Sunday, May 17, 2009

Indian editions of some popular books

Spotted low priced editions of some popular books at Crosswords in Bangalore. Doing a quick check at Landmark also revealed similar pricing for most books. The catch with ordering from Landmark is that there is a shipping charge of Rs 25 for every book, and sometimes delivery can take several weeks. If you don't mind waiting a bit for the books, ordering from the Landmark web site may be a worthwhile option. What is interesting is that their brick and mortar stores do not match their online prices, which is a bit of a shame, since that could prove to be a big pull for customers to come into their stores. When selling books, CDs, movies, and such stuff, you always want people to come into your stores. Many, many books are simply impulse purchases - you see a book, you take a look at it, and you simply decide to purchase it. You want to buy a book, but you end up buying that book AND a couple more from the same shelf or aisle because they are there - read a few pages, and you are hooked. What these stores could also provide is a web experience where a customer to browse to Amazon.com and read a book's review. After all, the more information you have about a book, the more likely you are of making an informed decision.


© 2009, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.