Roaming about a bookshop used to be the favorite pastime for Huang Jiwei, a famed Beijing-based writer, publisher and avid book collector. He takes great pleasure in spending hours sauntering among the stalls and shelves, discovering interesting titles and taking them home.

"The experience is something similar to a shopping spree," he says. "But it is great fun even if you end up not buying any books."

He can still recall his first trip to a bookstore as a primary school boy in the 1960s. Every school day, Huang would pass by a tiny Xinhua Bookstore outlet somewhere near the Fragrant Hills in western Beijing. He was often tormented by the fact that he could not afford to buy the books.

"The auntie at the bookstore was so kind to invite me to sit down and read the picture-story books free of charge! From that time, I have cherished a tender feeling for bookstores," says Huang, who admits he has spent less and less time in the bookstores in recent years.

Like many other bookworms, Huang has opted to buy new books and rare and secondhand books at online bookstores, such as www.dangdang.com, www.joyo.com and www.booyee.com.cn.

"The obvious excuse is that I am tied up with my day-to-day work. But the truth is, buying books online is not only time saving, but also much more convenient," Huang explains.

For Huang, traditional bookstores just couldn't come close to offering the multitude of user-friendly services offered by online stores.

For example, buying through websites would introduce readers to lists of themed hyperlinks to books they might not be aware of otherwise.

"With a few clicks, you can browse thousands of titles to find your favorites," Huang says. "And you make the transactions in your office or at home. Delivery people will send the books, CDs or DVDs to your doorstep."

An additional advantage is that online buyers usually get discounts. Huang recently bought a book about traditional Chinese medicine. The book was originally priced at 29 yuan (US$3.8), but he only paid 17.01 yuan (US$2.2) as a VIP customer of the online bookstore. Online buyers who are not VIPs could get the same book for 17.5 yuan -- a 60 percent discount from traditional bookstore prices.

Huang is echoed by Fu Kui, a 32-year-old IT company clerk, who says "going to the real bookstore has become a luxury" because of the traffic jams and lack of parking space. Many bookworms have gone further to read online instead of buying any printed publications.

"With an e-book, an MP4 or cell phone, you can read almost anything that is available online," says Li Jin, a graphic designer in Beijing who has not bought any printed book for at least eight years.

"Many Chinese websites offer novel downloading services," says Li, who often peruses websites such as www.cmfu.com in search of new and interesting material. "The most common practice is to charge the reader 0.1 yuan per 1,000 words. That price is affordable to me."

Indeed, book retail businesses in China have undergone dramatic changes over the past few decades, says Xu Shengguo, researcher with the China Institute of Publishing Science.

"Besides visiting bookstores, Chinese readers have many alternative channels to get books, or more precisely, knowledge and information they are looking for," Xu says.

By the end of 2006, almost all of the 565 publishing houses in China have opened online bookstores as well as put their products on some 300 privately owned online bookstores, says Xu, a key author of Annual Report on the Publishing Industry in China.

By the end of 2006, China has reportedly accumulated 137 million netizens, half of whom have purchased books and DVDs from online bookstores, according to a January report from the China Internet Network Information Center.

In 2006, the total net profit of China's book retail sector reached 50 billion yuan (US$6.5 billion), of which online book sales garnered about 1 billion yuan (US$130 million) - a 2-percent year-on-year increase, Xu says.

According to a market report released in late April by the research unit of China Book Business News, China has so far produced at least 530,000 electronic books, with 120,000 titles newly released in 2006.

By the end of 2006, there were at least 1,417 registered websites offering reading content in electronic format, with 61 of them providing original content.

Electronic reading equipment popular among Chinese readers include PCs, laptops, cell phones, and specially made reading gadgets, the report shows.

"I believe readers who click through the online bookstores or download content onto portable reading equipment will increase dramatically in the years to come," predicts Pang Jingwen, a manager of www.du8.com, a well known website that provides both online viewing and e-book content downloads and boasts at least 3 million long-term subscribers.

More than two decades ago, some people began preaching about the advent of a "paper-free society", which would arise from rapid technological advancement. But up to now, that has not become reality, says Xu.

"It is too early to predict the demise of traditional bookstores in the foreseeable future," Xu insists.

He believes that printed books will exist for quite a long time. But with book markets further diversifying, "traditional bookstores will surely be elbowed to a minor position in the near future".

"Real bookstores are still the first choice for book buyers in China," points out Li Yuemin, a manager with Wangfujing Xinhua Bookstore, one of the largest bookstores in China and a major outlet of the Beijing Xinhua Bookstores Group.

According to Li, the seven-storey store raked in at least 180 million yuan (US$23.5 million) in book sales, and the first quarter sales of 2007 reached 50 million yuan (US6.5 million), creating a 17.6-percent year-on-year increase.

But to keep up with the new market trends, Xinhua Bookstores have made continued adjustments over past few years, as smaller outlets at provincial levels combine to form grouped companies, says Xu.

On May 30, the Sichuan Xinhua Winshare Chainstore became the first Chinese bookstore operator to list in Hong Kong, with an initial public offering price of about HK$2.2 billion (US$281 million).

The Xinhua Bookstore system has been the largest State-owned book distribution network in China. "For quite a long time, it virtually monopolized the book distribution and retailing channel on the Chinese mainland", says Li Bo, a Beijing-based publisher.

Although the situation began to change in 1984 when privately owned bookstores and bookstore chains were formed, the Xinhua Bookstore system "has maintained its position as the No 1 player in the book retailing markets", says Li, who admits his company has to cooperate with both private bookstores, online bookstores and the Xinhua bookstores to ensure their books can reach buyers in each and every corner of the nation.

(China Daily June 5, 2007)