“We will open our first bookstore in Craiova in the next two months. The biggest growth comes from the bookstores in cities other than Bucharest, whose sales were 20% to 30% higher in the first quarter. We are also looking at other cities,” Serban Radu told ZF.
Opening bookstores in shopping centers is easier, but Carturesti is also looking at street front spaces, which are more expensive, though, Serban Radu said.
Carturesti bookstore chain, one of the largest on the book retail market, which posted EUR25 million revenue in 2017, plans to open one more store in Bucharest, on the ground floor of the Architecture University. It is also looking for space in Chisinau, the capital of the Republic Moldova, Serban Radu said.
Carturesti has eight bookstores in Bucharest and one in such cities Timisoara, Cluj, Iasi, Constanta, Arad, Ploiesti, Brasov and Suceava each. It opened a store in Oradea last year so now it has 22 bookstores in Romania.
“The book market remains on the rise, we saw double-digit growth in sales in the first quarter, all bookstores posted growth.”
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)