5 Best Books Multi Vendor Marketplaces In India

Abhishek Aggarwal
5 min readOct 8, 2021

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Do you sell books and own an offline store for selling the same? If yes, don’t you want to expand your business in terms of revenue? We believe that you desperately want it and are looking for new opportunities. Want to know the opportunity? It is none other than opening an online bookstore.

And today in this blog, you will learn — How to create a bookselling multi vendor marketplace to start selling online.

Fact: A study by the NOP World Culture Score Index flags India as the country with the maximum readers. The time spent reading books (in India) is about 10 hours a week.

Moreover, it was found that readers between 15–44 years of age tend to read and buy books online. They can be college students, school students, teachers, government exam aspirers, and professors are generally these individuals.

The reason they shop online are-

  1. MRP rates and reduced price
  2. Cheaper offers and exciting deals
  3. Sellers Comparison option
  4. Reviews and ratings by other customers who have experienced the book
  5. Summary of book content sign with author ratings, author background, and publisher details
  6. Convenience for smartphone orders using a marketplace app or website

Well, do I need a physical store for online sales?

No, not like this. The best thing about opening an online bookstore is — you don’t need inventory or a physical book store. You can partner with local vendors to sell online and can earn a commission on sales.

Here are some prime examples that are doing exceptionally well in selling books online. Let’s unravel!

5 Books Of Multi Vendor Marketplaces In India And Their Development Plan

1. Amazon

The world’s first website that gives the facility to buy books from the comfort of home. It now sells everything from electronics to groceries, but books are going to be our priority.

How did their online book sales from their website skyrocket?

  • Advance book filtration allows a customer to easily change the results by choosing the desired ranking, book style, book size, name of the author, winners of book awards, discount eligible, etc
  • Marketplace application for smartphone users to provide a faster checkout experience, offline browsing, and rewards for loyal customers
  • Effective categorization like bestsellers, Amazon charts, best books of the month, new releases, etc. This helped in catching buyer’s attention and converting them with less effort
  • Impressive product pages that carry information about the author, book introduction, customer feedback, ratings, price, audio sample book, publication name, and other components

2. Flipkart

They began by selling books and ended up selling different appliances, clothing, etc. They reported 100 orders a day for books after a one-year start. It currently has 7 million books, some of which are available only on Flipkart, a strong strategy for drawing customers who need them.

How did their online bookselling from their website skyrocket?

  • The navigation Menu properly guides the buyer where to shop, with the help of category paths
  • Clever book division based on the buyer interest/age/purpose. Example: children’s literature(for school children), fantasy books, research materials(for college students), biographies, etc
  • Each product page is filled with book photos, price, definition, related tips, ratings and feedback, vendor information, author name, call to action, etc, which helps both customers (to find the best) as well as vendors (to convince customers by providing satisfactory details)

3. Snapdeal

Snapchat is a multi vendor marketplace that connects all booksellers to sell books in all genres and languages in one location.

How did their online book sales from their website skyrocket?

  • The homepage search widget helps the customer to quickly find a book by entering the name/author name
  • Buyers can easily access all books by going to the menu > ‘Books, Media & Music’ or can browse by genre or even by exam
  • Buyers are offered different sorting and filtration solutions to optimize the outcomes and reduce the purchasing dilemma
  • Multiple payment gateways are present at the time of checkouts for frictionless shopping and lesser cart abandonment

4. Books Wagon

This is an online shop devoted to school students, government exam aspirants, college graduates, entrepreneurs, and others. They have 50+ book categories on their marketplace.

How did their online book sales surge from their website?

  • An immersive homepage that does an excellent job in engaging potential customers. They have left no reason for customers to press the Add to Cart button and immediately checkout. Plus, effective categorization and internal linking have been effectively used to enhance product visibility.
  • Informative product pages that show everything a reader might need to buy a book. Like book ratings, price, publisher, author, description, provided a discount, etc.
  • They have incorporated various currency and foreign payment gateways on their website to reach foreign consumers.

5. Sapna Online

Sapna Online is India’s largest book marketplace that has an army of 61k monthly website visitors. Readers generally visit them to find international, national, and regional books.

How did their online book sales from their website grow?

  • For new customers, their webpage is itself a complete guide. It uses labeling such as bestselling, deals of the day, classic teen, new launches, author of features, team shop, etc. to get attention and maximize the orders
  • The navigation is like a cakewalk, making buyers easily load pages and find products at first glance. This accelerated the time spent by a buyer on their website, which resulted in quick purchases
  • The advanced search widget helps the customer to easily spot a book by entering the name. This facility has enhanced its shopping experience

Bottom Line

It’s the perfect time to launch a new online bookstore or take your offline business online. To open an online marketplace, we have put everything on your table that is needed.

  1. Purchase a domain name, hosting, and SSL certificate to begin the process of creating a website.
  2. Choose an advance, feature-rich marketplace app, and website builder. Refer to the points illustrated above to choose wisely.
  3. Once you sign up for the builder, the first thing is to pick a theme. Themes should be SEO-friendly, responsive, fast to load, easy to use, and must support customization.
  4. Integrate the theme with payment gateways, shipping solutions, social media pages, and other third-party plugins for a smooth shopping experience.
  5. Create important pages. Such as — homepage, product pages, category pages, about us page, contact page, policy pages, etc.
  6. Make your pages rich with content, so that buyers can easily get information about your products and brand.
  7. Test and make it live. You are ready to sell online.

Need direction on where to start? Get started with a free trial of a marketplace builder to experience its features and user interface in real-time.

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Abhishek Aggarwal

He is an ecommerce expert with 7+ years of experience.With hands-on experience of handling B2B and B2C ecommerce projects