Online space killing bookstores in city

Pune: While book reading is still thriving among people of all generations, which is evident from emerging trends like book cafés and huge sales of books online, bookstores are seeing a setback. These once favourite hubs of book lovers are facing losses due to which they are forced to shut down.

In Pune, two of the major chains of bookstores like Crossword and Landmark saw closing down of many of its outlets. The blame for this mostly lies on online spaces that sell books at a lower (discounted) price than bookstores.

She said the cost of running a bookstore is high which makes it difficult for owners to compete with the online sellers. “If you compare a normal bookstore to an online space selling books, you will notice that a conventional bookstore like Crossword or Landmark has a high maintenance cost. They have to pay for the shop, electricity, staff, etc., and the profit margin after all this is not much,” she added.

Changing dynamics of residential spaces and  nomadic lives of youngsters owing to changing form of jobs is another reason why many people have stopped buying and hoarding books. Continued on P2

“I love reading books, but buying books and storing them has become old and expensive. It seems to take a lot of storage space. Instead, I find the concept of renting books or subscriptions more convenient. This saves space and is also affordable. I also don’t need to carry my whole personal library with me in case of frequent change of homes or cities,” IT professional Jayashree Bose said.

“In the last two years, there has been a shift in the overall shopping trend,. This is definitely putting some pressure on publishers. But it is also motivating us to try out new experiments to sell books as well as drive people to buy more books,” Rohan Champanerkar of Rohan Prakashan said.

He added, “We have tie-ups with online platforms like Flipkart and Amazon. We also have our own e-commerce website for the past eight years where people can buy books directly from us. Many publishers provide such e-commerce services to sustain in the market. Also, many bookstores now use several strategies to give out books at discounted prices.”

Rohan Prakashan has been selling top 50 books by the publication at a discount of 30 per cent which has received an overwhelming response, which, as per Champanerkar is a positive sign.