The closure of Bestseller in Srinagar is the latest sign that bookstores in India cannot survive against the onslaught of heavy discounts by Amazon, high rentals and widespread piracy
The closure of Bestseller, a legacy bookstore in Srinagar, last week points to an uncomfortable truth: no bookshop in India can survive without government support. Unlike in Germany, where books cannot be sold below the MRP, in India, Amazon and Flipkart have been given a free hand to give discount on books (a big boon for readers) and also to sell pirated books (which is certainly not a boon for publishers and authors, who suffer big losses).
Saniyasnain Chiloo, the owner of Bestseller, which has been around for 45 years, put out a rather sad post: “A lone bookseller staring at empty shelves, surrounded by piles of rare and classic titles packed in cardboard boxes.” That indeed is the fate of all bookstores, both old and new. There is no way bookstores can compete with the online giants, which are in a position to give up to 30% discounts on books after release and even 50% one year after publication. Legacy booksellers have been closing down all over India, unable to offer a credible marketing strategy to the heavy discounting by the two online giants.
Trade discount: 30 per cent
A few months ago, Delhi’s The Bookshop—a legacy store that had been running for almost 50 years, first in Khan Market and then in neighbouring Jor Bagh — shut down. However, a group of people revived the brand and reopened The Bookshop in nearby Lodhi Market, in an effort to keep the legacy alive. But legacies do not survive on romantic notions alone—of buying a book from a bookstore, chatting with the owner, or, as some people say, “smelling the books.”
How do online companies offer such steep discounts on books? Most books carry a trade discount of around 30%, which Amazon and Flipkart often pass on entirely to consumers. They can afford to do this because they don’t have to bear the costs of retail rentals or storage — expenses offset by their vast warehousing systems and the sale of other high-margin products. A physical bookstore, however, depends on that margin to survive.
Many bookstores that survive are merely pretending not to see the impending doom.
Small sellers on Amazon and Flipkart also give modest discounts, hoping for big sales, especially on bestsellers. Also, various dubious sellers list pirated copies of books on these online platforms. This reporter was amused to receive a pirated copy of his own book, Top Game, from Amazon. Trying to file a complaint on Amazon is nearly impossible due to the barrage of questions they ask and the tedious process of proving both authorship and copyright ownership.
Books: Low-priority purchases
“Retail bookstores weren’t the real threat—we had loyal readers who stuck with us. But everything changed when Flipkart and Amazon entered the scene. People began ordering books online with huge discounts, delivered right to their doorstep. Why would anyone battle traffic or parking when they could just tap a button?”Chillo, the owner of Bestseller, told Kashmir Observer. This is what has happened to all bookshops. Many that survive are merely pretending not to see the impending doom.
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Faced with such challenges, independent bookshops—and even chains—stand little chance. Also, bookstores need to be located in high-footfall, upscale markets to attract big-spending customers, but rentals in such areas are prohibitively high. Bahrisons, the famous bookstore in Delhi’s Khan Market, survives largely because they own the property. Even so, Bahrisons does not offer discounts (except for 10% to a few regulars) or annual sales, relying instead on the loyalty of long-time customers. That’s a tough ask—especially because, in India, books are still considered low-priority purchases (unlike in more developed societies).
On top of all these adverse factors for brick-and-mortar bookshops, Amazon has the digital bookshop, Kindle, from where books around the world can be ordered in rupees. All you need is the Kindle app (not even the Kindle reading machine) and you can read on your computer and phone, which makes the habit of carrying books during travel completely redundant.
The Kindle app is a marvel; it syncs to the last read page across devices. There is a notebook on the side for copying and marking passages and the book is also read out to you if you are driving a car, for instance. Also, Kindle books are invariably cheaper than print. This writer ordered William Dalrymple’s latest, The Golden Road, for Rs 340 on Kindle app on sale; the MRP is Rs 999.
Death knell for bookshops
All this is too much for any bookstore to handle, and it makes little marketing sense for them to compete under such conditions. The only restriction placed on Amazon is that it cannot sell books directly through its app—buyers must go to the website instead. But this hardly affects Amazon’s sales.
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Incidentally, Dalrymple’s The Golden Road is nearing the one-lakh sales mark, helped, of course, by Amazon’s discounts—the hardback is selling for Rs 616 in April, six months after its release, making him the bestselling English author living in India. How much of that came from bookstores? Likely no more than 30 percent, though exact figures aren’t available.
Digital books are mostly in epub format and Amazon has its own format to prevent copying and distribution. But college kids have discovered ways to convert it into transferable formats like PDF. Only one copy of costly academic books are bought and then converted and forwarded to all students in the university. Academics don’t mind because they are funded or salaried, but for independent authors and novelists all this is a destructive tsunami. To make matters even worse, now digital printing makes it possible for two or three books to be printed at a time, unlike the earlier bulk printing and so pirating is rampant in campuses as well.
For bookshops, it is a death knell that began sounding a few years ago. Despite all this, however, some new bookshops continue to open — often by adding a coffee shop or bakery on the side. This can work to a certain extent, but buying an expensive coffee on top of a pricey book becomes doubly problematic—unless the buyer is a romantic bookshop hunter who enjoys literature with a dose of caffeine or a slice of blueberry muffin. The bookstore is dead. Long live the smell of the printed book.
