Book lovers help flood-affected publishers
More than 100,000 packages, with four books, one bookmark and one souvenir badge, have been sold online as shoppers support book vendors hit by the flood.
Tens of thousands of shoppers have rushed online to purchase a special book and souvenir set by publishers that have suffered significant losses from the recent flood in northern China.
Zhuozhou City, north China's Hebei Province, was hit by flooding due to typhoon-triggered heavy rainfall. As the city is an important logistic and storage hub for the publishing industry, book vendors suffered huge losses, with millions of books soaked by water.
There was an estimate of more than hundreds of millions of yuan of losses from publishers with warehouses in Zhuozhou.
Books are seen floating everywhere in a warehouse of bookschina.com in Zhuozhou, north China's Hebei Province.
Many publishers had to delay book deliveries, and have asked customers to wait for the clean-up and disinfection process to be completed.
BooksChina.com, one of the biggest online book vendors in China, said earlier this week that the flood has been "devastating," with about 80 percent of the more than 4 million books in its Zhuozhou warehouse damaged.
Books that are not flood-affected would most probably be damaged due to the humidity in the warehouse, it added.
It has stopped selling all of its inventories and only offers presale items now, meaning customers have to wait more than one month for delivery.
BooksChina founder and CEO Huang Ping talks about latest measures to cope with the aftermath of the flood on Friday during a Taobao livestream session.
These include a 99-yuan package consisting of four books, one bookmark and one souvenir badge. BooksChina said the books will mainly be allocated from other warehouses and won't included soaked ones which might have been deformed or contaminated.
The package has attracted more than 100,000 buyers on its website as of Friday night.
Bookschina.com's Taobao flagship store also saw more than 8,000 transactions as of Friday.
Alibaba's retail site Taobao has set up a special page for those willing to purchase books to show solidarity toward book sellers stricken by the flood.
Let's buy a book for Zhuozhou", the Taobao slogan reads.
In addition, it called for more attention toward smaller book publishers that might have not attracted attention.
Alibaba's logistics affiliate Cainiao Network said it has set aside 5,000 square meters of warehouses to help transfer books that have remained intact.
It will also coordinate with warehouses in other parts of the country and help book sellers cope with the traditional peak season for book sales at the end of August.
BooksChina.com said the flood has been "devastating" for its warehouse.
