"We mainly choose best-sellers and books which are worth reading," Xu said. "If Dangdang and Amazon are the Walmart of the book sector, we are more like 7-eleven-speed and convenience is our thing."

In March this year for example, online book store Dangdang. com was forced to apologise to a publishing house for selling pirated books online.

Its rivals, including Taobao. com – China's largest consumer-to-consumer online marketplace – and Dangdang – China's largest online bookseller – are also in the hunt.