It is not just the neighbourhood libraries that are lending books. Even book stores in Bengaluru are renting out books, as the pandemic rages and they face new challenges to keep themselves in business. Metrolife brings you a report.
B S Gowda Book House
Basavaraj Gowda, owner of BS Gowda Book House, Vijayanagar, says, “We have been running our book store for the last 45 years.” The store has more than two lakh books in several genres and many languages. “We have books on education, health, Science and Technology, arts and culture, and other fiction and non-fiction based novels,“ he said. The owner said that they rent books by charging 60 percent of the book’s price to the customers for the first six months. Once the book is returned, they keep around 10-15 percent of the book’s cost.
Regarding the impact of Covid-19 on the business, he said that the business had plummeted despite adopting the online mode of delivery. Gowda said, “Before the pandemic, we made sales of around
Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000 per day on weekdays, and now because of the pandemic, on weekdays, we make just Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 of sales a day. The business on weekends has also come down.”
Books world
Rajendra, owner of Books world, Jayanagar 4th T-block, says that they open the shop from 6 am to 10 am in keeping with the pandemic protocols. Parents and students visit the store on a daily basis to purchase academic books now that schools and colleges have started. He added that students mostly preparing for medical entrance buy or rent books from them. The store has a collection of more than 5,000 books.
The owner said: “ We charge Rs 15 per book for a week, and if the customers wish to buy more books, we give them additional discounts with an offer of Rs 50 for 10 books for a week. But the problem is some of them do not return the book even after the due date.” However, their overall business had improved by 40 percent compared to pre-covid times.
On reaching people at different locations in the city, he said: “ We send books through Dunzo to people who reside at far-off places in the city. The delivery time will not exceed two hours.”
Just Books
Suresh Narasimha, Co-founder of Just Books, says his store is a popular neighbourhood store that stocks 15 lakh books in English, Kannada, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Urdu and Bengali. Suresh says that while children form 60 percent of the customer base, senior citizens and women too troop into the store quite often. Now, during the pandemic, the store has free deliveries integrated with the pickup for those who wish to rent a book. Suresh says that business has been improving, “Our online subscriptions grew four times during the first lockdown. We are hoping for a similar spike over the next 3-4 weeks once the delivery restrictions are relaxed. We have seen a jump in circulation of spiritual and self-help books. However this is still 15% of our overall rented books,” says Suresh. The top rentals are pre-teen fictions, romance fiction, and thrillers.