Book Retail Market in India 2010

The book retail market is gradually becoming a lucrative market in India. The offline segment is dominating the market at present, however, with increasing internet penetration there is plenty of scope for growth in the online market as well. Moreover, online book retailing has some key advantages like potentially infinite shelf space, no real estate costs, an absence of the personnel and infrastructure expenses involved with running a physical store, lower prices and no inter-state taxes, further there is easy scalability.

The report begins with an introduction of the India’s retail market and includes India’s retail penetration level and the segmentation in the market. This is followed by the market overview section for the book retail market in India providing the size and growth of the market, organised and unorganised market share and segmentation of the online and offline market. It is followed by the business model adopted by book retailers.

An analysis of the drivers explain the factors for growth of the industry including increasing income, growing paper industry, growth in organized retail, internet penetration, advent of technical gadgets, popular as gift items and secure payment mechanisms. The key challenges identified are low literacy rates, competition from unorganised sector, low credit card penetration and consumer perception, and time lag due to lack of proper inventory.

Trends in the market include PE/VC investments in the market, bookstores coming up with coffee shops, book retailers expanding product portfolio and presence, bookstores find new ways of marketing and bookstores gaining greater visibility through book fairs.

The competition section provides an overview of the competitive landscape of the market. It also includes brief profiles of the major players in the market.