National Book Store

The history of National Book Store can be traced back to the 1930s.
However, the company has been formally established in 1942. Before the
Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II, José Ramos and
Socorro Cáncio-Ramos, rented a small-corner space of a Haberdashery
situated at the foot of Escolta Bridge in Santa Cruz, Manila. With a
starting capital of ₱211 (equivalent to ₱15,047 in 2015), the Ramoses set
up their first retail bookstore selling GI novels, text books and
supplies. During World War II, the store shifted to selling sold candies,
soap, and slippers due to stringent book censorship. The store experienced
success but was burned down during the 1945 Battle of Manila, rebuilt
again and reverted to selling textbooks and stationery, the opening of the
rebuilt National Book Store at the corner of Soler Street and Avenida
Rizal, coincided with the first academic schoolyear after the war. In
1948, the store was destroyed by a Typhoon Gene but a new two storey
building with a mezzanine was built to host National Book Store.

National Book Store began selling greeting cards in the 1950s depicting
Philippine subjects to showcase local culture and traditions. The book
store also launched a publishing program with international publishers
such as McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hal, Lippincott, Addison-Wesley. In 1955,
the Ramoses were able to acquire a lot owned by the Guerrero family, where
they erected the nine-storey Albercer Building in 1963 which was named
after Alfredo, Benjamin, and Cecilia, where a National Book Store was
hosted.

National Book Store accumulated enough capital after some several years to
acquire rights to reprint foreign brand greeting cards for the Philippine
market. The book store had rights to reprint cards by Gibson for a few
years. In 1973, outbid a more established competitor for a Philippine
franchise of the greeting card brand, Hallmark.
Expansion and recent history
The Ramoses children proposed expanding the scope of National Book Store,
and a branch along Recto Avenue was opened, an area often frequented by
students. In the 1970s, branches were opened in shopping malls in Makati
and Cubao, Quezon City. For the next decades since the opening of the
Recto branch, the book store grew with shopping mall owners approaching
the Ramoses to set up a store inside their properties. National Book Store
became one of the top 100 Philippine corporations in 1988, registering
profits of $1 million on gross revenues of $34.7 million. The book store
chain also became one of the Top 500 of the list by Retail Asia-Pacific,
ranking 308th in 2004.

In 2015, National Book Store captures the majority of the Philippine book
market having a share amounting to 80 percent, and operates around 127
branches across the Philippines. It also operates Metrobooks, which opened
in Hong Kong in 2007, a subsidiary based in the former British crown
colony.

With the pending entry of National Book Store into the Philippine Stock
Exchange through the renaming of Vulcan Industrial & Mining Corp., another
Ramos-owned company, into National Book Store Retail Corp. they would now
also venture into wholesale, publishing, printing, manufacturing, and
distribution.

It entered the education industry in 2017 with the launch of NBS College,
its first institution for higher learning at the National Book Store
building on Quezon Avenue. By 2018, it now has over 230 branches
nationwide.

 The owners, Soccoro Cancio and Jose Ramos, met at a bookstore.

PARTNERSHIP
 They partnered with international publishing houses and reprinted books at lower
prices. They have teamed up with Kobo, a Canadian based e-book seller.
 National Book Store has sustained that relationship with Hallmark
for over 40 years now.
 National Book Store is happy to have been partners with Scholastic through the
years in providing quality books to Filipino readers

Marketing Strategies
 National Bookstore offers a wide range of products from the retail sale and
distribution of books to the sale of various school supplies. National Bookstore’s
products, specifically the school supplies, are mostly aimed for the students’ and
office workers’ consumption and needs. However, the customers of National
Bookstore are not limited to just students and office workers. The company also
caters to kids through the sale of toys, coloring books, crayons and et cetera. Adults
are also customers of National Bookstore since they avail of the various selections
of books that National has to offer. Students and other consumers as well know that
National Bookstore offers products of good quality and of affordable prices.
 National Bookstore uses a loyalty program called Laking National to emphasize the
affinity of the company’s brand with its most valued and loyal customers. Laking
National was created to retain National Bookstore’s most valuable customers and to
provide additional value for the business they have given National Bookstore over
the years. Members of the Laking National program earn points from the products
they buy and are given discounts on selected items, privileges to avail of services
from partner agencies. National Bookstore also takes advantage of seasonality of
their sales, especially during the months May and June where demand for school
supplies is high. The company heavily promotes during this period by using sales
promotions and giving special offers like bundling of goods such as pad paper and
pens. Lastly, National Bookstore operates and has its own website where customers
can visit and get information regarding the many products and services the company
offers.
FAMILY BUSINESS
National Book Store is a family business because the decision making is
influenced multiple generations of a family related by blood. Socorro Ramos and
Jose Ramos established National Book Store. The Ramoses were soon a family of
five after welcoming three children: Fred, Ben, and Cecilia, who later entered the
family business with their children. The business flourished and more branches
were opened. Later on, when Coring was left to manage the store with her
children, they all met on Thursday afternoons for National Book Store
management committee meetings. In recent time Nanay Coring’s own grand-
daughter Xandra Ramos-Padilla, National Book Store’s managing director, recalls
how her grandmother’s lessons are integral to how she runs things today. The
Ramos family manage the company. Xandra and her family remain as involved in
the business as Nanay Coring was, many years ago. Xandra’s other brother,
Adrian Ramos, is the company’s chief financial officer. And even during their
busiest days, the Ramos family never fails to have lunch together in the
officewhere they take opportunity to consult with their dad Alfredo Ramos, the
president of the company. When asked how their family manages to make it work,
Xandra infers that it is perhaps over a shared love for what they do.

Create good opportunities

But going beyond just ensuring great customer service, National Book Store
marked its 75th year by staying true to one of Nanay Coring’s original advocacies,
which is to educate Fili- pino students. The National Book Store founder has
always been committed to the mission of educating Filipinos by making books
and school supplies as affordable and accessible as possible. National Book
Store is now entering the education industry by creating its own tertiary
education institution called the NBS College.

The school is located at the National Book Store building on the corner of Quezon
Avenue and Sct. Borromeo, and is easily accessible, given its proximity to EDSA.
The college will initially focus on six courses: BS Accountancy, BS Ac- counting
Information System, BS Entre- preneurship, BS Computer Science, BS Library and
Information Science, and BS Tourism Management. With almost 5,000 square
meters of space, the school will initially have seven classrooms, two computer
laboratories, a business simulation room, a full-service library, a multi-purpose
hall, a cafeteria, as well as support offices and facilities.
With over 220 branches, 4,000 employees, and 1.5 million customers a
week, the business continues to root itself in humility and goodness.
Through avenues such as the National Book Store Foundation, the
bookstore engages with impoverished communities to provide its
poorest schools with libraries and supplies. “Happiness is helping
people,” Nanay Coring has always said.
Problems encountered by National Book Store:

1. The first National Book Store was devastated by a fire, and

the second one, a typhoon.
- During the war, a fire broke out in Escolta and it burned down the store. The Ramoses
rebuilt the bookstore on a smaller lot at the corner of Avenida and Soler. It rose again just in
time for the first school year after the war, and became the go-to place for textbooks and
school supplies.
- In 1948, three years later, a typhoon wreaked havoc upon the store and its stocks were
damaged but the couple rebuilt the store, only the next time it was at a two-story shop in
Avenida.

2. The bad comments from the cosumer.

- Because the consumer will always have bad comments to say about to that business. But
the National Book Store don’t care what the others will say as long as they know that they
provide good products and good services to all Filipinos.