Books and gifts retailing is predominantly present in urban cities. It contributes 0.84%to the retail pie the market of worth $2610 million. Of the total $115 million organized retail contributes to just $15 million. Organized retailers like Om book shop, Cross word, Book café and Oxford book store have given basket of never seen before choices the Indian customer.
The India book market is worth Rs. 3,000 crores out of which text books of have a share of 80-85%. General books including fiction, non fiction, management and self improvement book s contribute to 500 crores. This is the battle field for the organized books retailers.
But what is the key to unlock the biggest share in this pie. The key is to understand the Indian consumer. The largest buying segment is aged between 25-40 years. The most frequently purchased categories are books for self improvement to answer the questions people are unable to ask others. Best sellers be it fictional or non fictional are amongst the fast moving categories. The children book section is also amongst the most frequented categories. Apart from this the buying section comprises of well informed buyers and browsers. Well informed buyers comprises of working professionals, students and other book lovers who are well informed of the Titles, Authors and like movie reviews he read book reviews before buying any book. The browsers are customers who know from which segment they want to buy the book but are not sure about the author or the title.
The modern book shops must be well designed to assist the customer in making the right choice. The categories, subcategories should be clearly highlighted. It might be a good idea to include a recommended list in each category and subcategory to help the customers make an informed decision. Apart from right signage it is very essential for the store staff to be well equipped with the books that are stacked in the store. They essentially might not be book lovers but must have the relevant product knowledge. They have to be like a librarian in our colleges who even without the help of the computers always knew where exactly the book lays. The librarians were driven by the love of books but the salesman has to be driven by system processes and technology. The modern book retailers have taken a leap ahead and have gone online to become click and mortar retailers. It gives the reader an option to refer to review order online or just dial to buy book. Creating blogs for customers to review a new release helps the retailers becoming a part of the information seeking stage of the buying process. Online books retailing is still in a nascent stage but online portals like indiplazza.com and indiatimes have dedicated books sections on their portals.
