'Indian Book Retail Industry Essay\r'

'The Indian al-Quran sell industry is estimated to be every(prenominal) over Rs 3,000 crore, protrude of which nonionic retail accounts for completely 7 per penny.The industry is anticipate to grow by approximately 15 per penny a year. bear retail contributes nonwith projecting about 1 per cent to the overall retail industry. Text and platform playscripts account for about 50 per cent of the gross cut-rate cut-rate barters agreements. Second-hand hires ar too a sorry chunk of the allow retail market. In the past few years, several(prenominal) large format allow put in bonds take for come up, such(prenominal)(prenominal) as Landmark, crossword and Om Book fink and so forth. More than 75 per cent break ins of these large chains atomic number 18 in bring out heading eight cities. These Organized Book retailers atomic number 18 counselling on improved client experience. Many reserve barge ins have also introduced coffee hooks and provide a library - want cash dispenser where guests throw out sit and train, while sipping coffee. withal this on sop up channel is also signifi standt with players like Flipkart, Indiaplaza, Infibeam etcetera\r\nWith the printed word con stancered an subvertangered species in ofttimes of a rapidly digitizing world, India now represents virtuoso of the best al-Quran markets in the world. â€Å"There has definitely been a angstrom unitle jump in the size of the industry in call of hold in sales and the consider of concurs creation published,” said Mita Kapur, the founder of Siyahi, a literary agency, who says the number of adjudges published in English is growing by 30 percent a year. Vikrant Mathur, associate theater director of Nielsen Book, India, said the volume of bind sales grew by 45 percent during the first half of 2011.\r\nFor the stainless(prenominal) year, Nielsen, a global information provider, documented English- diction nurse sales of 3.28 billion rupees â⠂¬ about $62 meg †from much than than 12 million handwritings s octogenarian. And that is probably only a fraction of true total sales, since Nielsen only measures about 35 percent of the total market. â€Å"Where somatogenic curbs argon concerned India pay now is a very, very big market,” said Priyanka Malhotra, director of full phase of the moon Circle Publications. â€Å"There is a whole jr. generation coming up from BPOs who ar jump to suppose in English, which is where a lot of newfound demand is coming from.” Online retail have also spurred growth in the industry. To summarize India’s book retail industry is broadly divided into 3 demesnes : 1. Organized\r\n2. Unorganized\r\n3. Online\r\nThe organized domain has big names such as : crosswords, OM book browse , landmark etc to name a few. On the some some other hand unformed sphere is huge and passing fragmented, with ca-cas spanning from local book transshipment centerhouses to road side book shanties to red light book sellers etc. This orbit is also filled with piracy and pi governd copies of original books (which is a serious threat to the sales of organized heavens) Online orbit is the newest of them all and has just started to takeoff in sales since last 3-4 years. The study advantage of such a format is the wide variety of offerings under one roof and ease of access for the users. Thus this is the accelerated growing sector among all of them. The bombastic players in this household argon Flipkart.com, Infibeam.com etc.\r\nUnorganized sector (Golden book depot)\r\nGolden book depot is a typical book cut in among umpteen in the unorganized sector of the india book retail industry. This instal is loacated in the vicinity of our target organized sector store ( OM book shop) i.e. Ber Sarai ( adjacent to IIT) in federation Delhi.\r\nAs can be analyzen in the photograph, this is a small shop , al roughly 1/tenth of the size of om book shop and nigh of the ingatherings are available behind the getting even, with only magazine stand displace just outside the store. As magazines as a family has most no of beat purchase. On an average around 50-70 guests come to this book store, and this tore has a instaurationfall conversion of over 85% which is very high as compared to the organized sector (OM book shop) . The reason for this behavior is that most of the products in these bod of shops are behind the incompatible and it doesn’t provide the luxury to the customer to mall around and search and read a book as in the case of organized sector. so almost all of the customers coming to these shops like friendly book depot are aware of what they demand and demand that directly from the shop keeper who consequently searches the book in the shop and hands over to the customer.\r\nBesides having a smaller area , less variety of books and behind the counter selling, the sales (in terms of no. of books sold) is st ill higher in opulent book depot as compared to OM book shop . The reason for that being : 1. Availability of educational books , i.e. educational course materials and competitive exam preparation books. These books map the majority of the portion of these book shops in unorganized sector. These kind of books , especially course materials for various courses such as MBA, B.Tech, BCA etc . are non available at book stores like OM book shop. As they (Organized) sharpen much on selling of novels and leisure read books. 2. Many of the universal shops in unorganized sector offer a facility to bring the old books and exchange them with the new books at a rejected rate or return the old books at a dissolveed rate in form of cash return.\r\nThis is a major reason why price assured middle class Indian customers prefer unorganized sector over organized sector. 3. Perception in the minds of Indian customers that these small shops will offer the uniform product at cheaper rate than th e organized sector shops, which have flashy interiors and huge shop level. This intuition is true also upto some extent as these shopkeepers in these small shops have the control over their margins and not guided by any companionship policy ( as in the case of OM book shop) that means these shop keepers can even abstract their margins from around 10% to as low as 1-2% to attract or retain a customer by offering them the cheapest bargain.\r\nOrganized sector (OM handwriting SHOP )\r\nAbout Om Book Shop\r\n retail merchant and Publishing House: Om Book Shop is a part of Om Books International, a leading English language trade paper in the subcontinent, and is a prominent player in the Indian book industries. The book retailing chain has a significant nominal head across the Delhi-NCR region. Besides stocking books, pictorial matters, magazines and CD ROMs, Om Book Shop is also a major distributor of books of many leading international imprints. OBI began publishing in 1993.\r\ nCollection: With a strong focus on small fryren books and coffee-table books, the store has a diverse collection including books on Lifestyle, Nature and Wildlife, Fashion, Bolly timberland, Heritage and Culture, direction, Health & Fitness, Cookery, architecture and Interiors, pictorial books for children etc. Children section is a major thrust area for the company and OBI publishes children’s titles under the Om Kids imprint: illustrated classics, mythology, folk tales, encyclopaedias etc.\r\n faithfulness programs and other salient features: Other salient features Om Book Shop currently holds about 50 gm registered customers with the Om Book Privilege Loyalty Programme which offers catamenias, discounts & other offers to its sure customers. OBS aims to popularize the Gift -a- book idea across its stores and delivers services like Dial-a-book which allows the customers to shop from their homes; and the efficient and helpful rungs in the book stores assists t hem in finding the right book or the right give way for the right occasion.\r\nOverview: ware, syndicate and fund\r\nProduct Category: ‘Books’\r\nRetail Format: Category Specialists\r\nclient segments: In terms of demographics, the Om Book shop customer can be a child/ self-aggrandising from any age group, gender, income class (reasonably well off) etc. Store: Om Book Shop is locate in DLF Promenade Mall in Vasant Kunj. The store is laid on the 2nd floor of the mall and the floor plan is provided in Figure1. The store is strategically located in a way that it falls on one of the 2 ways to the food beg and movie theatre.\r\nFigure 1: Floor contrive of Om Book Store\r\nSTORE PHILOSOPHY\r\n* Layout\r\n* standard pressure/décor\r\n* Sale program\r\n* Loyalty\r\nStore layout structure\r\nOm book store has a very functional and efficient physical layout. Mall sq. foot area is very big-ticket(prenominal) so there seems to be an effort on part of the book store to utilize as much area as possible. hence the layout may be a bit crammed for some customers. The bird’s midriff view of the layout is as follows:\r\nThe apparent motion view of the store is a transparent glass window with and through which a passerby can easily see into the store. The poster’s on debunk from the front view are only of â€Å"OM publisher’s” in different categories like kids books, cook books, and memorial (Amir Khan’s â€Å"I’ll Do it My sapidity”. The most popular and eye-catchy book categories are positioned near(a) the entrance of the store. The largest selling categories, Children’s books, Fiction, and New Arrivals are lay in shelves that a customer encounters as soon as he enters the store. These sections also have the largest impulse buy and are therefore unploughed at the forefront. Om book’s self published books in the kids category is displayed in big piles on the ground straight in t he line of path of a customer who walks into the store.\r\nSince the child a good deal runs about choosing his/her own story books and activity (colouring/mask) books and to a great extent influencing the purchase decision of the parent so the children books of the OM publisher has been strategically kept within r for each one of the child on the ground to woo the him/her. Other subjects in the same Children’s category have been kept on the shelf and in â€Å"sideway” display to decrease their exposure to the child/parent. Om Publication’s in any other category when placed on the shelf have been venture upn a frontal full display to encourage sales. Management books being the next most popular category, they have been placed right afterward the popular categories when examine in terms of â€Å"distance from entrance”.\r\nCategories pertaining to devise or hobby like gardening, travelling, cooking etc / or specific topics of interest like astrolog y, ism, poetry, etc have been assort towards the end of the store, furthest away from the entrance. This is because these categories can normally not create impulse purchase and so every customer need not pass through these segments/aisles. People who do buy these books are targeted shoppers and will anyhow walk to the rear end end of the shop to pick up his/her book.\r\nThese categories are not as popular as the others and have loyal customer following. The impulse buy accessories are lined a farseeing the passage on either side from the entrance to the cash counter. It is further seen that the counter is placed at the other end from the entrance to match that a customer has to walk through all the impulse purchase offerings onward he/she can buy the book. The products on offer in this so called â€Å"impulse accessory” shopping segment are: pens (parker and waterman), magazines, cookbooks, horoscope books, key rings, bookmarks, marble-paper/wrapping paper, and bestsel lers in each category. It can further be noticed that the best seller section just prior to the cash counter is dedicated solely to Om publication.\r\nAdditional aspects of the Store Layout\r\nThe layout is no doubt very functional tutelage in mind the profit maximization philosophy of the store and the main agenda of pushing its own publication to the shopper. However the spacing of shelves is crammed with little walking space, simply any academic term space (only 2-3 stools), and only 1 book stand. The entire focus is on 1 product offering i.e. books. Unlike competitors in the coordinate sector like Landmark, it is not focussing on the entire shopping experience, (no coffee, no other items on offer like stationary etc, no sitting space).\r\nStore Ambience and Decor\r\nThe bookshelves were made of engineered wood like particle wood. This created a unique and flush traditional effect. Plastic or metal bookshelves were not used since they do not look expensive and give a modern feel, which was not something the book store wanted. Furthermore the particle wood was grim a light shade of brown to give a bright and roomy/spacious look to the store. However the bookshelves were placed too close and for a particular(a) section of customers who prefer the comforts of luxuriant seating arrangement, coffee facility, and walking space (as provided by Landmark), the sheer functional design of the store energy be interpreted as a crammed. This world power not work out well for a particular segment of customers whose involvement with the shopping experience is as high as, if not higher than the involvement with the product itself.\r\nFurthermore the store works on the philosophy that it will focus on selling books whole and not encourage customers to spend hours just knowledge in the store. This is unlike some of its contemporaries like Landmark that encourage customers to sit and read privileged the store. Hence at OM book stores some customers may complain t hat the staff hover close to them and take for them feel uncomfortable if they stay too long. The store plays light and slow English instrumental music to suit the taste of the higher-strata of people who usually lambaste the Promenade Mall and create a relaxed atmosphere in the store. Instrumental music is played since a song with wordings would disturb the concentration of a customer reading the epilogue/back-cover of a book. This gives a coeval feel to the store.\r\nStore Sale Programs\r\nThe store’s maximum profit comes from its Children’s section. Hence the sale period coincides with the summer and winter vacation in schools in Delhi. December to Mid-January and May to June are the several(prenominal) winter and summer sales. The store is also clear to mall trends in sale. Since almost every other shop in the mall had a sale in July, so the store too proclaimed a sale to cash in on the increased footfall to the mall during the sale-period. There was no Flat Sale offer. Discount amounts were graded on the basis of demand. Books with high demand had low sale; New Arrival, Top 20 Fiction/Non-Fiction, ecumenic Fiction, and bestsellers had only 10% discount. The store felt that irrespective of the price these books would sell and so gave negligible discount on them.\r\nHowever on the kids section the discount was higher, around 20%, and even higher discounts on children’s books published in-house by Om Publications. This is because the store believes that parents during the sale period buy in bulk and a higher sale would induce them to buy more and yet it would not affect your margins. Furthermore parents are price conscious when buying for little kids since the books cannot be added to a collection later on and largely become irrelevant in a hapless time after the child has outgrown them. The sale on OM publication was the highest because they already had the highest margins on it due to the absence of a middleman, and therefor e could easily afford a large discount on those books. By touting the large discounts they aim to attract consumers to their publication and yet make the largest profit on the same sales.\r\nThe books with the largest discounts (say more than 50%) were displayed in piles on the floor. This was due to the flavor that even if the books weren’t displayed at eye-level, even thence the mammoth sale amount would encourage the shoppers to make the effort of bending down to pick up the book. To publicise the sale big red stickers were glue on the glass walls of the store which can be viewed by the casual shopper passing by the store. in spite of appearance the store the discount for each section was mentioned independently through stickers and pointers.\r\nStore Loyalty Program\r\nA book is generally a product category where the consumer’s involvement with the product (i.e. the book itself) is much higher than his involvement with the store. Even if a mortal might have st ore preferences, yet his/her committal lies with the book and not with the store. Hence a consumer would not really guard much as to whether he bought his/her book at OM Book stores or at Landmark, which is a stones throwaway. Thus in order to move on retention of loyal customers Om book stores has come up with a loyalty program, a privilege billhook holder concept which is as follows: * 1 point for every Rs.10 purchase.\r\n* Minimum points for redemption are calciferol points.\r\n* 1 point equals Rs 1 reduction in bill amount.\r\n60-70% of walk-in customers were privilege card holders and the store already has 4500 privilege card holders. The scheme is a moderate success.\r\nStore Timings | 11 A.M to 10 P.M ( For Mall)11 A.M to 8 P.M ( For standalone shop not the store we studied)| Working twenty-four hourss| All 7 Days of the week|\r\n card days| Saturday and Sunday|\r\nPeak hours| Evenings post 6:00 pm|\r\nStaff| 10-12 members including the manager. Manager stands behind t he counter at one of the two cash registers. He is accompanied by 2 staff members whose work is to: 1. Use the second cash register for firm transactions during peak hour to prevent long queuing period 2. To get a book for a customer if he/she directly comes to the counter and asks for a specific book.| Floor Staff responsibilities| * Taking care of the specific three to four sections assigned to them. * keeping a track of inventory\r\n* Filling the requisition form form for the replenishing of stock * Guiding the customers if required * sticking the barcode behind each new book before placing them on the shelf.| Shifts| There are no shifts; each staff member works throughout the day from 11:00 AM -8:00pm (fixed) and from 8:00pm-10:00pm (variable) depending on the rush. Hence post 8:00 pm the retained staff is paid on overtime basis.| Showrooms (strategic positioning)| NCR †5 in malls and 2 stand aloneMumbai †1 stand aloneThe store we studied was in the Promenade mall b eside DT cinemas movie ticket counter on the 2nd floor.| Revenues| 1.5 to 2 Lakhs on weekdays3 to3.5 Lakhs on weekendsChildren, Fiction †highest selling category (80% of sales)|\r\nCONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOUR\r\nThe product category is such that it involves Limited-Decision Making by the customers. The reasons for purchase of a book from the store can be: * Buying for self- unemployed\r\n* Buying for self Knowledge\r\n* Buying for Others- perpetual\r\n* Buying for Others- Situational\r\nThe greater the motivation to make an optimal decision, the more belike an attribute-based choice will be made. Thus, attribute-based processing is more likely for an expensive book purchase than it is for an inexpensive magazine. The easier it is to access complete attribute-by-brand information, the more likely attribute-based processing will be used. A variety of situations influence which choice approach is most likely. A book bought with the intention of a gift purchase is assigned more i mportance than a purchase for oneself. Thus, gift purchases would be more likely to produce attribute-based decision processes. Time pressure is a major determinant of choice process used, with change magnitude time pressures producing more use of attitude-based decisions. Thus, we can direct 3 major clusters of customers that visit Om Book Shop.\r\nCategory I: DEDICATED subscriber\r\nThis is the kind of person who feels complete with a book in his hand. For him, the behavior is governed by his choices alone and it is solely his decision. He is forever and a day trying to find the time to get back to his book. He is convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more. His primary information search happens within the store only.\r\nCategory II: LITERATE GOOD CITIZEN\r\nThis is the kind of person who usually buys a book after reading it review by a tyro or an expert. Such a person does more information search before coming to the store. For our answ erer group, the most dominant sources for this information were reviews and Bestseller lists published in newspapers, magazines or online blogs and sites likes Amazon.com.\r\nCategory III: FAD READER\r\nThis is the kind of person who only reads the popular books/ latest bestsellers so he can be up to date on what other people are talking about and be seen by others as someone who is well read. He often reads for the complaisant credit he can get out of it. His primary information search is more through his friend circle or his group of colleagues from whom he might hear the latest ‘fads’ in terms of books. Such a person could also go in for information search in popular newspapers/magazines or the shares on social media websites.\r\n'