It is usual for customers to ask for particular titles or authors at bookstalls but at the ongoing New Delhi World Book Fair, the question most commonly asked at the stalls of publishers and book sellers is if they accept digital payments.
“Most buyers coming to our stall ask if they can pay through cards or Paytm. In fact, most of our sale in this year’s fair has been through digital payments,” said Tarun Arora, who is managing the stall of Pan Macmillan India at the fair.
Not hit by cash crunch
Almost all the stalls at the book fair, from big to small publishers and book distributors to sellers, have made provisions for digital payments keeping demonetisation in mind. While many have installed Point of Sale (POS) machines to swipe debit or credit cards, almost all stalls are providing the option of paying through e-wallets too.
The cash crunch didn’t seem to have deterred book lovers from thronging the fair as a majority of them could be seen purchasing books through digital payments. “Though we were apprehensive initially that the cash crunch would lead to thin attendance at the fair, sales have been better this year compared to previous years,” said a manager at the Penguin Books stall who didn’t wish to be named. “The fair this time has witnessed massive crowds on the opening days, which was a weekend but even the footfall on weekdays has been quite high comparatively,” he said.
Takers for local languages
The crowd at the pavilion showcasing books in Hindi and other Indian languages also witnessed an impressive footfall. “It seems people’s interest in Hindi books has gone up, as seen from the crowd at our stall,” said Chandrashekhar Chaturvedi, sales manager of Rajpal Publication. “The sales this year has been much better than previous years,” Mr. Chaturvedi added.
‘Moderate dip in sales’
There are, however, other publishers who said that demonetisation has taken the sheen out of the publishing industry, even if for a limited period.
“There has definitely been a moderate dip in sales, at least for the time being. After demonetisation, our distributors were complaining about a dip in the daily transactions due to unavailability of cash,” said Sunil Kukreti, senior manager, S. Chand Publishing. “The situation, however, is now improving with distributors getting POS machines now,” he said.
The cash crunch, however, has not affected sales at the book fair though, Mr. Kukreti said.
