General Overview of the Book Retail in Taipei.
Book Stores are the most important scenery in Taipei. There are some book stores in the cities all over the world. But the book stores in Beijing and Shanghai are boring and lack of an elegant atmosphere. Book stores in Hong Kong are always hidden around the corner, book stores are not easy to find in this international city. Book stores in Taipei, it is totally a different story. There are big chain book stores such as Eslite Bookstore and Kingstone Bookstore. There are small second-hand bookstores as well such as Mollie used books bookstore and You He Book Store. Different types of retailers can all be found in Taipei.
Eslite Bookstore and Kingstone Bookstore
Eslite Bookstore is one of the largest retail bookstore chains in Taiwan. It also provide one of the largest English language publications and translation materials in Taiwan. Its headquarters are in Taipei. It was established in 1989 with a focus on art and humanities-related books. In addition, it is the first to set up a 24 hour bookstore in Taiwan, attracting lots of night-time readers. It also expanded into retail, and opened up Eslite Mall.
Kingstone Bookstore is another big bookstore chain in Taiwan apart from Eslite Bookstore. It has different kinds of retail channels such as online retail and physical store retail. It was founded in 1982
Small Second-Hand Bookstores: Mollie used books bookstore
Mollie used books bookstore is a second hand book store chain in Taiwan. The name of Mollie means jasmine in English. It was founded in the 1980’s. After the year 2002, Mollie second hand bookstore became larger and there are all kinds of book with low price in this bookstore. Prague Bookstore is another second hand bookstore in Taipei, it is located at the underground of a café. Except from the new and secondary books, there are always many cultural salons held here. These creative ideas of retail give these bookstores new energy. People who come to these bookstores want not only to buy cheap books but also to experience the fancy atmosphere here.
