Perhaps because "Eslite Bookstore" has become a "cultural business card" in Taiwan, Wu Qingyou himself rarely talks about business, so most people ignore his identity as a businessman.

In the past two days, Founder of Eslite Bookstore The news of Wu Qingyou 's death has spread the cultural and commercial circles.

Maybe because "Eslite Bookstore" has become a "cultural business card" in Taiwan, Wu Qingyou himself rarely talks about business, so most people ignore his identity as a businessman. Before founding Eslite Bookstore, he was just a young man from the countryside of Tainan who had been struggling in the shopping mall.

In 1950, Wu Qingyou graduated from Tainan High-tech Mechanical Science and Technology and joined Chengjian Hardware Building Materials Company, engaged in professional equipment sales in hotels and hospitals. His outstanding work ability allowed him to become Chengjian a leader in the industry. Later, Wu Qingyou invested in real estate and securities companies, becoming a new wealthy person in Taiwan.

Wu Qingyou founded Eslite Bookstore, which caused the serious illness after the "Men's Midlife Crisis".

1988, 38-year-old Wu Qingyou's heart stopped beating due to congenital enlargement of heart disease. After a large amount of blood transfusions, he walked out of the gate of hell. In the hospital bed, he spent the longest vacation since he worked. He read Shi Huaizhe's "Philosophy of Civilization". Influenced by the contents of the book, Wu Qingyou suddenly became suspicious of his earlier lifestyle. Wu Qingyou hoped to open a bookstore.

Years, Taipei Renai Road circular, the first Eslite Bookstore was born. When Eslite Bookstore was first established, he did not have a long-term plan for Eslite Bookstore. In the first 15 years of opening the store, Eslite Bookstore lost all the wealth he accumulated from investing in real estate and securities companies.

When Eslite is in danger, Wu Qingyou put forward the concept of "humanity, art, creativity, and life". He advocates the goal of selling art and architecture books when starting a business, and plans a business model that is different from his peers. His persistence successfully won the support of shareholders, who successively invested NT$2.5 billion and carried out enterprise rectification at the same time, establishing the goal of Eslite to "become a cultural and creative life industry with deep social value." This persistence has made Eslite Bookstore quite irreplaceable and well-known in Taiwan.

Wu Qingyou once said that Eslite Bookstore is not a good case for business schools, but this young man from the countryside of Tainan opened a bookstore to more than 40 branches in Taiwan, and also to Hong Kong and mainland China. His annual revenue exceeded 4 billion yuan, making it the largest bookstore in Asia. In Taipei, Eslite Bookstore has more than 100 million visitors per year, of which more than 2 million tourists are.

In fact, whether to make money by opening a bookstore is not the primary consideration for Wu Qingyou. Each Eslite Bookstore has almost 400 public seats. In terms of retail stores, these seats are inefficient and should be used to place more books and goods. Eslite’s philosophy is “chain does not copy”. Copying can develop rapidly and reduce costs, but Wu Qingyou does not agree with copying and insists that every Eslite store is different: the combination of books is different, and the space and temperament of decoration are different.

Wu Qingyou's idea is simple and delicate, "In college, the materials we use are very simple but have their own style. Because there is a place for students to enter and exit, there is no need to use luxurious materials such as bright marble. After students enter the bookstore, they feel that this space belongs to them. The harmony between people and space is suitable, so don't let students think that this is a luxurious space."

Although bookstores are not profitable, Wu Qingyou has innovated a business model. That is, the book + retail operation model, using the idea of shopping malls to run a bookstore, and bookstores have become a leisure place for the new cultural trend. Because in Wu Qingyou's view, every customer is not only a simple consumer, but also a reader, a person, and everyone has the need to absorb culture.

In recent years, many people have been talking about the Internet. Many people predict that physical bookstores will eventually be defeated by the Internet, because people buy books and go to online bookstores, and people read books and read electronic versions. Screen + simulated ink paper has become an important weapon for Amazon to subvert the reading market, because everyone unanimously judged that young people born in the 1990s and others can no longer read books. They prefer the world of screens. If this is the case, naturally no one will go to physical bookstores.

However, two years have passed, physical bookstores have indeed closed a lot, but people's enthusiasm for reading physical books has not decreased much. Some personalized independent bookstores are also on the rise. For example, One-way Street Bookstore has now developed into one of the most successful private bookstores in China, becoming a public space that provides intelligence, thoughts and cultural life. Regularly holding some ideological and cultural activities, such as movie viewing, lectures, salons, etc., as well as launching reading spaces such as cafes, including cultural derivatives, such as calendars, cultural creative products, etc., have become breakthrough attempts for independent bookstores.

Mr. Wu said that KPI is easy to compare, but DNA is difficult to pursue. Selling a gossip magazine and a good book is both 25 yuan, but that's different. China is currently facing a general environment for consumption upgrading, and what supports this wave of consumption upgrading is no longer pure material, high product prices, and symbolic consumption. What is more important is people's pursuit of spiritual and cultural consumption. Content consumption is also upgraded. Although gossip magazines also need it, it is obviously not a necessity to soothe people's minds. Reading is still an important way for people to cultivate their minds and maintain independent thinking. Bookstores are still an important place for people to live in their minds and must be an important lifestyle place.

In fact, the discussion on whether physical bookstores will die in the hands of e-commerce and e-reading is the same as our discussion on whether traditional retail will eventually be subverted or destroyed by e-commerce platforms. In essence, it is not that traditional retail will die, but when there was no Internet in the past, traditional retail rarely paid attention to user experience, nor did they pay attention to users' personalized needs, nor did they pay attention to consumers' humanistic emotions and sentiments. Therefore, the reason for the problems in traditional retail is that they did not adapt to consumption trends and trends. Because people go to shopping malls not just to buy things, but to be a leisure and lifestyle.

. At present, most entrepreneurs are extremely impetuous, willing to fake numbers, apply makeup, concepts fly, and the wind is raging. They chase investors' hot money and valuations every day; all investors are eager for quick success and instant benefits, dreaming of investing in another JD.com and another Didi every day, and fantasizing about getting back dozens or hundreds of times in two or three years. In fact, contemporary entrepreneurs need to have better humanistic literacy.

Because, the entrepreneur's vision, realm, thinking model and humanistic background determine the ultimate height that the enterprise's development can reach. The managers of the enterprise need to have a far-sighted strategic vision and strategic management skills. Only by doing so can we achieve the goal of walking in the garden regardless of the wind and waves.