A hchallenging business that needs extra patience

A hchallenging business that needs extra patience

Jonminofri Nazir, Contributor, Jakarta

Indonesia has witnessed the establishment of two new book
stores focusing on the sale of imported goods, QB World Books and
Ak.sa.ra, since the onset of the economic crisis.

Compared with other existing bookstores here, both are
relatively bigger and more comfortable. Visitors can more easily
browse through the books without the intrusive eyes of
attendants, because they are refreshingly free of plastic
wrapping.

These bookstores are thriving, and have proven to be
commercially profitable, although the business has shown a steady
but sluggish growth.

Yet, Winfred Hutabarat, one of the three owners of Ak.sa.ra
Bookstore, said that aside from business calculation, a deep love
of books and reading should be part of the equation when you set
up a bookstore.

Richard Oh, owner of the QB bookstore network, shares the
idea.

During the recruitment process, Oh made a point of only hiring
people who were clearly book lovers to join his staff.

There can be subtle hints, according to Oh, as to whether or
not a person falls into this category. "The way they hold books,
for example, will clearly show us whether they love books or
not," he said.

Oh is also very strict about his employees' treatment of the
condition of the books. Those who smoke must wash their hands
before entering the working room, so as to ensure that any
possible odor doesn't foul the books.

Although they set up the bookstores with a deep love of books
in mind, this is by no means an easy guarantee that business will
thrive -- since reading has yet to take off as a popular pastime
in Indonesia; many reading materials, for example, are in foreign
languages.

So far, QB just has three outlets, while Ak.sa.ra possesses
only one -- even though, needless to say, the owners aspire to
open new branches.

The number of people seeking imported books still grows
relatively slowly, although both Winfred and Oh have been
continuously working hard to select some 30,000 choice titles
with which to lure the gaze of potential customers.

The same obstacle also hinders operators of other bookstores
that focus on imported books and publications.

Yet, the return is not as fast as that in other businesses. "I
think, for a long term, this is a good business," said Richard.
To set up his own bookstore, Richard recalled having to pay Rp 10
billion in startup costs.

What Richard says is true indeed. To expand the market,
moreover, does not necessarily mean attracting more foreigners to
buy imported books, but instead bringing in the increasing number
of Indonesians who can understand English, while setting prices
at a more affordable level.

According to Winfred, the number of English-speaking people
continues to increase from year to year, as the awareness of the
importance of mastering English is increasingly felt -- not to
mention the rising number of Indonesians studying abroad,
especially those whose reading habit has been formed for quite a
long time.

One of QB's regular customers said that, at the beginning, he
was afraid of reading English books, as he felt they would be
above his head.

Then he tried to read a light business book and was happy to
find it quite digestible. Today, he is addicted to reading
imported books and regularly buys them, saying that the quality
of the imported books is much better than local ones.

Another obstacle is that an imported books become unavoidably
expensive in rupiah. Books priced at US$20 or US$30 will become
very expensive in this country if compared with local titles
generally sold at below Rp 50,000.

Winfred said that imported books offered here are about ten
percent higher than those on display in Singapore's bookstores.

But the total profit margin that traders here enjoy is smaller
than in neighboring countries because shipment costs are greater.

What's more, Ak.sa.ra and QB still must attract more customers
by regularly by offering a 10 percent discount to their
respective 2,000 and 5,000 club customers.

According to Winfred, it is a bit difficult to set a criteria
based on profit targets for Ak.sa.ra.

They are not the only foreigners in the country. At the
beginning, more foreigners than local buyers patronized their
bookstores, but lately the number of local visitors has increased
sharply.

In general, as Winfred has noted, there are four types of
visitors to his bookstore: professionals, expats, cultural
enthusiasts, and children.

The management of Ak.sa.ra and QB, however, has proven adept
enough to attract people -- including those with profiles they do
not know.

These two well-known bookstores also apply similar tricks of
the trade, namely:

* Providing a cozy, big space. QB bookstore in Pondok Indah,
South Jakarta, for instance, has some 1,000 square meters of
space, while Ak.sa.ra's is about 800 square meters in area. Some
sofas and a cafe are also provided to create a homey atmosphere.

"You can stay here all day long," Oh said.

* Books can be perused without having to be purchased. In that
sense, these stores are a change from those of the conventional
bookstores of Gunung Agung, Gramedia, and many others that
plastic-wrap imported books.

In addition, there are usually a notices on the shelves saying
that "unwrapping the plastic cover means buying the book."

But browsing is an activity that the owners of QB and Ak.sa.ra
bookstores empathize with and encourage, as not everyone buys
books spontaneously. Perhaps, the next day or the day after, they
will return to make a purchase.

"If we can bring one person into the bookstore, it means that
we succeed in introducing books to him; I think this is great,"
Oh said.

This explains why at QB, the books are not plastic-wrapped: a
comfort for visitors to enjoy.

In fact, this country's book sellers can follow the trend
India has pioneered to provide cheap reading material. In the
country where language has been widely used, and reading is an
ingrained habit, many imported books are reprinted domestically
-- while the high costs covering transportation and paper, for
example, can be eliminated.

Or perhaps, QB, Ak.sa.ra, Times The Bookshop, Maruzen, and
other bookstores need to open second-hand, imported-book outlets
in an effort to offer good prices and grab more reading
aficionados.