Readers dash to get books at discount

In the run-up to a new fixed price policy for paper books, online bookstores slashed their prices by up to 90 percent on Thursday, causing consumers to bomb with orders, making their servers go down. If the new policy is implemented, discount rates are limited to 15 percent at the most, which made readers dash to buy books on the cheap before that.

The online bookseller Yes24, which trumpeted, “Last price slash! 6,000 popular books up to 90 % discount!” was forced to put up its notice saying, "Rush of orders made service slow down and site access was stopped up until 5 p.m." According to Yes24, the day’s selling volume doubled Thursday from the previous day. Yes24 had seen a 2.2 times selling volume increase over the last seven days. Consumers mainly went for the collection of graphic novels “Misaeng (Incomplete Life)” by Yoon Tae-ho, which is currently in a 40 percent discount, and a book on education by Karl Witte, which was on a 90 percent discount.

The Internet Kyobo Bookstore also saw twice as many people than in its busiest month of March. The server was down sporadically from lunch hour.

The online bookstore Aladdin, which sold 10,000 types at half price likewise, also faced heavy traffic and patchy access to its web site. An Aladdin official said, “The most books sold were bestsellers with hefty price cuts.”

An office worker identified as Kim said, “I wanted to order during lunch hour nine books I’d had my eye on. But I was unable to buy them, as the server was unstable. I need to buy the books today as my discount coupon is only available until today, before the new book price system takes effect.”

A Kyobo bookstore official said, "The offline Kyobo Bookstore, which was not discounting its books, had not seen a change in its sales volume," adding, “As the web server was unstable, we actually saw losses in sales amount."