On July 16th, a green construction hoarding on the first floor of Pengjiang Wanda Plaza drew the attention of many passersby. The prominent logo of Sisyphe Bookstore indicated that the first outlet of this leading national bookstore chain in Jiangmen is scheduled to open this September.

Following the arrivals of Librairie Avant-Garde and M-Bookstore, another renowned bookstore brand has chosen Jiangmen, reflecting the sustained growth in the cultural consumption market of this hometown for overseas Chinese and propelling the local physical bookstore sector towards a more diversified and composite model.

City's Character Attracts the First Store

The inaugural Sisyphe Bookstore in Jiangmen is located in a prime retail area on the first floor of Pengjiang Wanda Plaza. A site visit revealed the store is currently under construction behind hoardings, with plans to open in late September. The hoarding features an interactive poll for readers' preferences, which has attracted participation from many local residents.

As a top brand for shopping mall bookstores in China, Sisyphe has an extensive network, having entered 29 provinces and 85 cities nationwide with over 500 stores and more than 10 million loyal members, maintaining leading industry influence and market recognition.

According to Zhu Shengyu, Deputy General Manager of Investment and Operations at Pengjiang Wanda Plaza, this first Jiangmen store is a custom-designed outlet spanning approximately 500 square meters. It will feature a red color scheme integrated with local Jiangmen cultural elements. The store will continue the brand's signature "premium reading + composite experience" operational model, equipped with Vector Cafe, a dedicated children's reading area, and a cultural and creative products zone, aiming to create a cultural living space that integrates reading, leisure, and social interaction.

Many residents are looking forward to the new store's opening. Ms. Luo, who works nearby, stated she enjoys reading novels and psychology books and often relaxes with coffee. She noted Jiangmen has a strong reading culture, and Sisyphe's arrival will provide another convenient spot for reading and relaxation.

Zhu Shengyu explained that the Sisyphe project took about six months from initial contact to finalization. Initially, the brand had reservations about the Jiangmen market, concerned about the core consumption capacity of a prefecture-level city and having strict criteria for location selection. What ultimately convinced the brand was Jiangmen's unique urban character—the reading culture and distinctive coffee culture fostered by its deep overseas Chinese heritage align closely with Sisyphe's brand identity and target customer base. After on-site research and market assessment, the brand decided to establish a presence in Jiangmen.

In Zhu's view, introducing Sisyphe is not merely about adding a bookstore to the mall but about adapting to new consumer demands. "Nowadays, when people go shopping, they are no longer satisfied with just material consumption; they also seek niche cultural spaces, offline social settings, and immersive cultural experiences," he said. The mall aims to leverage quality cultural IP to create a warm, culturally vibrant "urban living room," ensuring the commercial space has not only vitality but also a literary atmosphere.

From City Center to Countryside: A Diversified Bookstore Matrix Takes Shape

In recent years, Jiangmen has seen continuous expansion of high-quality physical bookstore formats, with efforts in both urban commercial districts and rural cultural tourism, forming a multi-layered, differentiated landscape of reading spaces.

The long-established Jiangmen Xinhua Bookstore, with its extensive collection, public-benefit services, and regular cultural activities, maintains high popularity year-round. It remains the mainstream choice for local residents to buy books, study, and participate in cultural life, enjoying a solid public foundation and stable reputation. It has also collaborated for years with authorities promoting nationwide reading to support regular public reading activities and build a series of reading brands.

In November 2023, Guangdong's first Librairie Avant-Garde store—the Avant-Garde World Granary Bookstore—officially opened in Tangkou, Kaiping. The project transformed five old granaries from the 1970s, featuring five themed collection areas: poetry, social sciences, literature, lifestyle/children, and art, housing about 38,000 volumes alongside a rich array of cultural and creative products with local characteristics. The blend of traditional granary architecture with modern literary charm has made this rural bookstore a popular attraction.

Data shows the Avant-Garde World Granary Bookstore achieved over RMB 5 million in revenue in 2024, attracting more than 1.5 million visitors annually. It was also recognized as a 2025 National "Most Beautiful Public Cultural Space," becoming a model for Jiangmen in using culture to revitalize rural resources and empower rural cultural tourism development, as well as a pioneer for high-quality private bookstore entries into Jiangmen.

In September 2025, the M-Bookstore brand under Friendship Book City made its Jiangmen debut at Lihe Plaza. The store covers 2,500 square meters, positioning itself as a "city family library," integrating reading, coffee, cultural products, and events, filling the gap for large, family-oriented composite bookstores in Jiangmen.

With the opening of the Sisyphe Bookstore at Pengjiang Wanda Plaza, the city center will form a market structure where Xinhua Bookstore, M-Bookstore, and Sisyphe Bookstore compete healthily and complement each other, offering citizens more diverse cultural consumption choices.

Drivers of the Literary Boom in Jiangmen

The successive openings of several well-known bookstores in Jiangmen are not coincidental. On February 1st this year, the "Nationwide Reading Promotion Regulations" were enacted, explicitly supporting the development of physical bookstores. Simultaneously, as urban quality improves, Jiangmen residents' consumption concepts are shifting. People are no longer solely pursuing material satisfaction but are increasingly willing to pay for spiritual experiences like reading and coffee leisure.

The operational model of new-style bookstores, combining "books + multiple formats," breaks free from the limitations of traditional single-format book sales. It balances cultural sentiment with commercial vitality, accurately meeting diverse public needs for socializing, family activities, and leisure.

A strong atmosphere of nationwide reading also provides a solid market foundation for bookstore openings. For a long time, Jiangmen has cultivated the "Scholarly Wuyi" initiative, designating the 28th of each month as "Jiangmen Reading Day," regularly holding events like the Southern China Book Festival and World Book Day, introducing public-benefit measures like "You Choose the Books, We Pay," and continuously fostering public reading habits. The city has established over a hundred "No Regret Today" study rooms, numerous libraries, "Yue Shuba" reading spaces, and rural reading rooms, creating a comprehensive urban and rural public reading network.

In April this year, Jiangmen launched the "Coffee-Reading Space" initiative, embedding coffee services within public study rooms to create a distinctive "reading + coffee" model, further nurturing the city's literary atmosphere.

The transformation and upgrading of commercial formats are accelerating the clustering of quality cultural brands. Modern commercial complexes have long moved beyond simple retail models, with experiential and cultural elements becoming key to enhancing competitiveness. Introducing brand bookstores can effectively diversify mall offerings, extend customer dwell time, and elevate the overall commercial ambiance.

Recognizing Jiangmen's favorable cultural environment and consumption potential, major commercial entities have actively sought out quality literary brands, facilitating the successive openings of projects like M-Bookstore and Sisyphe Bookstore, allowing commercial spaces to possess both commercial value and cultural warmth.

With the continuous expansion of various distinctive and chain bookstores, the ecosystem for nationwide reading in Jiangmen—led by the government and involving social forces—is becoming more robust. This enhances the overall social cultural taste, allowing citizens to gain a greater sense of happiness and fulfillment from increasingly rich cultural settings.