Commercial Press, the city's biggest bookstore chain, is speeding up improvements ahead of competition from Taiwan.
The chain is renovating stores and is also upgrading staff with the introduction of an internal exam.
The moves come as Eslite, one of the biggest Taiwanese chains, prepares to open its first Hong Kong branch later this month.
Renovations of Commercial's four-storey book centre in Causeway Bay, which has operated in Yee Wo Street for 28 years, have been completed. The revamped store was soft-launched yesterday and will officially reopen tomorrow.
Each floor is assigned a category, with English books in the basement, best-sellers and new books on the first floor, humanities on the second floor and children's books on the top floor.
The number of Chinese titles has increased by a third, to 80,000, while the number of English titles has doubled to 25,000.