The Eslite bookstore chain is to turn its branch in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) into a 24-hour operations, after its 24-hour outlet on Taipei’s Dunhua S Road closes on May 31.
Mercy Wu (吳旻潔), chairwoman of Eslite Spectrum Corp (誠品生活), which owns the bookstore chain, department stores and restaurants, and also sells appliances and equipment for hotels, restaurants and kitchens, announced the decision at a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
The lease for the Dunhua branch is to expire on June 15, paving the way for an urban renewal project launched by the owner of the 35-year-old building, Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), that would significantly augment its floor space and property value.
Photo: CNA
The Xinyi branch is to soft launch 24-hour operations on May 29, allowing the unique business model to stay alive, Wu said.
The Xinyi store, which has 1.8 times the book collections and 2.5 times the floor space of the Dunhua branch, would grow into a popular hangout venue for night owls, book fans and tourists alike given its convenient location, she said.
The building that houses the Xinyi bookstore also features a 24-hour supermarket, a bar and a cafe that help it stand out compared with the firm’s Nanxi bookstore on Nanjing W Road in Zhongshan District (中山), she said.
Earlier this month, Eslite invited the public to help choose the location for the 24-hour bookstore in an online poll, with the Xinyi store on Songgao Road gathering the most support, the company said.
The Dunhua outlet opened in 1989 and in 1995 became the first 24-hour bookstore operation in Asia.
Wu said that she was having difficulty saying goodbye to the venture, even though the bookstore business remains unprofitable.
The bookstore chain has been taking a hit amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as intensifying competition from online peers.
It has said that it would close its store in Taitung County at the end of this month, after closing its outlet in Tainan’s Anping District (安平) last month.
The company would still have 42 stores in Taiwan with the closures.
Eslite has stores in Taikoo, Causeway Bay and Tsim Sha Tsui in Hong Kong; Suzhou and Shenzhen in China; and an outlet in Tokyo, which opened in September last year.
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
Japan intends to closely monitor the impact on its currency of US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs and is worried about the international fallout from the trade imposts, Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We need to carefully see how the exchange rate and other factors will be affected and what form US monetary policy will take in the future,” Kato said yesterday in an interview with Fuji Television. Japan is very concerned about how the tariffs might impact the global economy, he added. Kato spoke as nations and firms brace for potential repercussions after Trump unleashed the first salvo of
SUPPORT: The government said it would help firms deal with supply disruptions, after Trump signed orders imposing tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Canada and Mexico The government pledged to help companies with operations in Mexico, such as iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), shift production lines and investment if needed to deal with higher US tariffs. The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday announced measures to help local firms cope with the US tariff increases on Canada, Mexico, China and other potential areas. The ministry said that it would establish an investment and trade service center in the US to help Taiwanese firms assess the investment environment in different US states, plan supply chain relocation strategies and
RSS