Book Cafe to open shop in Amritsar

Book Café, a multi-format and flexi book retail chain and a brand of EBD Book Café Private Ltd, will make its presence in Amritsar within two weeks. With this store, Book Café will have 36 outlets in 16 cities in the country. The company has tied up with Bakes and Beans as Café Partner.

Talking to Business Standard, Sandeep Dutt, promoter and chief executive officer, EBD Book Café Private Ltd, "Book Café aims to offer a superior book shopping experience and to reinvent the way books are bought and sold in India. After consolidating our presence in the north, we are now entering the markets in the West, followed by the South and the East."

He further added: "Book Café continues to focus on co-location as its key strategy and stocks books of varied interest for the book lovers of the city."

"The world over, book shops are growing and coffee shops are shrinking. The combination has helped to find a new target--the youth. Moreover, while cafe reports sale growth of 50-100 per cent by adding a book shop, while book shop reports 200 per cent as a growth rate in terms of sales," he said.

In the last fiscal, the turnover of the company was Rs 3 crore and with number of stores in the offing, Dutt is expecting to touch a turnover of Rs 5 crore in this financial year.

The store would cater to all age groups as it houses books for children, fiction and non-fiction novels, books on cookery, management, health & yoga and many more.

"One can gift books to their loved ones and friends by buying the Book Café Voucher. The voucher has no claim dateline to it, so one can pick up a book even after 20 years from any of the Book Café's in India. Book Café customers can also pick up books from the company's new Dial-a-book service whereby a customer can easily call on a tool free number and have a book delivered home, he said.

Commenting on expansion plans, he added," Book Café aims to set up over 300 outlets in the next five years of which the first 100 outlets are expected to be operational by December 2007, and will be spread right across the country. Book Café launched operations in Ludhiana in February 2003 and since then has added 7 outlets in Punjab alone. Today, Book Café is present in various city suburbs in India. Book Café has a well-established presence in Ludhiana, Jaipur, Kanpur, Indore, Patiala, Chandigarh, Pune, New Delhi, Udaipur, Agra, Gurgaon and Lucknow."

English Book Depot (EBD) was established in 1923 in Dehra Dun. The EBD family in association with The Variety Book Depot has promoted EBD Book Café Pvt. Ltd. Co-location and Co-branding with espresso bars, airports, metro stations, hotels, hospitals and other public places, help fuel the growth strategy.