Librarywala
Librarywala.com, an Indian services corporation, is a company in India which provides an online book library service to members with paperback books in Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune. The company's current library size is around 12,700 books in Mumbai and around 9000 book titles in Bangalore. The company has ties with publishers and distributors for enhancing their literary STOCK. Based in Mumbai, India, Librarywala increased its customer base from 4,500 in January 2009 to 10,000 customers by the end of March 2009. The company registered revenues of approximately INR 6.6 million in 2009 with an increase of over 180 % as compared to INR 2.2 million in 2008 Librarywala.com was voted as one of the top ten hottest start-ups in India for 2008-09 by Tata Ten Hottest Start-ups.
Background and origins
According to Hiten Turakia, the demand for original paperback books was significant which led them to adopt the same business model in Indian books market.
The company initiated with business survey to assess the market potential. The founders used to stand outside leading bookshops and libraries and ask people a small set of questions. The questions would be in regards to their reading habits, at what price they would feel comfortable to rent books and what were the problems they were facing with the local library near their houses. They also asked them AbOUT their monthly spending on books etc.
All four founding members used to do this for four days at one particular location and they did this for about six months, three to four hours a day. They collected a good amount of responses from their target audience.
They analyzed the collected answers within four to five months, then they changed a lot of things based on these reports for e.g. they came up with the “no late fee” option because most of the people had one common problem with the local libraries. It was the 14 day return or the late fee clause. They also came up with the ‘cash or cheque facility against delivery’ option because most of the people preferred to pay against delivery.
Delivery network
The company had to develop a robust delivery network for timely distribution of books to the customers. Librarywala initially tried to tie up with courier services when they started but it did not workout as books are of different sizes and weights, so the process was time consuming, inefficient and costly. Then company hired some delivery boys like the pizza companies and started training them. Currently, the company has more than 25 delivery boys across three cities and they deliver more than 525 books in Mumbai, 310 books in Bangalore & 150 books in Pune on a daily basis.
Recent updates
According to recent news interviews, Librarywala is planning to venture out in other cities of India after success in Mumbai, Bangaloe and Pune. They plan to have presence in more than 10 cities in the next two years. Librarywala is expected to venture in Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad in 2009.