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Private brick-and-mortar bookstores are exploring feasible business innovations in order to survive harsh competition from their online counterparts. Some famous bookstores, deemed as cultural landmarks in their cities, are disappearing because online bookshops have carved up their readership in recent years. O2SUN, one of the largest bookstore chains on the mainland, with 31 outlets, closed in October last year. Some book retailers have said they needed to change the function of bookstores, from places that sell books to places that are cultural experiences. The success of online bookstores has triggered the collapse of a wave of conventional retailers in recent years. "We will create the bookstore as a cultural shopping mall, available around the clock," said Dong Chenxu, assistant general manager of the Fuzhou Road branch of Shanghai Popular Bookmall. The store, on the downtown "cultural street", will reopen on Thursday. Scholars and authors will be invited to the store in the evening to give cultural lectures to readers, according to Dong. And they will organize meetings of their book club's members to exchange impressions after reading popular books. Dong said they came up with the idea for the all-night bookstore because they wanted to satisfy readers who needed books at night but found that every bookstore on the "cultural street" was closed after 9 pm. | 
