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AyRojgar
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What went wrongA secondhand bookseller in Cumilla, in a Bangla Tribune report

A day's 60,000-70,000 taka of sales is now barely a month's

What this 45-year-old secondhand book shop once took in a single day it now barely takes in a month, and the Moghaltuli-Dharampur shops are down from about ten to four.

This 22-year-old runs the secondhand book shop his family has kept in Moghaltuli, Cumilla, for about 45 years. What the shop once took in a single day, he says - 60,000 to 70,000 taka - it now barely takes in a whole month. Book shops in the Moghaltuli and Dharampur areas are down from about ten a few years ago to four, out of roughly 450 in the district. Traders put the collapse down to weakening reading habits and the shift away from printed books; the traders' association president, 37 years in the trade, says there is effectively no business left. Another family shop nearby is about 70 years old and in the same position.

Lessons

  1. 1.An inherited shop is no shelter: 45 years of trading can lose nearly all its turnover in a few years
  2. 2.When neighbouring shops in your trade start closing, that is demand leaving, not competition

Published with the person's permission, without revealing who they are.

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