Hyderabad book shops wilt under e-commerce onslaught

Around four months ago, the 65-year old store in the heart of the city – A A Husain& Co – shocked the die-hard book lovers in the city as it announced its imminent closure and also heralding the news that its enviable collection of books would be sold at a 50 per cent discount on its MRP.

In many ways it was a foregone conclusion. The prophets of doom had already prophesised that all over, book trade is a dying business with the double trouble of declining readership and its digital versions leaving it gasping for breath. A growing trend of offline browsing and online purchase of books and memorabilia seen among youngsters and other tech-savvy types has, in its wake, left a devastating impact in Hyderabad too, where book stores are vanishing rapidly.

Over the past decade independent book shops and legendary names like Kadambi Book Sellers and Gangarams, not to speak of a few other big book chain stores, have either closed down or sharply reduced the space for storing and selling books in departmental stores and malls.

While second-hand book shops, Sunday book fairs and scholastic book shops are still keeping their head above water as they have educational books to cater to a different market, nemesis has caught up with the others. Young Hans spoke to Asif Husain, the affable owner of the A A Husain& Co book shop that was the dream of many bookworms in the city and was informed that the curtains will come down most probably by the month end.

‘ If I have a last-minute rush of customers, in true Hyderabadi tradition, then I may be tempted to extend it for some more days’ Asif affirms. Probing further, this reporter learnt that 45 per cent of the approximately 5000 titles which included coffee table books, fiction, non-fiction and a few niche categories have already been picked up by avid readers.

‘It is a secular sale, so to speak, with no particular genre being preferred over the other’ confirms Husain. Joining the bandwagon, he too went online and tied up with Amazon where around 500 titles are available for sale. ‘Some books, rare ones to speak, were our exclusive collections’ he adds which made the e-commerce giant eager enough to join hands with him. The sales are encouraging, he informs.

While this development may have gladdened the last of the existing breed of book lovers who managed a good deal for their favourite titles, Asif is not too happy in the manner with which he has had to liquidate his stock. ‘I am left with no choice as the space is soon to be converted into a mall, where I cannot think of a book shop’ he reasons.

By:K Naresh Kumar