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Lower prices push pirate books off shelves
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-01-21 21:58
Xinhua Bookstore in Wuhan has started offering year-round discounts to buyers
in a bid to combat piracy.
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| Imported CDs, VCDs and DVDs are sold at discounts in Chuangxin
Bookstore in Haikou, capital city of South China's Hainan Province, a bid
to curb priate publications. [newsphoto] | Sources
from the arm of the 70-year-old Xinhua Bookstore Chain, China's largest book
retailer, based in the capital of Central China's Hubei Province, said shops had
reported increased sales in the first week of 2005.
Many private bookshops have started to feel the pinch from piracy, said Li
Bing, general manager of Xinhua Bookstore Wuhan.
He said discounts could be an efficient way to challenge pirated copies of
legal publications, despite inevitable profit loss.
The State-owned Xinhua Bookstore Chains sell more 200,000 kinds of books, and
they have a monopoly on textbooks for primary and middle schools.
Total sales have shot from 160 million yuan (US$19.3 million) in 2000 to
approximately 300 million yuan (US$36.2 million).
Over the past few years, discounts have been given only as a seasonal
marketing promotion, usually limited to certain kinds of books, Li said.
Visits to Xinhua Bookstore shops have been on the decline due to factors such
as a rising number of subscribers of electronic publications and higher book
prices.
Professor Fang Qing with the Information College of Wuhan University said
prices were one of the key factors that had led to a rampant supply of pirated
publications.
"Higher prices stop the general public being able to absorb cultural
nutrition or legal publications," said Fang, "When buying books and reading
become a luxury in life, no wonder fewer and fewer people will turn to legal
publications."
To win over customers, the Xinhua Authorities tried offering a 20 per cent
discount on all books year round at one of their wholesale centres at the Wuhan
City Book World in 2000.
Reader Yang said he used to buy cheaper but low-quality books at a private
bookstore.
"Now with quality guaranteed, plus discounts all the year round, I'd rather
buy books with Xinhua Bookstore chains, where we have wider options -- not only
quality books, but also quality audio- video products -- to select from under
one roof," said Yang.
Ping Shuqiao, chief with the Publications Marketing Section of Hubei
Provincial Bureau of Press and Publications, acknowledged that discounts could
push pirate publications further off the shelves. "Fixing high prices for books
and selling them at discounts is by no means a sophisticated way of marketing
books," said Ping.
China's current regulations on marketing stipulates the rights and legal
obligations of aspects such as qualifications for marketing, content, form and
venue, but not pricing.
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