“Print books have great future”

says Prateek Ahuja of Delhi Book Store, which has been serving its customers for 70 years now. The bookstore is a preferred destination by librarians, researchers, medical aspirants, doctors, engineers, architecture, fashion designers, chefs, fitness freaks, children scientists, individuals, et al. Delhi Book Store is in the service of distribution of printed books for the last seven decades.

“Since our inception we have been importing books from across the globe and making them available to our channel partners at affordable prices. We have books for everyone and in every field. Our showroom is based in Darya Ganj and counted as one of the largest showrooms of academic books in India. Our showroom is a must visit place for all booklovers,” tells Prateek Ahuja of Delhi Book Store.

Prateek AbhujaSo what has been the reason of success for this mega bookstore? “The reason behind our success is love and affection of our customers. We have always adapted ourselves as per requirement of our customers. We provide best browsing space to customers and they feel at ease in our showroom. In order to provide the best and latest collection of books from across the globe, we have added international publishers like Auris Reference, Arcler Press, Callisto Reference, Clanrye International, Delve Publishing, Foster Academics, Hayle Medical, Intelliz Press, Koros Press, Larsen & Keller, Magnum Publishing, NY Research Press, Syrawood, Willford & 3G-E-Learning. These publishers are exclusive with us. We have started distribution of Elsevier, Taylor & Francis Group, CABI etc,” tells Prateek.

Medical books and beyond…

DBS is a leading name in providing medical books at affordable prices. “In fact, people still know us as ‘only’ medical book sellers. It’s a fact that we started as medical book sellers and till a few years ago, there would hardly be any doctor who had not purchased books from us. Even today medical books constitute good percentage of our total sale. We have diversified with time and now have a large collection of books on Science, Technology, Engineering and Humanities,” shares Prateek.

Customers experience is prime…

To successfully understand psychology of a customer is a half a battle won. “We at DBS have learned this art with our experience of interacting customers on daily basis. We provide the finest experience of books browsing to all customers as we have books displayed subject wise. Our showroom is visited by end user customers who include renowned doctors, students appearing in exams, children etc. We also get library committee members of institutes who come to make selection for their institutes or for library set-up. Customers may be from different walks of life but their criteria to select books remain the same. They all want latest/established books. And we have more than 10,000 titles exclusive with us which are printed in 2016-17 and the list is growing on monthly basis. Shortly after inaugurating the Kochi Metro Rail service on 18 June, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a gathering at the launch of PN Panicker National Reading Day, saying that people should give each other a book instead of bouquet. ‘I appeal people to give a book instead of a bouquet as a greeting. Such a move can make a big difference.’ If people start following this, then it would give further boost to the sales,” tells Prateek as a matter of fact.

Target audience…

“Since we have books for everyone and in every field, our clients include researchers, medical aspirants, doctors, engineers, architecture, fashion designers, chefs, fitness freaks, children scientists etc. Our customers include team of faculty members as well as individuals. So, we literally cover every market pertaining to print books,” tells Prateek.

Trends in the market…

On asking about the trends in the market, Prateek replies that things have changed really very fast but for good. “Thanks to the government which has opened large number of new institutes. This has created more demand for academic books and given an opportunity to distributors like us to expand. This is the reason that we are joining hands with more and more publishers to make their books available in India,” he adds. “As new institutes have come up in large numbers, there is a challenge of providing them new books. But we have successfully handled this challenge by adding more than 15000 new titles.”

On print vs. ebooks…

“It’s true that institutes are switching to e-books but we are very optimistic of future of print books. We have 24×7 news channels but still printed newspapers are in big demand. We have not been affected by e-books as we are growing. And we are sure that print books have great future. This is the reason that we are adding more and more publishers for distribution,” opines Prateek.

Road ahead…

“DBS’s commitment to quality has always been core to its culture and the company is today counted as a leading name in distribution. We are committed to provide quality books from across the globe to our customers and we always try our best to do so. We are also working very hard to bring Handbooks under our imprint – DBS Imprints. Our aim is to publish 500 Handbooks,” concludes Prateek optimistically.