Amazon India Antes Up To Attract Customers; Launches ‘Used Books’ Store

In an attempt to capture market share, Online shopping platform Amazon India today launched a ‘Used Books’ store category. The online store claims to have over 1,00,000 offers across genres such as literature, romance, biography and textbooks.

The books on the Amazon Used Books store come from sellers on Amazon who have undertaken to list and sell only genuine products. Used books are graded by sellers as ‘Used-Like New’, ‘Used-Good’ and ‘Used-Acceptable’ based on their condition. This information is visible to every customer at the time of purchase.

As a launch offer, customers who will purchase used books for over INR 399 from the same seller are being offered free shipping.

Noor Patel, Director Category Management, Amazon India, said, “We are excited to launch a dedicated used books store for customers on Amazon.in. Over the years, we have witnessed a growing demand for books from customers and our constant effort has been to bring them more buying choices. With this launch, reading enthusiasts across the country can now buy used books with the same ease and convenience as buying new books.”

With the launch of a dedicated used books’ store, Amazon India aims to become a one-stop destination for its users to buy new as well as used books. According to its website, Amazon India has sold 20X books per day since their launch in the books category. More than 9,400 sellers use this platform for selling books.

To boost its business, Amazon invested $300 Mn in Indian market this February 2016. It also launched an initiative to help SMBs to sell on its platform through Amazon Tatkal.

In July, Amazon launched the Amazon Prime membership programme under which users get unlimited free one-day and two-day delivery on eligible products. It also opened its largest Fulfilment Centre (FC) in Sonipat near New Delhi.

The used books store is available both on the Amazon.in website and the Amazon mobile shopping app.

Other major online portals for used books in the market are Pen and Parchment (P&P), a virtual bookstore that was launched six months ago, Bibliofreaks, a Hyderabad-based online second hand book store launched in 2013, Noida-based Second Hand Books India and SellBuyBook that was launched in 2015 by four former IIIT Delhi students.