookstores; In addition, there are other types of scattered bookstores, such as antique bookstores, with a total of no more than ten. I don't know whether it's the weekend or the prosperity of Dalian Book Market itself. Dalian Book City has more readers than I expected, and the rate of carrying bags is also very high. Readers are mainly junior high school students, and children accompanied by parents also account for a certain proportion. Relatively speaking, except for exam books and student books, bookstore readers are relatively deserted.

In a bookstore dealing in social science books, the boss told me that business is far from good as before, but students and exam books are slightly better, and it is still quite difficult for a social science bookstore like him to sell books. A bookstore I know has been operating in Dalian for more than ten years. According to the owner, the bookstore is facing multiple pressures at present: first, the book market has not expanded with the increase of readers' income; Second, the sales price of books is getting lower and lower; Third, the purchase discount is higher than in the past; Fourth, the rent and miscellaneous fees are higher than before. In a word, the profit of opening a bookstore is very thin now.

Because Dalian Book City is located in a bustling business district, I paid special attention to whether there are vendors selling pirated books around. Unexpectedly, I didn't find a small bookseller, which is very rare in second-and third-tier cities in China. When I left Dalian Bookstore, although the business there was much better than I expected before I went there, the number of books displayed in various bookstores was still out of proportion to the passenger flow.