Dijon booksellers have a smile! Reopened since November 28, their businesses are seeing customers flocking. Queues stretch out on the sidewalks as Christmas approaches.
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From year to year, it is the most Christmas present offered by the French. The book has its followers and, reopened since November 28, Dijon bookstores can meet this demand.
“I am amazed every day at the craze for books and literature. “
« It’s traditionally a great month for us. And this is still the case this year. By Christmas we will see 12,000 customers », Confirms Olivier Lévy, director of the Gibert Joseph bookstore in Dijon. Significant attendance also at the Grangier bookstore which records an average of 1,500 checkouts daily. ” I am amazed every day at the craze for books and literature », Rejoices Christophe Fressy, the site manager.
Already supported by click and collect, booksellers seem to be able to count on the return of their flesh-and-blood customers. They might even have seduced new aficionados. ” In stores, we meet new faces, people who tell us they discovered us on social networks during confinement », Observes Clémence Roquefort, co-manager of the bookstore” The Flower which grows inside “.
With the Flower growing inside, the tail stretches out on the sidewalk to collect orders but also sometimes to get inside the bookstore.
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© M. Barate / France 3 Bourgogne
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From there to conclude that the confinement and closure of places of culture have created an appetite for reading? The young woman wants to believe it: ” some customers tell us that they are tired of TV shows and screens and that they prefer to read at night “. This bookseller had to hire a saleswoman for the fortnight before Christmas. It forecasts higher sales than last year. The end-of-year celebrations already represented a third of its annual turnover in 2019.
At the Gibert Joseph bookstore, Olivier Lévy tempers a little: “ I am not sure that closing theaters, cinemas or performance venues will cause our sales to skyrocket. I see rather a stability of the gift book, even if the customers are very happy to see us again, and that we are delighted to be able to advise them again. »
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