Business Spotlight: Eastern Bookstore NYC

Welcome to Chinatown spoke with Henry, assistant store manager at Eastern Bookstore NYC. Open since 1976, Eastern Bookstore has been serving Chinatown and Chinese Americans as a hub for Chinese language books, calligraphy and printing materials and educational materials for students of all ages. 

Eastern Bookstore NYC is the last remaining Chinese language bookstore in Chinatown; it’s a central source for education and leisurely reading. We are proud to have partnered with Eastern Bookstore NYC for our recent Read it Forward initiative, yet ongoing support still remains critical as foot traffic is at an all time low in the midst of the pandemic.

Keep reading to learn more about Eastern Bookstore NYC’s history and how it serves the community. Without it, we risk widening the gap of bridging Chinese culture to students, locals and Asian Americans. Please consider donating to The Longevity Fund, our small business relief fund for Chinatown establishments, in our mission to help small businesses keep their doors open.

Tell us who you are!
My name is Henry, assistant store manager at Eastern Bookstore, also known as Oriental Culture Enterprises Co. Inc. I’ve been working with the bookstore for about 3 years, and have lived in the U.S. for 12 years. Most of our employees have been working here for 10+ years.

The store opened in 1976, so we have been around for 44 years. About 20 years ago, the original owner who founded the bookstore was getting older and couldn’t continue to manage the store. He was looking for a new person to help manage the store and thus a change in hand happened then. The store today operates under a publishing company in Hong Kong, Sup Publishing Logistics. They want to let people know more about Chinese culture, not just about Chinese people in America but also Chinese people in their native homeland.

We mainly sell Chinese books from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. We also sell Chinese calligraphy and printing materials. Before COVID, we would have Chinese calligraphy classes on the weekend or exhibitions in our gallery where people can come to the store and check out Chinese art pieces. 

Who are your main customers?
A good part of our business is with local libraries and schools. Many schools now teach Chinese classes, so they buy Chinese textbooks from us. Each year, we do a book fair at various schools, mainly public schools, with Chinese books. These schools are nice enough to let us do the book fair, so the students have the opportunity to buy Chinese books and learn more about Chinese language and culture.  

In-store, most of our customers are Chinese. They’re usually older, at least 50 years or older, who are interested in reading books in Chinese or doing Chinese calligraphy. We have many repeat customers who have been coming to the store for 10-20 years.

How has business been since COVID?
We closed the store for almost 3 months — we closed in the middle of March and reopened in the middle of June. We didn't make any money at all in those months. Since we reopened, we lost about 60% of revenue. It's been tough.

We have 7 employees. Because business has been slow, we reduced our store hours but didn’t let go of anybody. Most of our loss revenue is because of remote school learning. We haven’t gotten as many school and library orders because of budget constraints from schools who aren’t ordering as many books as before, especially with students learning from home. We also bring in less because we don’t have as many customers coming into the store either.

We are fortunate that we have a good landlord who didn’t require us to pay rent during the months we were closed, but we still have a big financial burden across everywhere else. 90% of our merchandise is imported, including all our calligraphy materials which are imported from mainland China, and because the U.S. is having tariff wars with China, anytime we import anything from Hong Kong or Chinatown, even American books that have been translated into Chinese, we pay heavy fees. It takes about three months for imported shipments to come.

We didn’t receive any funds or loans from anyone. We tried to apply for PPP, but because we are owned internationally, we don’t qualify since the owner has to be a U.S. citizen. 

I think we will still have a chance to remain open in the new year, but we need more customers.

Do you sell online?
Online sales have stayed the same but it's not that big. We have an Amazon store and our own online website. Amazon takes a lot of profit. Anytime we receive an Amazon order, they take a significant portion, so we have to make our books the cheapest. The profit margin is not big. 

What sections in the store are popular?
Our cookbook section is popular and as well as our children's books section. We also have a lot of customers who enjoy reading fiction and history books. 

What do you like to read?
I used to read a lot of fiction, but now I read more non-fiction, mainly history books or about politics. After I read fiction, I feel like I haven’t learned much aside from reading a good story. I want to learn more which is why I’m reading more non-fiction.

What do you anticipate the future of the bookstore looking like?
I don't really know especially during these COVID times. What I hope is we can do our best and when COVID is over, we get all our customers back, can do the weekend calligraphy classes and go back to the order volume from the schools and libraries we used to receive.

Eastern Bookstore recently helped us supply diverse books for students through our Read It Forward initiative with Immigrant Social Services. How does the book store plan to use the funds from the book drive?
We have a lot of expenses to cover (rent, salary and costs for buying products overseas), so it will be dispersed across all these expenses. We’ll use about half to help cover rent and the remaining to ensure we pay our employees and general administration.

Chinatown establishments like Eastern Bookstore NYC are what makes the spirit of our neighborhood. We need your support now more than ever before to keep that spirit alive. Please consider making a donation to our small business relief fund, The Longevity Fund, or help us spread the word of what’s at stake. Together, we can preserve Chinatown businesses and help say Chinatown will always be open for business.