Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Will E-Books Kill The Bookstores In India?

Electronic books or e-books are fast acquiring the market share of book readers. With innovative and affordable e-book readers, it has now become very easy to purchase and read books in electronic form.

India being one of the most favourite destinations for launching e-books related e-commerce activities, the e-books segment is increasing in India. The e-books publication in India and e-commerce industry is also flourishing when even the non traditional book publishers and sellers are using e-commerce platforms to sell e-books in India. 

The natural question that arises is would this shift towards e-book kill the bookstores in India just like it did in US and UK? There is no second opinion about the fact that e-books would be the norm in future. We cannot postpone the e-books revolution for very long in India. Perhaps within next few years e-books would dominate Indian markets and e-commerce segment.

This has necessitated a strategy making on the part of traditional print based books publishers and distributors. They cannot close their eyes towards this apparent and significant change. In fact, they must already start taking interest in the concept of e-books.

The books publishers and distributors of India must also keep in mind the e-commerce laws and regulations of India. The legal formalities required for starting e-commerce business in India are now well established. However, legal issues in e-commerce in India are still not clear to many national and international e-commerce business houses and entrepreneurs.

For instance, the legal requirements to start an e-commerce website In India are covered by many legislations including information technology act, 2000 (IT Act 2000). However, both national and international e-commerce players are not complying with legal issues of online shopping in India.

Whether e-books would kill traditional print based books/bookstores or not is a question that can be postponed for few years. But what cannot be postponed is formulation of an effective strategy in this regard that is in compliance with Indian laws.