Not surprisingly, books, which do not rely strongly on the 'touch-and-feel' factor, are the ones that the majority of online shoppers buy.
Their share is 31 per cent of online purchases. But if you think these figures are going to result in your favourite bookstore announcing its e-tailing services soon, think again.
B S Nagesh, who till recently was managing director and CEO, Shoppers' Stop, which owns Crossword too, rules out starting online shopping at least for year.
"We have the infrastructure and technology in place, but it is not very practical to get into e-tailing as it is not a profitable operation," he said.
While the store has an option of ordering books via email, it does not enable the user to pay online. Meanwhile, Chennai-based bookstore, Landmark which set up its virtual bookstore a few years ago is also not too upbeat about the prospects of the venture for the next few years.
Hemu Ramaiah, CEO, said, "It was something we started for a lark, just because we wanted to and not because we expected to make money off it."
The e-tailing business contributed about Rs 31 lakh to the groups total turnover of Rs 100 crore last year. This, despite it offering an impressive 1 million titles (1.1 million to be precise). Earlier, people had their apprehensions about making payments online but that is not the case today.
However, people are still not ordering books online although it is an extremely convenient proposition.
While this could partly be linked to the low level of internet penetration in India, other factor that limits online book shopping is that the people likely to order online are the ones who like going to one of the modern bookstores, for the ambience and experience that comes with buying a book. This, most people believe, is unlikely to change soon.
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