ConSolwe
We Connect. We Solve.
Last Summer I visited my cousin’s home in an interior village of Gadchiroli, Maharashtra. I waited for him to return home while he was back on his way from the city. After a while when he returned he seemed a bit sad. He expressed that he bought books for his child, which were costly for him to afford.
Books are the basic necessities of every individual but they take a toll on them to the existing school fees. This motivated us towards taking a crucial step to solve this concern of the society. For schools and colleges ConSolwe is a platform to facilitate the passing on of academic books at the end of every academic year at a very affordable cost. We will be providing them with second hand books in exchange of their books and charging them, for facilitating the service.
Market segmentation and target marketing
Colleges/ Coaching institutes:
We will talk to coaching institutes for allowing us to collect books from students once the exams are over and sell them to upcoming batch. We will be employing people for collecting and transporting books from the institute to warehouse. At warehouse the books will be sorted on the basis of subject and quality. The books will be sold, when the new batch starts, at the campus as well as online.
Schools:
We will be grouping set of schools, in an area, that follow same syllabus and use same books. We provide services of selling, purchasing and exchange of books. Hence we create a supply-demand chain in within the schools. The functioning works differently for schools as we will be on ground and services for individuals will be online. We have a sorting algorithm for books to ensure that the quality of every set is almost the same.
Market size
• There are more than 1.3 million schools in India.
• More than a million students appear for JEE and NEET exams every year.
• As the number of online users has grown rapidly, there is a very big market available for second-hand books online. In 2018 online bookstores are predicted to raise $9 billion.
The book industry in India is growing up at 10% per annum, out of the total second-hand book industry 95% are online. There are many companies which sell second-hand books online, but as quoted by one of the CEO, “The companies are reluctant to sell second hand books online as the cost of transportation itself is close to price of books”. The advantage we have is we are on-ground for the schools and the transportation is in bulk compared to individual books that other companies have to deal with. Even for the offline target, the number of student in coaching institute and colleges are increasing day by day which will help us increasing customers.
• Online Survey: More than 75% people were positive about the need for such a service, with most of them ready to opt for it.
• Technical: A team for development of website and mobile application.
• Staff for Transactions
- Sales force for the whole process of buying and selling.
- Logistics support- Drivers for vehicles, People for service (Indirect employment).
- People for sorting of books
- Customer support.
• PR team.
• Design team.
• Managers for each vertical.
• Indirect employment- Associations with companies with paperwala.com, kabadiwala.com that are currently functional in few cities. This will provide customers with a faster pick-up service and thus widening our reach. It will help kabadiwalas and paperwalas in reducing their effort to find customers.
Product stocking strategy:
• Discontinued and old stock has been allotted more discounts and highlighted nicely.
• Mid-priced ranged products are preferred.
• Exclusive products are minimized.
• Combo-offer.
Expansion:
• Expanding to non-academic books.
• Make your own book – support to publish hardcopy and sell softcopy online (freemium model).
This will provide a platform for writers, poets etc. an easier way to demonstrate their talent.
• Designing BPO in such a way that libraries or other book sellers can outsource delivery of books through ConSolwe.