The Latest Bestsellers

It is not the usual Dan Brown or J K Rowling novel. Bookshops seem to be the hottest sellers in the last one week. The Tata group acquired 75% of Landmark in an all cash deal worth Rs. 103 crores. Landmark started off in Chennai and then claimed that they are a 3C company having branches in Coimbatore and Calcutta. Down the line they might have realized that Coimbatore was not the right choice and they closed shop there (can somebody validate this fact?). They also have an outlet in Forum Mall in Bangalore and one of my friends told me that Landmark plans to open another outlet in Triplicane in Chennai. The Tatas are aggressive in retail and Hemu Ramiah might have found the offer too good to resist. Landmark has been credited with the new age book retailing in Chennai. They also pioneered the introduction of audio listening stations (Nakamichi?) in India. This was quite a craze at that time.

Having been to Westside (Tata’s retailing venture) I was not quite impressed with the way it was run. Globus, Shoppers Stop and Lifestyle are way ahead. The main thing which I didn’t like about Westside was the fact that they were selling only in-house brands. In this age of choice, if you offer only in-house brands to the customer he may not be very happy. I don’t know whether Westside is still run in the same format. Financial Express had hinted that Tata’s might be launching a consumer durables entity as well. Consumer Durables has so far been dominated by regional players like Viveks. Looks like the Tata’s want to grab a piece of every aspect of retailing.

Just a few days ago, Deccan Chronicle announced that it would be acquiring Odyssey. Odyssey has outlets in Chennai and in some smaller Southern cities. While Tata’s thirst to acquire Landmark is understandable, I don’t understand the logic behind DC’s acquisition of Odyssey. I don’t see too many synergies between DC and Odyssey. At a broader level, it is quite heartening to know that readership of books is on the increase. The record sales in recent Book fairs is a clear indication that reading habits are not on the decline. On the face of it, it looks quite surprising as most people feel that TV, Radio and Internet are dominating people’s lives.

Other retailers like Strand Book Stall also want to cash in on this boom and want to sell out if 'value systems' match. Given the high rentals, e-tailing must be the way forward. Although e-tailing seems to be on the increase, it doesn’t seem to have created a dent in the sales of the brick and mortar retailers. The fact that the brick and mortar retailers themselves have an online sales option ensures that there is not much price differential between the offline sales and the online sales. If the government allows FDI in retail, we could possible see the entry of Barnes and Noble and Borders.