[Report] "Reluctantly Doing It"... The Lingering Loneliness in the 60-Year-Old Used Bookstore Street

Cheonggyecheon Used Bookstore Street Shrinks from 120 to 12
Large Secondhand Bookstores Flourish While Small Shops Decline
Merchants Say "Rent Can't Even Be Covered"

The Cheonggyecheon Used Bookstore Street on the 1st floor of Pyeonghwa Market, following the 'Da' row in front of Exit 8 of Dongdaemun Station, Seoul Subway

[Asia Economy Intern Reporter Seohee Lee] On the afternoon of the 26th, the ‘Cheonggyecheon Used Bookstore Street’ stretches about 250 meters between Jeon Tae-il Street in front of Cheonggyecheon in Seoul and Ogan-su Bridge. Once a representative bookstore street in Korea, bustling with university students buying textbooks and customers searching for masterpieces, that scene has completely disappeared. Among the 12 shops, 8 had owners sitting alone guarding their places, and the remaining 4 had no one inside.

Observing three bookstores for about an hour from the bicycle path across the first floor of Pyeonghwa Market, not a single passerby purchased a book. Although some looked around curiously at the stacks of books piled up at the store entrances, no one opened a book or went inside. Mr. Hyun Mansu (76), who has operated Gidokseong Munseojeok here for 32 years, said, “Two stores have already closed this year,” adding, “In the past, it was so crowded that we couldn’t even have lunch, but now we reluctantly operate because there’s nothing else to do.”

Korea’s used bookstores are rapidly disappearing. The used bookstore street, which started as a culture of selling reference books alongside apples and fish, was loved by the common people so much that in its heyday in the 1980s, there were about 120 stores along Cheonggyecheon alone. Seoul City judged that the used bookstore street holds great value to pass on to future generations, so in 2013, it designated Cheonggyecheon Used Bookstore Street as a ‘Seoul Future Heritage’ and promoted preservation projects. However, despite these efforts, the used bookstore market noticeably shrank in the 2000s. According to the ‘Find a Bookstore’ service by Seoul Library, as of October 2021, there were 62 used bookstores remaining in Seoul. Compared to the more than 120 stores once operating only around Cheonggyecheon, this is a meager number.

The scene of the quiet Cheonggyecheon used bookstore street around 2 p.m. on the 26th

The void left by used bookstores is being rapidly filled by ‘corporate secondhand bookstores.’ Large online bookstores such as Aladin, Kyobo Bookstore, and Yes24 have actively entered the secondhand book market. Aladin, the industry leader in the secondhand book market, opened its first offline store in Jongno in 2011 and expanded to 49 stores nationwide within 10 years. The high profit margin of secondhand bookstores significantly boosted both total sales and operating profits. Aladin’s sales, which were 138 billion KRW in 2010, tripled to 429.5 billion KRW in 2020. Operating profit increased nearly tenfold from 2.5 billion KRW in 2010 to 24.7 billion KRW in 2020. This is why Aladin, which had been ranked third in sales behind Kyobo Bookstore and Yes24, overtook them to record the highest operating profit in 2021.

While large secondhand bookstores have grown in size, merchants in Cheonggyecheon Used Bookstore Street have found it difficult even to cover rent. Mr. Hyun, president of the Pyeonghwa Bookstore Association in Cheonggyecheon Used Bookstore Street, said, “Before COVID-19, we barely managed to keep business going with visitors coming out to Cheonggyecheon, but after COVID-19, customers have completely stopped coming,” adding, “Rent ranges from 700,000 to 1,000,000 KRW, and management fees are 200,000 KRW monthly, so it’s currently difficult even to cover rent.” A real estate agent near Pyeonghwa Market added, “Among the 12 remaining bookstores, only about two merchants own their stores,” and “Most merchants operate while feeling the burden of rent.”

Meanwhile, there are voices claiming that the benefits of the ‘New Book Fixed Price System’ revised in November 2014 have been concentrated only on large secondhand bookstores. Mr. Kim (72), who runs a used bookstore in Jung-gu, Seoul, said, “When the book fixed price system was revised in 2014, we expected many consumers burdened by buying new books to visit used bookstores, but in reality, only large bookstores got richer,” adding, “Large bookstores and we (used bookstores) are not even competitors from the process of purchasing used books. Our only competitiveness was having hard-to-find masterpieces in the market, but now all those books are going to large secondhand bookstores.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.