Poor turn out forces book stall owner to slash prices

Ningthoujam Prasant & Elangbam Nikita

IMPHAL | Aug 12

Vishal Kumar, from Delhi, father of a lone child, and owner of a stall at the ongoing fair at Mapal Kangjeibung, is having a hard time trying selling his books—used and unused.

He claims he brought along 15,000 books from Delhi and he is now forced to price every one of his books at only Rs. 100.

“The books were sold at Rs 200 and Rs. 100 initially. However, because of an a constant drop in the volume of sale, I had to resort to offering them for only Rs. 100 per book.” said Vishal who came to Imphal with high expectations.

With a heavy heart, he said he has spent more than Rs. 40,000 travelling and transporting he wares. He said  carriage charge to Imphal is expensive.

“I expected good response from purchasers, especially students, however visitors were very few,” said Vishal disappointment writ large on his face.

He asserted he has travelled across India to partake in various book fairs and got great responses in different states. He guessed the reason for slowing down of sales might have to do with the less appropriate setting of the book stall inside the trade fair.

Vishal is a partner of Mehta Book Company, Delhi. He said though many now prefer enjoy e-books and other electronic formats he trusts that these can’t be compared with paper books. Life is in books and books will prevail, he said. Though sale is poor, he is confident he will not lose money.

Vishal said he will once more, return to Imphal in future to partake in book fairs. His stall has books basically of fiction, non-fiction and children books. The trade fair will continue till August 20.