After serving a million customers, Popular to close bookstore in Petaling Street-The Malay Mail Online.By Ida Lim- March 27, 2016
KUALA LUMPUR, March 27 — With its cheerful yellow facade, Popular Bookstore in Petaling Street was not just the go-to place for books and stationery — it was also a very helpful landmark.
However, Popular Book Co (M) Sdn Bhd will be closing this branch next month, after having served one million customers in 13 years.
Popular said it had to make the difficult decision of shuttering its two-storey bookstore branch located in the iconic Lee Rubber Building along Jalan Tun H.S. Lee, owing to changes in demand in the area popularly referred to as Chinatown.
There has also been talk that the Lee Rubber Building itself has been sold, but Malay Mail Online was unable to get confirmation from its owners.
“Over the past decade, Petaling Street’s surrounding environment faced drastic changes, causing the customer profile in this area to go the same way,” Popular’s senior business development manager Siew Sheue Liang told Malay Mail Online in an email recently.
Siew added that new shopping malls in the KL area were also “pulling away the customer base from Petaling Street.”
In the end, the decision to close the store was made because “the outlet is unable to operate efficiently… The decision is hard as most business owners would not simply give up an old shop.”
He called it a necessary business decision even though “to us, our customers were like our family members.”
View photos
For Siew, the Lee Rubber Building branch which opened in 2003 is personally significant as this was where his career with Popular began “and this is why I have such sentimental feelings towards this place.”
The closing of the store also marks the closing of a chapter in Popular’s story, one that is deeply rooted in the area.
Popular’s first outlet was in Damansara Jaya — it opened in 1983 — but this was closed due to poor sales. That was when they opened their second outlet at Jalan Hang Lekir.
Siew said the success of the Jalan Hang Lekir outlet pushed Popular Holdings Limited chairman Chou Cheng Ngok to branch out to other parts of Kuala Lumpur, expanding Popular to 89 outlets. The Malaysian Book of Records lists Popular as the largest bookstore chain in Malaysia.
In 2008 to 2009, Popular held a sale at its two-storey Jalan Hang Lekir branch in the Petaling Street area, before combining all its operations in the neighbourhood into the Lee Rubber Building outlet just one street away.
“Instead of managing two outlets at the same area, we chose to have this one at Lee Rubber as the total space is much bigger than the combined four-storey outlet at Hang Lekir, to manage the business more efficiently,” Siew said.
View photos
And now as the countdown begins to Popular’s last day of operations on April 10 at the Lee Rubber Building, the bookstore is holding a closing-down sale as a “small token of appreciation by the Management to all our loyal customers.”
A series of Farewell Treats Promotions runs from March 25 to April 10.
Currently, Popular has 27 outlets in the Klang Valley area with more in the pipeline. “For those in city centre, probably the one in Avenue K or Sunway Putra would be convenient,” Siew said.
Popular’s customers can also look forward to a new 16,000 square feet outlet to be opened later this year at Sunway Velocity Mall in Cheras, he added.
View photos
Comments