Pressed down by the pandemic, growing rents and labour costs, shops stocking used books struggle to compete with online sellers and book exchange platforms.
The owners of Keistoteka, a second-hand bookshop, have been in the business for more than seven years. They run two shops, one in the Užupis area of Vilnius and the other one by the Bus Station.
Now, however, Gintarė Liočienė is considering to close down the business.
“I was thinking that maybe someone could take it over? There were some [candidates] that got scared away by the sheer volume of books we have accumulated over almost ten years,” she says.
The Covid pandemic was a hit that her business never really recovered from, Liočienė admits.
“[We were thinking,] let’s wait it out, spring will come, the tourists will come back, everything will even out,” she says. “But what came was war, not spring or tourists.”
Her costs have gone up, Liočienė says, including pay for her staff. “And our book prices? Well, instead of one euro I’m now charging 1.2. But I understand that I can’t add a zero just to cover the costs.”
Books and more
Most bookshops in Vilnius, including second-hand ones, do not just sell books. The customers of Keistoteka were mostly tourists and the shops used to sell souvenirs and artworks by local artists.
Tomas Lukčiūnas, who opened his second-hand bookshop Juodas Šuo (Black Dog) a year ago, says that additional activities are a must if one wants to survive.
“My principled position is that we should remain primarily a bookshop, but from a pragmatic point of view, it could be a café-bookshop, or a venue-bookshop for hired events,” he says. “Sooner or later, you have to face it and decide where to go, how to compete.”
Growing rents, heating costs are adding to the burden of bookshop owners. In recent years, they have also been facing growing competition from online stores and sharing apps.
“This takes various forms from Vinted to Bookswap, exchange platforms, but also old-timers who still sell in the markets, and the newcomers who are interested in books. [...] So I think there are many niches to be filled, each can find one’s own and offer people to buy books,” says Lukčiūnas.
Historically, one of the best-known second-hand bookshops in Vilnius operated on the corner of Pilies and Literatų Street. The building still bears the initials of its owner above a bay window: ADI, in Cyrillic. Founded by Abraham Davidovich Itskovich, the Jewish bookshop operated from the late 19th century until the beginning of World War Two.
“It was a cultural island where educated people would come, converse and discuss various topics,” says historian Darius Pocevičius. “It brought together intellectuals, enlightened people who'd discover one another and forge horizontal links.”
Once Keistoteka goes out of business, there will remain five second-hand bookshops in Vilnius.
LRT English
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