Introduction

In India, there are many people who are fond of reading books. However, not many of them are regular in reading books because the new books are costly. In spite of the presence of some big players in the Indian Online book selling market, there is no one big name which deals in selling and buying old books of a varied genre. Academic books are one section of the market which has not been properly explored by any 1 company, and is still governed by small shops in the vicinity of schools and colleges. Presently, people have limited option with some very rare old book stores within a city where they live. Due to time constraints, not many people are able to visit traditional old book markets (like Daryaganj market and College Street in Kolkata). Even if they do, it involves a lot of hassles, and bargaining, which we believe the modern urban population would like to avoid.

Value Proposition
People are comfortable with reading old books (the ones already read by someone else). Our idea revolves around providing all such people who would like to read their favorite titles in 2nd hand or 'old used books', an online portal where they can order books. Our platform will also provide an opportunity to people who normally buy new books but would like to sell them after they have read them. Along with maintaining an inventory of all these 2nd hand books, we would also offer an unique feature of matching customers with book-stores near their homes, who have that title. We also plan to create a library of these second-hand books which can be borrowed and then returned after a specified period of time for a specified sum. Advantages: Eliminating Local Competition To a large extent we will be able to eliminate the threat by local shopkeepers, by making them our partners in the business. The shopkeepers will get more business, and besides we are not eating their profit margin rather increasing it (albeit by a very small percentage) Offering a platform to sell People can sell their books to us. Interesting schemes like, sell your book and exchange it with a book of similar price, no exchange of money (the slight difference in cost will be shown in his account as change, b/w Rs. 0-9).

The College Caf

Introduction:
The College Cafe is a student-to-student Internet marketplace providing college students with the opportunity to buy, sell and trade college textbooks, participate in auctions, post classified ads, provide teacher evaluations, and buy products for college. The College Cafe's target market consists of over 196 recognized universities and about 47 million college going students in India. The used book retail industry in India is estimated to be about 1000 crores, out of which only 7% accounts for organized retail.

An Executive Summary:
The College Cafe will enable students to buy, sell, and trade used textbooks directly to other students, by-passing the local bookstores. By selling textbooks to other students, the seller can receive more money than the bookstore will pay and the buyer can pay less than the bookstore charges. In addition to textbooks, students will be able to sell class notes, old tests, computers, and dorm accessories, used CDs, tutoring services or anything students wish to sell via an online student-to-student marketplace. In addition, the College Cafe will offer other services such as classifieds, teacher evaluations, weblogs (bloggers), specialized content and retail. The College Cafe will establish itself as the leading online student-to-student marketplace by combining extensive market-specific expertise with Internet technologies to generate revenue while creating a win-win solution for students. The College Cafe will achieve market dominance by utilizing extensive domain experience, a local grass roots marketing strategy, an exceptional management team, superior software, and the formation of strategic alliances, memberships and partnerships with companies within the college market.

The Opportunity:
College students are eager to find ways to get "quick cash" at the end of every semester. One method college students use is to sell their old textbooks at the end of every semester, however the re-sell market is controlled by the local university bookstore. Because university bookstores monopolize the market, students receive only a fraction of the value paid for the book, typically 75% or less of the purchase prices. The bookstores then re-sell the books back to other students, receiving over 125% profit. The current situation creates a lose-lose situation for students and a win-win situation for bookstores. Students are looking for convenient, money saving ways to purchase textbooks and to receive more value when re-selling textbooks at the end of each semester.

Demand Forecasting:
The College Cafe's target market consists of over 196 recognized universities and about 47 million college going students in India. The used book retail industry in India is estimated to be about 1000 crores, out of which only 7% accounts for organized retail. In the first year, the portal aims at simply getting a few initial customers, making nominal sales and purchases. Subsequently, College caf will plan to increase its customer base through good service rendered, which would help spread its awareness through customers testament itself. The follow statistics indicate that college students are receptive to the Internet channel for the products, services and content offered by the College Cafe. The following college student statistics were based on a report by the Student Monitor and the IIM Ahmedabad Explorer Study. 99% of college students use the Internet 93% of college students use the Internet every month 72% of college students access the Internet at least daily 92% of college students own a computer 13% of college students plan on buying a computer in the next year 15% of college students indicated they are the first to buy a new tech gadget or device Students average 9 hours per week online Students average 9 hours per week watching TV Students average 10 hours per week listening to the radio

These statistics reflect a very positive future to the online used book business that The College Caf wishes to undertake. Market size for online book shopping in India is expected to be between Rs. 2025 crore for 2007-2008. Market size of whole of book industry in India is estimated at 4000 crores and is growing at a very quick pace. With the literacy rate of India increasing at a steady rate, publishers predict that India will become the world's largest market for English books within the next 10 years. Second Hand Books constitute a major portion of the book retail market. The size of the Indian book retail industry is pegged at Rs. 3000 crore of which organized book retail constitutes only 7 %. The industry is expected to grow by approximately 15 % a year. Almost 50% of the orders come from the top eight cities and the remaining come from B & C class towns.

Product Mix Analysis:

The College Cafe will offer college students a unique blend of products, services, and content that is not offered by any single company on the Internet. The College Cafe will aggregate participants, products, services and content to create a student-to-student marketplace and retail website targeting 47million college students. The following describe The College Cafe's product models: 1. Textbook Exchange The College Cafe will offer functionality to allow students to buy, sell and trade their used textbooks with other students. Specifically, the Textbook Exchange functionality allows students to post their textbooks online for sale or trade, upload images, and indicate the condition of the book. Students looking for used textbooks will be able to search for used textbooks for sale or trade in their local area or nationwide. A fee will be charge for posting textbooks. The fee may vary based on the asking price of the textbook. Sample textbook categories include: Accounting Business Computer Science Engineering Marketing History Law Physics Political Science

2. Classifieds The College Cafe will offer fee based, student targeted, classified ads. Here many features such as image upload, Web links and nested categories will be offered. A fee will be charged for posting a classified. The amount charged will be based on the length of time the classified will be posted. Sample classified categories include: Textbooks Class Notes Tutors Room Wanted For Rent For Sale Tickets Rides Help Wanted For Hire

3. Retail The College Cafe will sell products targeted to college students. Margins will range from 10% to 50% depending on the product. Sample product categories include: Textbooks CDs & DVDs Computer Equipment Electronics Games Appliances Dorm Furnishings University Merchandise Clothes General Merchandise

4. Teacher Evaluations The College Cafe will enable students to post and review teacher evaluations. The teacher evaluation functionality will be a value added service encouraging students to visit the site each semester. Revenue for teacher evaluations will be generated from the sale of banner ad space located within the teacher evaluation pages. Banner ad sales will be targeted toward local businesses on or around campus. The fee for banner ad space will be determined by the length of posting, number of users for teacher evaluations and demand. 5. Bloggers The College Cafe will offer Weblogs (Bloggers) services with topics tailored toward students. Weblog functionality will be a value added service to encourage students to return to the site. Revenue for the Weblog will be generated from the sale of banner ad space located within the Weblog pages. Depending on the Weblog topic, banner ad sales will be targeted toward either local businesses in or around campus or national companies. The fees for banner ad space will be determined by the length of posting, number of users for the Weblog and demand. Weblog topics will include: College Sports Politics Entertainment Technology News

Sustainable Conceptual Model:

The main business model for The College Cafe relies on college students providing the textbooks, auctions, classifieds and teacher evaluations that are posted on the website. Therefore, our focus relies heavily on the marketing strategy that will increase traffic and usage and, in turn, maintain our inventory of products and services. We will be contracting students as subject matter experts to provide the content in the weblogs. The use of students as weblog content experts will help keep costs to a minimum yet still providing interesting and relevant content. For content and other value added service we will establish relationships with 3rd party vendors. This will enable The College Cafe to offer a wide variety of products and services online yet allow The College Cafe to focus on the key business elements: textbooks, classifieds and teacher evaluations. For the retail business component we will establish relationships with manufacturers or distributors that offer drop-shipments direct to the customer. This will allow The College Cafe to keep expenses associated with inventory and distribution to a minimum. We would connect with the major book sellers in all the major cities of India and form a network of book sellers. Our value proposition will be that they will get more customers, a national presence and a commission on every book they deliver to a customer near them. The customers will make their order as well as payment on our website. The price listed on our website will be equal to our price plus the commission that we are offering to the shopkeepers (which will be in the bracket of 1-3 %). As such, the shopkeeper wouldnt have to do anything out of ordinary and he does get more orders for books and hence more commission. We will keep an inventory of books, buyed : in bulk from such second-hand book vendors who wouldnt want to become a part of our network from people registering on our website (by paying them cash or giving them books in return) from major traditional book vendors like Daryaganj market (carefully selected) by conducting online drives, on Social Media, to give old books in return for cash (we can get very good variety at very low price, through this medium) .

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An Order Lifecycle:
Attract users to the site - Family, Friends, SEO, SEM,WoM, Brand Building

Provide selection - Make it easy to Find & Discover products

Provide details to evaluate a product - Description, Specifications, UGC.

Price well - Have to be competitive to the most obvious options

Provide convenient payment option - Online, COD

Confirm payment

Get the item - Procure from Supplier (Just-in-time) (Supplier selection)

Keep Inventory (Inventory Prediction, Planning) - Clean & Check for sanity, Pages missing, MRP printed lesser than told to you.

Pack the item - Tamper proof, weather proof, breakage proof

Select courier & hand-over - Courier performances vary across regions a LOT Get tracking id & communicate to customer

Follow-up for timely delivery

Take care of returns (faulty product/user changes their mind) Minimize returns.

Conclusion: Challenges
Low literacy rates (less number of readers) Lack of knowledge of operating internet/computer Internet usage/penetration is low Competition from unorganized market Time lag due to lack of proper inventory Low credit card penetration Customer not very open to paying online

ALL OF THIS IS CHANGING

Literacy rate improves (it rose from 52 per cent to 68 per cent between 1991 and 2008) Internet penetration is increasing. E-Commerce market is set to boom. Online payment is being widely adopted (hint: Indian railways online booking record!)

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Distribution and Carrier Strategy of the College Caf:

Sellers

The College Cafe

Customers
Product Outflow Cash Inflow

Both the customers and sellers here represent the College going students. Sellers are the students who put their used books for sale on college caf. Customers represent the students who log into the online portal and make a purchase after making the necessary payment through various payment gateways that will be provided by The College Caf. The College Caf basically acts as a platform for the students to exchange their used books and all other products that the College Caf offers in its product mix.