Where readers can meet potential business partners

Engineering student Zhao Yi reads out his shopping list as he heads into Popular Bookmall, a center in central Shanghai that has scores of bookstores of various sizes.

Zero to One, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, The Innovator's Dilemma and Big Data: A Revolution. All four are about starting a business.

His friends have the same titles on their lists, too.

Why don't you just share, I ask Zhao. He tells me that each book is like a Bible that needs to be read over and over. "It's like your mobile phone; you don't share that with others," the 20-year-old adds.

The shelves at Popular Bookmall have hundreds of self-help books for wannabe entrepreneurs: Guides on writing business plans, team-building, marketing and networking.

Wang Yue, an assistant in one of the stores, says students are the biggest buyers of these books, sometimes snapping up 10 or more copies at a time to share with members in their entrepreneur clubs.

The corners of the bookstores where these guides are kept have also become offline networking spots.

Ruan Fang, 32, who develops smartphone apps for time management, met her business partner, Xie Xiaotian, in a bookstore after they both signed up for a business lecture. They started chatting and soon discovered they their goals and skill sets were compatible.

"You're less likely to chat with someone who is reading fiction or a textbook because you may have different interests. But in a bookstore's startup section, you know that everyone has the same ambition," Ruan says.

Chen Shaomin, founder of Belencre, which has more than 20 bookstores nationwide, says brick-and-mortar stores have the power to build communities and foster interaction, something online marketplaces just cannot offer.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 09/09/2016 page25)