Amazon.com in India and other fond thoughts

re: Amazon.com in India and other fond thoughts

Deepak — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:35:20 GMT

Flipkart gotta be the best as far as my experience goes in buying books online (even better than buying from market).... cheap, reliable, fast and everything available....

re: Amazon.com in India and other fond thoughts

Chetan — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:01:30 GMT

Quiet informative blog. Really enjoyed reading. Thanks all for the information:-)

re: Amazon.com in India and other fond thoughts

Vijay Sarma — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:07:48 GMT

Will we ever see the Kindle being launched in India?

re: Amazon.com in India and other fond thoughts

Saurav Basu — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 08:09:01 GMT

Indiaplaza beats the competition because of its big discount policy and frequent promotions, free gift certificates. But ever since they broke up with Manohar, it is impossible to find any Indian title from Oxford, orient longman, permanent black, mrml, mlbd, etc Flipkart is good but 5-10% discounts are no good when any decent bookshop like Midlands offers no question asked 20% off

re: Amazon.com in India and other fond thoughts

Jyoti — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:55:03 GMT

I'm glad to know about flipkart, pustak and even infibeam - yes, more the merrier. Have used indiatimes in the past and found them consistent with their delivery. But haven't found their collection complete and with the option of purchasing through landmark or crossword through indiatimes, even though more titles are available, there are virtually no discounts offered. Would like everyone to steer clear of indiatoday who took my money, didn't ship my order and have spammed me relentlessly!

re: Amazon.com in India and other fond thoughts

Rohit — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:52:25 GMT

flipkart.com has amazing pricing and even better delivery. For those who haven't tried it yet, I earnstly request them to do so before making any judgments. The shipped books are in extremely good condition and the shipping time is maximum 5 days. Also they seem to have the most number of payment delivery options. FLIPKART rocks !!!

re: Amazon.com in India and other fond thoughts

Dr. Supriyo — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 11:09:13 GMT

ya I am glad such a discussion going on...I am a busy man workin hard through hospital and also preparing PG....I was always searchin for a good online shop...so far I had bought 4 books( some are text and MCQS) fro flipkart.com....and all the books are delivered astonishgly in time(wat I can't believe happening in place like INDIA).....though some books are costing more but I am satisfied to see their service....I have ordered some books from sapnaonline... but they r not showing such promtness...till the review written I don't know they have delivered or not....another thing I want to warn all people is that don't believe in sites like futurebazar, indiatimes....they r frauds...Indiatimes has received money from my debit card...but they say it will require 45 days to deliver a magazine( IC CHIP magazine).....can anybody believe it? I am so much angry with them that I may go to Ministry of Consumer Affairs website and also Consumer Court......plz don't buy anything from them...I am saying so coz I m a real sufferer... In conclusion sites like Flipkart should continue their good works...hats off to them

re: Amazon.com in India and other fond thoughts

Prashant — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 03:41:58 GMT

The more the merrier for sure. Anybody here used a1books.co.in. They manage to get books from across the world, of course, with stiff pricing. But sometimes, one wonders how well these guys will do if they can't compete in price. Point in case. Referring to the above comment by Ravi Purohit, Snowball was 900/- at Flipkart. The same is sold by the Strand bookstore in Mumbai for 665/-. For all popular books, bookstores like Strand kills the competition. Only for niche and not very popular books, these websites might help. But can they survive on that alone?

re: Amazon.com in India and other fond thoughts

Ravi Purohit — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:31:05 GMT

And, besides, I just checked Pustak.co.in. There pricing is completely out of whack. They are selling Snowball by Warren Buffet for over a thousand bucks, I bought the same for less than 900 bucks on Flipkart. Snowball was shipped to me in 2-3 business days from Bangalore to Mumbai, whereas Pustak.co.in indicates a delivery time of 3-4 weeks!

re: Amazon.com in India and other fond thoughts

Ravi Purohit — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:25:48 GMT

Flipkart is indeed the best. Have been dealing with them for the past 5 months and the service is awesome. The only thing they lack is the "used" books section, when compared to Amazon.

re: Amazon.com in India and other fond thoughts

Samanth — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 06:18:07 GMT

Sanjiv: Actually I'm sort of tickled pink that Hemangini even thinks this blog is a worthy venue to promote her web site! :-) Since we've identified the self-promotion as such, we'll leave it be, and readers can make their own judgements. Caveat Emptor and all that.

re: Amazon.com in India and other fond thoughts

JD — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 04:17:51 GMT

Online book selling is going in a right way. Amazon is a big name in this industry. In india i know Flipkart, Infibeam, Indiaplaza, A1Books, Rediff and many more of them. I have great experience of Infibeam & Rediff for their good online selling services. Its really nice to have these all online sellers to ease in buying books one needs.

re: Amazon.com in India and other fond thoughts

Sanjiv — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:17:08 GMT

Can the author please remove this shameless self promotion by Hemangini?

re: Amazon.com in India and other fond thoughts

Hemangini — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:25:23 GMT

Rockus, Manidipa, Samanth, I am quite surprised with all your statements and comments about pustak, indiaplaza, landmarkonthenet, firstandsecond, etc. But yes I totally agree, Amazon is the market leader in online shopping specially their books collection, no one can think for a second to compete with them and indiaplaze, pustak & firstandsecond are far behind even to think about them. Having said about amazon, still there is one site in India since almost 2 years i.e. http://www.infibeam.com/Books/ - these guys launched their online shopping portal initially with automobiles (cars, bikes & rentals) and then step-by-step they started launching more stores like Mobiles, Cameras, Gifts. After few stores, they launched Books with over 30 millions books readily available. Believe me guys, I am not joking, their site really very very fast and so does their books search. They are very quick in processing the order and delivering @ your place as well. I know, because I ordered 4 books and they got it delivered before their estimated time always. These infibeam guys also partnered with futurebazaar.com books section and they are powering futurebazaar's books store. I just tried once with flipkart, firstandsecond and seriously they didn't match with what infibeam is offering even today as well.

re: Amazon.com in India and other fond thoughts

Samanth — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 09:52:47 GMT

Manidipa: I had the same problem with LandmarkOnTheNet.com the one time I bought from them. FirstAndSecond.com thrilled me no end when I first discovered it and its vast list of books that are hard to find even in stores in the United States -- but the prices! I searched for a slim paperback once -- and not a very rare one at all -- and was quoted a price of Rs1,450 or something like that. That sort of put me off. That's a great point about vernacular books, though. Somehow the retail models for English books and for vernacular books haven't managed to intersect too greatly at all in India.