Popular Bookstore closes all Hong Kong stores due to poor book retail market

After more than 40 years of business in the territory, Popular Bookstore has closed all of its Hong Kong branches, citing a challenging book retail market and high operation costs.

In a statement today, the bookstore chain said it had closed all 16 of its stores as a result of the continuing downturn in the book retail market. The sudden closures come a week after the Singaporean book retailer and publisher was sued for an outstanding HK$470,000 in rent for its Whompoa Garden branch.

"The retail book industry has been facing structural challenges in Hong Kong for the past decade. The deterioration in the last 12 months has led to a severe contraction in retail revenues. However, due to high rent and labour cost, the company has to bear the pain to stop our retail business in the face of the worsening business environment," said a spokesperson for the company.

Popular Bookstore said that it will still continue operating its non-retail business in Hong Kong, with a spokesperson stating it will focus its resources on educational publishing, fast-developing e-learning, and educational services. The company will switch as many affected staff as possible to these other departments in the company.

The website for Popular Hong Kong is still up but the retail business site has been taken down, with only an official statement on its former front page. Its official Facebook page has also been removed.

Though physical book sales, especially through brick and mortar stores, has suffered hugely over the past decade due to widespread digital adoption, it is likely that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic was the last nail in the company's Hong Kong retail coffin.

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