SimplyBooks –An Online Book Store Joins the Bandwagon
We have covered quite a few online book stores in the past and while Flipkart leads the race (among the new entrants), there is of course space for new companies to come up with attractive positioning.
SimplyBooks is a Gurgaon based startup that boasts of 10,000+ books across 600 categories.
Buy Books Online - SimplyBooks
For the sake of comparison, I compared Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone’s price at SimplyBooks with Flipkart and interestingly, the former turns out to be a cheaper alternative (SimplyBooks price is Rs. 66/, while Flipkart is selling at Rs. 80/).
Apart from discounts, the startup has build a point system as well, i.e. ePoints with you collect each and every buy and can redeem later.
Having said that, competition can’t be played only on pricing – SimplyBooks doesn’t host some of the latest books (like Cyrus Broacha’s ‘The World according to..’, or even ‘Simply Fly’).
What caught my attention was an interesting quote from their press release
..the main idea of online shopping is not in having a good looking website that could be listed in a lot of search engines and it is not about the art behind the site. This platform is about building relationships with the consumers backed by efficiency, calculability, predictability and control.
A shot on competition?
Well, do give SimplyBooks a spin and share your comments.
About the author - Ashish Sinha is a Startup Mentor/Product Strategy Coach, and the founder/chief editor of pluGGd.in.
He has launched/managed couple of products (consumer as well as enterprise) in US and India, and now consults with startups/small businesses on their product/social media strategy.
He can be reached at: ashish (at) pluGGd.in [+91 98452 06443]
The quote is kind of vague actually !
“.the main idea of online shopping is not in having a good looking website that could be listed in a lot of search engines and it is not about the art behind the site. This platform is about building relationships with the consumers backed by efficiency, calculability, predictability and control.”
- Good looking websites have nothing to do with being listed on search engines.
What’s that supposed to mean, what kind of things are being done on the site to ensure this.
- Are there any site owners (across verticals, business models) who can have an attitude of ‘not caring enough’ for search engines’ ?
- “Efficiency, calculability, predictability, control” : That’s jargonic
- “It is not about the art behind the site” : Well, it never is. It is about creating a visually appealing and useful sit
Tried it! Book was unavailable!
As one of my friends pointed out immediately after I pointed him to this article. SimplyBooks looks “pretty” close to http://www.landmarkonthenet.com/ in terms of UI!!!
I have been using http://www.thestorez.com and they have been doing a splendid job so far. Found their service to be much superior than flipkart.