‘MICRO PROFILING OF CUSTOMERS AT

FABMALL.COM’

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF

THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF MBA DEGREE
OF THE BANGALORE UNIVERSITY.

BY

MISS.VINDHYALAKSHMI.A.S
REGISTER NUMBER
03XQCM6124

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF

DR.K.V.PRABHAKAR MR. RAJESH VENUGOPALAN

ADJUNCT PROFESSOR MERCHANDISING
M.P.BIRLA INSTITUTE OF MANAGER, FABMALL.COM
MANAGEMENT FABMALL.COM

M.P.Birla Institute of Management

(Associate Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan)
Bangalore 560001

2003-2005

1
 DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the entire research work embodied in this dissertation entitled ‘ Micro
Profiling of Customers at Fabmall.com’ has been carried out by me under the guidance of
Dr.K.V.Prabhakar, Adjunct Professor, M.P.B.I.M, Bangalore ( internal guide) and Mr. Rajesh
Venugopalan, Merchandising Manager, Fabmall.com, Bangalore (External guide).

Place: Bangalore
Date: 15.06.2005 Miss.Vindhyalakshmi.A.S.

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 CERTIFICATE

I hereby certify that the research work embodied in this dissertation entitled ‘Micro Profiling of
Customers at Fabmall.com’ has been carried out by Miss. Vindhyalakshmi.A.S under the
guidance of Dr.K.V.Prabhakar, Adjunct Professor,MPBIM,Bangalore and Shri Rajesh
Venugopalan, Merchandising Manager,Fabmall.com,Bangalore ( external guide).

Place: Bangalore
Date: 15.06.2005
Dr.N.S.Mallavalli
Principal,M.P.B.I.M

3
 CONTENTS

Declaration
Certificates
Acknowledgement
List of tables
Executive summary

1. Conceptual framework of retailing

1.1 Introduction ……………….….. .……………………….. 1
1.2 Retailing in India ………………..……………………....... 2
1.3 Key trends of e-commerce in India. …………………….... 4
1.4Legal and regulatory framework for e-
commerce ………………..…………………………… 6
2. Profile of the company ……………………….………...……………….. 8
3. Literature survey ………………………………………………………… 11
4. Objective of the research…………………………………………………. 17
5. Research Methodology
5.1 Research questions…………………………………………. . 18
5.2 Methodology…………………………………………………. 18
5.3 Limitations…………………………………………………… 20
6. Data analysis and interpretations
6.1 Analysis of past sales data ………………………………….. 22
6.2 Profiling of customers……….………………………………. 22
6.3 Book store news letter and micro mailer.………………….. 32
7. Major findings and recommendations …………………………………… 33
8. Directions for further research…………………………………………….. 36

Annexure:
Annexure A ……………………………………….. 38
Annexure B ……………………………………….. 51

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 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Indian retailing industry was traditionally dominated by small kirana stores. However with
globalization, organized retailing has become the buzz word in India. Though organized retailing
occupies a minuscule share of the retail industry, it is characterized by intense competition and
multi channel delivery systems.

The research that forms the basis of this dissertation was carried out at Fabmall.com, an online
retailer based in Bangalore. The core business of fabmall.com is retailing and internet and e-
commerce are the platform for retailing.

The main objective of this project is to develop a profile of the online customers of
fabmall.com’s books division. The research also involves analyzing the past sale data to
determine the future promotional efforts of the company. The research also aims to determine the
effect of the promotional efforts on the sales of the books.

The research finds that the click through rates for the micro-mailers to be around 22%. The seven
day moving average of sales is found to be about forty.

The researcher recommends that the company customize its promotional efforts and its service
based on the profile of the customer. It is also recommended that the micro-mailers be sent
during the period when the sales slacken. It is also recommended a customer referral program be
introduced to make use of the brand loyal customers.

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 1. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF RETAILING

1.1 INTRODUCTION

E-tailing (or online retailing) and organised retailing, two buzzwords of the new economy,
emerged in the last decade in the business of selling. In India, each of these developments began
concurrently and independently with each other. The online selling process started in India with
the advent of the internet. First the ISPs, followed by the content driven portals and finally the e-
tailing sites arrived.

According to a McKinsey-Nasscom report the E-commerce transactions was estimated to be

around $300 million in the year 2002 and by the year 2008, E-commerce transactions in India
are expected to reach US $100 billion.(source nasscom.org) Retailing itself is considered to be
the sunshine sector in India.

A CII report on retailing estimates that India needs to create at least 110 million square foot of
additional retail space per year for the next several years in order to meet the demand created on
account of a sustained GDP growth rate of about six percent; the report further says that, in the
absence of a healthy growth in private consumption, economic growth will not result in a
substantial improvement in the quality of life and therefore the retail industry must influence the
promotion of consumption.

With the rise in retailing in general and the e-commerce in particular, there is an increased
competition in the retail industry and hence seeking and retaining customers is vital to players in
this industry.

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1.2 RETAILING IN INDIA: KEY TRENDS AND PROBLEMS

The Indian retail industry was traditionally dominated by small family run kirana stores.
Between the nineties and now, the environment of retailing has gradually changed. The
disposable income of consumers has gradually increased and the consumer perception of value
has changed over the period. The Urban Land Ceiling Act has been amended enabling easier
access to land and there has been considerable activity in terms of creation of retail-oriented
space across India. According to a CII estimate there are over 200 retail mall projects under
construction or under active planning stage spanning over 25 cities. This may translate into over
250 million square feet of new retail space in the market within the next 2 years. (CII Quality
Summit November 2004)

These key trends indicate that retailing has emerged as one of the lucrative sectors in the Indian
industry. According to A T Kearney the retail market in India, at present (year 2005), is
estimated to be around Rs.800, 000 crores. But only a miniscule proportion of this market is
organised. Organised retailing is, generally, defined as a professional service-oriented set-up
characterised by professional management and a strong customer focus.

The spread of organised retailing has been a predominantly urban phenomenon and according to
a McKinsey study, it is likely to remain so in the near future. The organised retail market is
essentially concentrated in the cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta, Chennai and Bangalore. The
market in these cities is growing and the organised retail is concentrating primarily on these
markets. The retailers are using various strategies like value for money, experience, variety
quality and convenience.

The organised retail has made considerable headway in products like food, groceries, clothing,
books and music. The apparel and the consumer durables sector are also lucrative, in that, these
sectors also have a large market in the urban areas.

The key challenges to retailers in the present scenario include:

¾High real estate costs.

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 ¾Low margins, in India retail margins are amongst the lowest across all categories.
¾Logistics and supply chain management pose a challenge because of the lack of adequate
infrastructure.
¾Restrictions on FDI in retail sector.

The online shopping is in its nascent stage and faces a lot of challenges at the present stage. In
India, the penetration of computers and internet has been low. Online shopping is also hindered
by the fact that regulations governing the misuse of credit cards is not perceived to be very
effective and hence the fear of identity theft and misuse of credit card is very high.

The main barriers to e-tailing in India include,

Consumer Behaviour: it is estimated that only 2 percent of the 3million people having credit
cards use the card for shopping online. The customer perception to giving credit card information
may be the barrier to e-commerce. The need for touch and feel may also be a barrier for e-tailing.

Access cost: the access rate is estimated to be Rs.35 per hour and the international bandwidth
capacity is 325mbps. These factors make downloading costs high. (Source: Retailing-the Sunrise
sector by Bharath Sarma Rejeti)

Delivery fulfilment: According to Trading Standards Institute 38 percent of orders do not arrive
at specified time and 17 percent do not get delivered at all. The shipment cost within India
average Rs.30 and that for overseas delivery is Rs.500.

E-tailing, however, is made attractive by the convenience factor, price and brand comparisons,
auctions and configure- to- buy mechanisms.

1.3 KEY TRENDS OF E-COMMERCE IN INDIA

As per findings of a survey conducted by NASSCOM, the total volume of e-commerce

transactions in India was about Rs 450 Crores in the year 1999-2000. Out of this volume, about
Rs50 crores were contributed by retail Internet or business-to-consumer transactions, and about
8
Rs400 crores was contributed by business-to-business transactions. With the regulatory
framework (IT Act and Digital Signature) in place and improvement in telecom infrastructure,
increase in PC penetration could lead to sizeable e-commerce transactions in India in the next
few years. In keeping with global norms, it is expected that business-to-business transactions
would continue to constitute a manor chunk of e-business transactions in India. Thus, according
to NASSCOM, e-commerce is not just a western version.
The NASSCOM report made the following observations in the survey:

¾As of September 2002, there was a PC base of 7.5 million PCs.

¾More than 80 per cent of stand alone PCs sold during last two years (2002 and 2001)
were driven by the need to access the Internet.
¾Internet access continues to be most widespread amongst the 18-24 year age group.
However, all age groups have seen vast increases in access over the last 18 months. A
significant development is that almost 11 per cent of people over the age of 40 now
access the Internet.
¾Males continue to outnumber females in accessing the Internet at 77 per cent compared
to 23 per cent. This has however increased from the ratio of 82:18 in June 1999.
¾India has about 1.6 million households connected to the Internet.
¾Internet users on an average are estimated to be accessing the Internet for 6 hours a week.
¾The profile of Internet users in India is dominated by:
o The professional/corporate segment, which accounts for around 43 per cent of
internet usage.
o Inching close behind is the student community represented by school and college
goers. This segment contributes close to 38 per cent of Internet surfers.
o Over half (59.2 per cent) use the Internet as an information resource, 11.3 per
cent use it as an educational tool and just fewer than 8.2 per cent use it for
entertainment.
¾When asked what are the most frequently used services online, 73.4 per cent answered
e-mail, 77 per cent answered search engines and 23 per cent said they use it for
downloading/uploading software.
¾Of the total Internet users, around 20 per cent own credit cards and around 14 per cent
own mobile phones.

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These are the factors that have to be considered by online retailers while profiling their
customers.
According to the NASSCOM survey, considering the interest the Government is taking in the
growth of the market, e-commerce in India will witness a significant jump over the next few
years.
¾Analysts also believe that one of every four non-resident Indians (NRIs) would make
some form of purchase from India-based web sites by 2003.(Source nasscom.org)

The table below gives the e-commerce transaction in India

Year total transaction B2C B2B

(Rs crores) (Rs crores) (Rs crores)
1998-1999 131 12 119
1999-2000 450 50 400
2000-2001 1200 100 1100

Table 1: the e-commerce transactions in India

These analyses have to be factored into by the e-tailers while choosing their strategies.

1.4 LEGAL AND REGULATORY FRAMEWORK FOR E-COMMERCE

Besides developing the e-infrastructure in the country through effective Telecom Policy
measures, the Indian government is taking appropriate steps as confidence building measures for
the growth of e-commerce. It has created the necessary legal and administrative framework
through the enactment of the Information Technology IT Act which combines e-commerce
transactions and computer misuse and frauds rolled into an Omnibus Act. While on the one hand
it seeks to create the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for electronic authentication through digital
signatures, on the other hand, it seeks to build confidence among the public that the frauds in the
cyber space will not go unpunished. The Controller of Certifying Authorities (CCA) has been put

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in place for effective implementation of the IT Act. The Act also enables e-governance
applications for electronic delivery of services to citizens.

The CCA acts as a regulator for the growth of e-commerce and e-governance. It is responsible
for the establishment of PKI in the country through licensing of certifying authorities (CAs). For
this purpose, it has notified standards which are based on international standards as adopted by
the International Telecom Union, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE) and the Federal Information Processing
Standards (FIPS) of the Government of the United States. These standards range from specifying
the high security modules for storing private keys of the CAs to the public key certificates, the
certificate revocation lists and the directory services.

Notable feature of the implementation in India is the creation of a panel of independent auditors
who would be responsible for auditing the technical and physical infrastructure of the CAs to
ensure conformance with the standards as also to ensure that the CAs comply with their
certification practice statement.

There will be greater emphasis to ensure that the identity of individuals and businesses is verified
as per established procedures to create the required level of trust in electronic environment. The
CCA has established the National Root infrastructure which would be used for digitally signing
the certificates of all the certifying authorities. Beginning February 2002, four Certifying
Authority licenses have been issued to operate under the Root. It is also setting up the National
Repository to store all the certificates issued by all the CAs in the country as required under the
Information Technology Act.

Though online retailing has its challenges because of the environment and consumer perception,
the NASSCOM is bullish on the growth of e-commerce in India. The online retailers that are
already in existence are trying to overcome these barriers by operation efficiencies and
innovation. (Source: nasscom.org).

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 2. PROFILE OF THE COMPANY

Fabmall.com was started in September 1999 as an online retailer for music. Fabmart, a pure play
Internet retail platform, was set up in 1999 at the height of the Dotcom boom. Four years later,
the start-up transformed itself into Fabmall, a multi-channel retail business, with six physical
stores, and a significant presence in cyber space. At present, Fabmall has eleven physical retail
outlets in Bangalore.

Fabmall is an entrepreneurial venture financed initially by ChrysCap and Reliance, while a new
investor, GW Capital, financed Fabmall’s growth into physical retailing.

The company offers its customers 22 categories, ranging from books and music to apparel,
appliances, footwear and jewellery to choose from. Most of the products in every category are
branded. Fabmall.com has a multi-delivery and multi-payment system. The company’s online

12
system is powered by a robust, web enabled end-to-end customised e-commerce and supply
chain management software. The company concentrates on online retailing and does not generate
any revenues from advertising on its homepage.

The focus of Fabmall.com is on pure albeit using internet as a platform but the core business
being retail. Fabmall.com began its operations with selling of books and music online as the
potential buyer would not necessarily indulge in “touch and feel” of these products before buying.
Having perpetuated the habit of buying online by inducing people to transact on the net offering
various incentives and discounts, Fabmall.com branched out newer categories like jewellery,
perfumes, apparel, and wine among others. Fabmall.com branched out into groceries in the next
phase and has a base of about half a million customers

Fabmall.com underwent three phases of branding. The first phase was dedicated to create
awareness of service they were providing. The second phase was aimed at converting those
people who transacted into dedicated online shoppers. Today, in the third phase, Fabmall.com
wants to build competitive advantage like partnering with other websites and focus largely on
books.

The online business was spun off as a separate entity in April 2004, with one primary US-based
investor. This investor has also invested in three other portals, sulekha, indiaplaza and eshakti. w
indiaplaza is an NRI e-commerce portal in the US, sulekha, an NRI community portal and
eshakti a portal focussed on selling Indian made apparel to mainstream Americans.

With a common investor in all the four entities, there is a consolidation of operations in the four
portals in the areas of technology, catalogues and people. The process is aimed at integrating the
operations in order to leverage on the market size and product and service range.

This study involves the Fabmall.com’s book store. The Fabmall.com ’s bookstore has about 2.5
million titles in their online catalogue. The categories of books include:

1. Arts, Music & Photography

2. Biography & Autobiography
3. Body, Mind & Spirit
4. Business & Economics
5. Children & Young Adults
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 6. Computers & Internet
7. Cooking, Food & Wine
8. Engineering & Architecture
9. Fiction & Literature
10. Gift Books
11. Health & Fitness
12. History
13. Home, Crafts and Hobbies
14. Jokes
15. Law
16. Love & Romance
17. Mathematics
18. Medical
19. Minute Mini Books
20. Nature
21. Non-Classifiable
22. Parenting & Families
23. Philosophy
24. Politics & Current Events
25. Reference & Study Aids
26. Religion & Spirituality
27. Science
28. Self-Help
29. Social Sciences & Education
30. Sports, Games & Recreation
31. Travel
32. Weddings

The company’s philosoph y is to provide the complete shopping experience to its customers and
hence the company believes in have both depth and width of product categories.

During the initial stages of its operation, the company focussed on brand building and customer
acquisition and did not have any warehouse for stock keeping but developed relationships with
vendors to facilitate the supply of goods. In the later phase of its growth, Fabmall.com built its
own warehouse for categories like books and groceries. Eventually, to facilitate better
operational efficiencies, Fabmall opened physical retail outlets.

The company has alliances with book sellers around the world. This facilitates the company to
have access to a wide array of titles and authors. The online business is expected to grow from
transaction volumes of Rs 7.5 million per month to a volume of Rs 20 million per month in 18
months.

14
The focus now is on customer retention as much as it is on customer acquisition. The focus is
also on operation costs at line item level and the gross margin is as critical as the top-line.
Fabmall.com believes in a customer centric approach to marketing concentrating on fulfilment,
support and customer service.

CHAPTER 3

LITERATURE SURVEY

This is the era of the new retail relationship. Everything has become so high-tech that the
average customer is clamoring for "high-touch."

Why does a customer choose one store over another? Why do customers buy a product from one
store when they could get it for a much lower price down the street? It's not magic. It's the stores
that provide high-touch, relationship building stuff that keep customers close.

Profiling Your Customers for Profit

Customer profiling uses the customer's preferences as the supreme tool to build the bridge that
draws the customers closer to the store than ever before. Because of the diverse nature of the
customer, general advertising campaigns are not very effective. There is a need to draw up a
specific program targeted at each of the different segment of the customers. Customer profiling
provides the detailed information for this purpose.

Studies show that it can cost many times as much to attract a new customer than it costs to keep
existing customers returning to the retail store. Those same studies show that customer loyalty is
15
worth ten times the value of a single purchase. In today's competitive arena, the success of one’s
marketing efforts depends on knowing who your best customers are, what they like to buy and
how often, and how to find more just like them.

In other words, appealing to their unique interests, wants and desires. And with online retailing it
is possible to obtain detailed information about the customer and their preferences.

Know Your Customers

Demographic information is important to know, but these days it's not enough. A marketer has to
know one’s customers too. Customers today are so time -starved that they require the speed and
efficiency. Yet the loyal customers want to be important to you as individuals. Customer
profiling lets the marketer know the customer on a one-to-one basis.

Why Is This Information Important?

The marketer now has a comprehensive profile of the current and potential customers and this
data can be used for marketing and promotional efforts. Now when the marketers want to attract
a certain segment of their customers, they can go to the data base, extract names and whatever
pertinent information is needed and create a customized offering just for that group.( Rich Kizer
and Georganne Bender)

The information economy puts a premium on high quality actionable information it can give
insights about customer behavior thereby helping the retailers meet their ever-changing needs
and desires

But to hold the customer's imagination for long hasremained an elusive dream. Changing tastes
and preferences, increasing competition, demographic shifts, and the simple "let's try something
new" attitude have all been blamed for customer disloyalty. No wonder retailers today are going
that extra mile to reach and understand the customer. They are also getting their act together by
streamlining the supply chain, improving storefront operations and actively exploring alternative
channels like the Internet.

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The customer profiling and analysis of consumer behavoiur can offer insights into how different
segments respond to shifts in demographics, fashions and trends. For example it can help classify
customers in the following segments:

¾Customers who respond to new promotions.

¾Customers who respond to new product launches.
¾Customers who respond to discounts.
¾Customers who show propensity to purchase specific products

Customer Loyalty Analysis: It is more economical to retain an existing customer than to

acquire a new one. To develop effective customer retention programs it is vital to analyze the
reasons for customer attrition. Business Intelligence and customer profiling helps in
understanding customer attrition with respect to various factors influencing a customer and at
times one can drill down to individual transactions, which might have resulted in the change of
loyalty.

Cross Selling: Retailers use the vast amount of customer information available with them to
cross sell other products at the time of purchase. This effort is largely based on the tastes of a
particular customer, which can be analyzed using profiling based on previous purchases.
Retailers can also 'up sell'
- sell more profitable products - to the customer at the time of contact

Target Marketing: Retailers can optimize the overall marketing and promotion effort by
targeting campaigns to specific customers or groups of customers. Target marketing can be based
on a very simple analysis of the buying habits of the customer or the customer group; but
increasingly data mining tools are being used to define specific customer segments that are likely
to respond to particular types of campaigns.

The concept customer profiling can, hence, be used as a tool for building competitive advantage.

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The four Ps of marketing determine the product, price, place and promotion mix of any product
and this is the general framework used by any marketer. The six Is framework determines the e-
marketing mix.

Integration
- Across
customer
life
Interactivity - Across
- Beyond media
addressability
to dialogue
Independence of
location
-remote marketing
-remote delivery
SUPERIOR
CUSTOMER
VALUE
Individualisation
- Micro marketing
- Mass-customisation
Industry restructuring
- dis-intermediation and
re-intermediation
Intelligence
- Informed
strategy

Figure 1: Six Is of e-marketing

Integration: the need for management of customer relationships implies the need for systems
which manage data on the whole of the customer interaction, throughout the customer lifecycle.

18
The multiple channels by which the consumer demands reach the company imply that these data
must also be integrated across communication mechanism.

Interactivity: knowing your customer means closing the loop between the messages sent to them
and the messages they send back. Interactivity supports a dialogue. The data collected through
this dialogue has to be integrated in order to build a view of the customer and their requirements
over time.

Individualisation: the opportunity to individualise the service provided arises once integrated
information about the customer is available. For Fabmall.com’s book s tore individualistion can
be done by providing information about new books once the customer’s taste and interests in the
books is traced. The promotions can be tailored to provide the information the customer wants.

Independence of location: Being able to reach the customers wherever they are can also widen
consumer choice and extend consumer power.

Intelligence: informed strategy: Better customer data can improve decision on marketing strategy.

Industry restructuring: IT enabled marketing will often lead to radical industry transformation.
The company should gear itself to adapt to the radical changes in order to provide superior
customer service.

Fabmall.com is an online retailer and the book store has a catalogue of over 2.5million books
under more than thirty categories. The company’s promotional activity primarily involves
mailing news letters to the customers informing them of new releases and discounts. The
company also sends micro news letters. These are promotional e-mails that promote a single
book or a similar genre of books.
For example, the news letter contains all new releases irrespective of the genre; it may consist of
management books, children’s readings, fiction, cooking and so on. While a micro news letter
consists of the review of a single book or reviews or two or more books of the same kind.

Profiling involves seeing what the customers in a selected segment have in common and using
these criteria to select likely candidates from a wider list. One can, for example, analyze the

19
characteristics of customers who respond well to a particular marketing tool or who are loyal or
profitable.

With customer retention being vital in a growing industry segment which is characterized by
competition, it is essential for Fabmall.com to profile its book buying customers. As mentioned
above, the six Is’ of internet marketing have to be used by Fabmall.com to retain customers and
to acquire new customer by providing better value and superlative service to its customers.

4. OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH

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The study involves developing a profile of the customers purchasing books on Fabmall.com.
The objective of the study is to study the book buying behaviour of the customers.

The purpose of the study is to determine the effect of the promotional emails sent to the
customers. The study is done in order to determine the period during which the promotional
emails can be sent. The purpose of the study is also to determine the kind of people to whom the
promotional e-mails can be sent.

Emails can be sent to every customer who has purchased books on Fabmall.com’s book store.
But flooding the customers’ mail box is know to cause irritation and is believed to impact the
sales. Hence, based on their past buying history, fabmall.com proposes to send the promotional
mailers only to such kind of people who may be interested in the book. This also, in the long run,
is an attempt to have a greater conversation rate.

5. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

5.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

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The following will be the questions that this study proposes to answer.

¾Is there a trend in the sales of books during any given period in a month?
¾Is there an effect on the sales of the book that are promoted both the monthly newsletter
and the micro mailer?
The research also proposes to build a consumer profile based on the buying history of the
customer.

5.3 METHODOLOGY

The study was carried out for the Bangalore based retailer Fabmall and the study was restricted
to the online business unit of Fabmall.com. The study involved the books unit of Fabmall.com
and did not take into consideration any other unit of Fabmall.com.

The study has been divided into two segments.

1. The collection of one year data, in terms of Store Keeping Units (SKUs). This was
collected through the database of the company.
2. This part of the study involved profiling the customer.
a. The book to be promoted was selected.
b. The researcher read the book to understand the type of customers who may be
interested in reading such a book.
c. A list of customers who the researcher thought may be interested in reading the
book was prepared.
¾For example, consider the book ‘The Da Vinci’ code. The researcher had
to define the cuts for this book, that is prepare a list of books or
categories that may in any way be similar to this book, in terms of its plot,
characters or contents; For ‘Da Vinci code’ the cuts may include fiction,
cryptography, number theory, catholic, the Pope and so on.
¾During the study, such cuts were prepared for all the books reviewed in
order to get a general idea of the kind of people who would like to read
the book being reviewed.

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 d. The customer database was queried to obtain the customers who had bought books
of the same genre from fabmall.com. The database was queried to find a list of
customers who had bought books as prepared in the list prepared in step c.
¾For example, for ‘Da Vinci Code’ the data base was queried for
‘catholic’ to obtain a list of all the customers who had bought any book
that had in its title the word ‘catholic’. This process was repeated to
obtain the customer base for every cut.

e. The promotional e-mail consisting of the researcher’s review of the book is sent to
all the customers extracted from the base. The email ids that occurred more than
once were eliminated in order to ensure that a customer did not receive the same
mailer more than once.
f. The response to the email was noted. This involved monitoring the click through
rates and the number of customers who bought the book after the email was sent.
g. Observations and conclusions were drawn based on this examination.

The books were selected randomly. Once selected, the decision to promote the book was taken
based on the researcher’s perception of the book, in that, if the researcher opined that the book or
the promotional e-mail may not be appreciated by the audience, then the book was not
specifically promoted but was just put into Fabmall’s online catalogue.

The books selected and promoted were eleven in number and the categories included
1. Fiction
2. Management
3. Biography
4. Thrillers
5. Comic book
6. Cookery books
7. Children and young adults’ books.

These categories were selected as the largest number of SKUs is sold in these categories. The
number of customers to whom the promotional e-mails were sent averaged about 1000 for each
of the books sent. The sample size is thus about 1000 for each book and hence the total number

23
of promotional e-mail sent was around 11,000 in numbers. Other than these 11000 mailers, e-
mails were sent to about 50,000 customers in Bangalore and Kolkatta to promote books that the
researcher considered would be of interest to people of those regions alone.

3. Compare the sales of the books that were promoted by both the news letter and the
micro-mailer and the sales of the books promoted by the micro-mailer alone.

The time frame was restricted to the period of the research, that is, a period of two months
between June and July of 2005. The mails were sent according to a schedules decided by the
organisation, primarily to ensure that the mail box of the customer was not cluttered by
promotional mails from Fabmall.com.

Measures to insure safety and confidentiality of the company’s data

In order to maintain the confidentiality of the company’s data and to protect the privacy of the
customers, the actual customer email id or the customer name shall not be revealed in any part of
this report.

5.4 RESEARCH LIMITATIONS

The limitations of the research include:

¾The research is constrained by time.
¾It is assumed that a customer bought the book in response to the promotional e-mail
alone and factors such as price was not considered.
¾The popularity of the author or the plot of the books was not factored into the analysis.

24
 6. DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

6.1 ANALYSIS OF THE PAST SALES DATA

From the data of the past one year, the SKUs for every single day was extracted form the
database of the company. The period under consideration is between May 2004 and May 2005.
The graphs plotting the monthly sales and the average yearly sales for the given period is given
in Appendix A.
Appendix A also gives the plot of the 7 day moving average of the sales.

¾The average monthly sales of books for the period considered is: 1692 SKUs.
25
 ¾The graphs clearly indicate that, though the sales vary from period to period, if we
consider the weekly sales, the period between the 11th and the 20th of the month generates
the maximum number of sales in terms of SKUs.
¾The 7 day moving average sales for the period clearly indicates that the maximum sales
occur during the period specified above.

6.2 PROFILING OF THE CUSTOMER

The response to the promotional e-mail sent to the customer was observed. The following table
gives the click through rates for the e-mails.
The table below gives the number of e-mails sent for each book. The sent column indicates the
number of e-mails sent. The opened column represents the number of customers who opened the
email. The clicked column represents the number of customers who opened the mail and also
clicked the links in the mail to enter the fabmall.com website.

BOOK NUMBER
OF
EMAILS
SENT OPENED CLICKED
CLIKED/SENT CLICKED/OPENED
1 THE MERMAID
CHAIR

807 241 20 0.298636927 0.082987552

2 WINNING:WITH
JACK WELCH
1799 728 97 0.404669261 0.133241758
3 SONG OF
SUSANNAH 151 37 14 0.245033113 0.378378378
4 LIFE AND
TIMES OF
EINSTEIN 1123 255 80 0.227070347 0.31372549
26
5 ARTEMIS
FOWL-THE
OPAL
DECEPTION
2627 715 102 0.272173582 0.142657343
6 THE SUCCESS
PRINCIPLES 1760 418 64 0.2375 0.153110048
7 THE ONE
THING YOU
NEED TO
KNOW 2202 496 59 0.225249773 0.118951613
8 KEN FOLLET
AND DAVID
BALDACCI 561 281 108 0.500891266 0.384341637

9 THE
CHRONICLES
OF NARNIA
2616 779 85 0.297782875 0.109114249
10 LIFE AND
FOOD IN
BENGAL 8045 979 25 0.121690491 0.025536261
11 THE RED
CARPET
46968 4453 638 0.094809232 0.143274197
Table 2: Table indicating the click-through rates.

The summary of the above table is given below:

¾The promotional e-mail for book ‘The Mermaid Chair’ was sent to 807 customers. T his
mail was sent to customers who are a part of the Book Club. Of these 29.8% clicked on
the e-mail in their mail box and of the people who opened the e-mail, 8% clicked the
links in the e-mail to enter the fabmall.com webpage.

27
¾The promotional e-mail for book ‘Winning with Jack Welch’ was sent to 1799 customers.
This mail was sent to customers who bought books of the similar genre. Of these 40%
clicked on the e-mail in their mail box and of the people who opened the e-mail, 13%
clicked the links in the e-mail to enter the fabmall.com webpage
¾The promotional e-mail for book ‘The Song of Susannah’ was sent to 151 customers.
This mail was sent to customers who bought books of the same genre. Of these 24%
clicked on the e-mail in their mail box and of the people who opened the e-mail, 37%
clicked the links in the e-mail to enter the fabmall.com webpage.
¾The promotional e-mail for book ‘Life and times of Einstein’ was sent to 1123 customers.
This mail was sent to customers who bought books of the same genre. Of these 22%
clicked on the e-mail in their mail box and of the people who opened the e-mail, 31%
clicked the links in the e-mail to enter the fabmall.com webpage
¾The promotional e-mail for book ‘Artemis Fowl: The opal Deception’ was sent to 2627
customers. This mail was sent to customers who bought books of the same genre. Of
these 27% clicked on the e-mail in their mail box and of the people who opened the e-
mail, 14% clicked the links in the e-mail to enter the fabmall.com webpage
¾The promotional e-mail for book ‘The Success Principles’ was sent to 1760 customers.
This mail was sent to customers who bought books of the same genre. Of these 23%
clicked on the e-mail in their mail box and of the people who opened the e-mail, 15%
clicked the links in the e-mail to enter the fabmall.com webpage
¾The promotional e-mail for book ‘The One Thing You Need To Know’ was sent to 2202
customers. This mail was sent to customers who bought books of the same genre. Of
these 22% clicked on the e-mail in their mail box and of the people who opened the e-
mail, 11% clicked the links in the e-mail to enter the fabmall.com webpage
¾The promotional e-mail for book ‘Thrillers from Ken Follet and David Baldacci’ was
sent to 561 customers. This mail was sent to customers who bought books of the same
genre. Of these 50% clicked on the e-mail in their mail box and of the people who opened
the e-mail, 38% clicked the links in the e-mail to enter the fabmall.com webpage
¾The promotional e-mail for book ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ was sent to 261 6 customers.
This mail was sent to customers who bought books of the same genre. Of these 29%
clicked on the e-mail in their mail box and of the people who opened the e-mail, 10%
clicked the links in the e-mail to enter the fabmall.com webpage

28
¾The promotional e-mail for book ‘Life and Food in Bengal’ was sent to 8045 customers.
This mail was sent to customers who while registering stated their contact address to be
located in Bengal. Of these 12% clicked on the e-mail in their mail box and of the people
who opened the e-mail, 2% clicked the links in the e-mail to enter the fabmall.com
webpage
¾The promotional e-mail for book ‘The Song of Susannah’ was sent to 151 customers.
This mail was sent to customers who bought books of the same genre. Of these 24%
clicked on the e-mail in their mail box and of the people who opened the e-mail, 37%
clicked the links in the e-mail to enter the fabmall.com webpage
¾The promotional e-mail for book ‘The Red Carpet’ was sent to 46968 customers. This
mail was sent to customers who have their contact address in the city of Bangalore. Of
these 9% clicked on the e-mail in their mail box and of the people who opened the e-mail,
14% clicked the links in the e-mail to enter the fabmall.com webpage

The schedule of sending out the e-mails is given below:

20.4.2005
The Mermaid Chair
Winning with Jack Welch 29.04.05
Song of Susannah 02.05.05
Life and times of Einstein 03.05.05
Artemis Fowl-The opal deception 05.05.05
The success principles 06.05.05
The one thing you need to know 13.05.05
Thrillers from Ken Follett and David Baldacci 10.05.05
The chronicles of Narnia 05.06.05
Life and Food in Bengal 19.05.05
The Red Carpet 24.05.05
Table 3: Table showing the schedule of the micro-mailers

The schedule of the e-mails did not follow any pre-determined order. The e-mails were sent
to ensure that the promotional e-mails were sent so as not to clutter the mail box of the

29
 recipient. The period during which the mail was sent also depended on the availability of the
channel as every section of fabmall.com sends its own promotional emails and micro-mailers.

The table below gives the cuts (cuts were defined in the earlier chapter of research
methodology). The tables below show the name of the book reviewed, the number of emails
sent to each cut and the number of books bought by that cut, that is, for example, in ‘The
Song of Susannah, 83 mails were sent to people who had earlier bought books by Stephen
King. Out of this 1 person bought the book being promoted. The bought link column
indicates the number of people, from a particular cut, who bought a book that is not the main
book that is being promoted but bought a book for which a link is given in the promotional
email.

BOOK CUTS NUMBER

REVIEWED OF
MAILS
SENT
EINSTEIN
LIFE AND Bought Bought
TIMES link
A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME 102 1 1
PHYSICS QUIZ 4 0 0
RELATIVITY 21 0 0
BLACK HOLE 10 0 0
MATHEMATICAL ECONOMY 1 0 0
NUCLEAR BOMB 2 0 0
PLASMA PHYSICS 3 0 0
MATHEMATICAL PHILOSOPHY 4 0 0
DIFFERENTIAL MATHEMATICS 4 0 0
FOR PHYSICS
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATION 5 0 0
INFINITY 5 0 0
SOLID STATE PHYSICS 5 0 0
RAJIV GANDHI 5 0 0
DISCRETE MATHEMATICS 14 0 0
MAN WHO KNEW INFINITY 14 1 0
CALCULUS 16 0 0
S RAMANUJAM 16 0 0

EINSTEIN 26 3 0
QUANTUM THEORY 28 0 0
THE TAO OF PHYSICS 32 0 0
IACOCCA 39 0 0
BASICS PHYSICS 45 0 0
HIGHER MATHEMATICS 45 1 1
MAHATMA GANDHI 57 0 0
SURELY YOU'RE JOKING, MR. 70 1 0
FEYNMAN!
30
 FEYNMAN!
MATHEMATICS 75 0 0
INDIRA GANDHI 89 0 1
FEYNMAN LECTURES 103 1 0
VEDIC MATHEMATICS 491 0 1
THE TRACHTENBERG SPEED 20 0 0
SYSTEM
OF BASIC MATHEMATICS
ARTEMIS
FOWL

ANDERSON'S FAIRYTALE 7 0 0
ARTEMIS FOWL 79 2 1
ASTERIX 7 0 0
CAVIN AND HOBBES 34 0 0
ERAGON 5 0 0
FAIRYTALES 73 0 0
HARDY BOYS 17 0 0
HARRY POTTER 1707 2 5
HOBBIT 30 0 0
LORD OF THE RINGS 405 5 3
MAGIC 152 0 2
NANCY DREW 11 1 0
NARNIA 2 1 0
NODDY 10 0 0
RK NARAYAN 25 0 1
WIZARD OF OZ 24 0 1

WINNING BUSINESS AT THE SPEED OF 60 0 0

THOUGHT
C.K.PRAHALAD 11 0 0
THE 22 IMMUTABLE LAWS OF 12 0 0
MARKETING
ADVERTISING 4 0 0
BANKING 2 0 0
BRAND 2 0 0
BUSINESS 263 1 1
BUSINESS LEGENDS 8 0 0
BUSINESS MAHARAJAS 24 0 0
BUSINESS MANTRA 6 0 0
CAPITAL MARKET 2 0 0
COMPETE 17 0 0
COMPETENCY MAPPING 2 0 0
COMPETING FOR THE FUTURE 10 0 0
COST MANAGEMENT 3 0 0
CUSTOMER 4 0 0
DATABASE 12 0 0
DERIVATIVES 4 0 0
DILBERT 35 0 0
DOGBERT 11 0 0
FINANCE 23 0 0
FUTURE OF COMPETITION 32 0 0
GMAT/MBA 28 0 0
HARVARD 12 0 0
INVENTORY 4 0 0
JACK WELCH 11 0 0
LEADER 60 0 0
LEADERSHIP 102 0 0
MANAGEMENT 209 0 0
MARKETING 45 0 0
31
 MBA 3 0 0
QUALITY 12 0 0
RETAIL 12 0 0
SAP 16 0 0
SIX SIGMA 36 0 0
SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT 29 0 0
STOCK MARKET 11 0 0
STRAIGHT FROM THE GUT 342 4 0
STRATEGY 27 0 0
SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT 27 0 0
TECHNICAL ANALYSIS 7 0 0
WINNING 33 0 0

SONG OF ANNE RICE 7 0 0

SUSSANAH BONE COLLECTOR 4 0 0
DRACULA 17 0 0
EXOCIST 2 0 0
STEPHEN KING 83 1 0
THE OMEN 8 0 0
VAMPIRE 12 0 0

THE ONE BORN TO WIN 13 0 0

THING
YOU NEED BUSINESS 411 0 0
TO KNOW C.K.PRAHALAD 42 0 0
CHICKEN SOUP 191 0 0
CUSTOMER 5 0 0
DEEPAK CHOPRA 58 0 0
DERIVATIVES/FUTURES/OPTIONS 7 0 0
DILBERT AND DOGBERT 44 0 0
EDWARD DE BONO 55 1 1
GMAT/CAT 45 0 0
HBR 17 0 0
INVESTMENT 5 0 0
JACK WELCH 322 0 0
LARRY BOSSIDI 1 0 0
LEADER 139 0 0
MANAGEMENT 361 0 0
MARCUS BUCKINGHAM 49 0 0
MARKETING 167 0 0
SIX SIGMA 36 1 0
SUCCESS 113 0 0
SWAMI SUKABODANANDA 19 0 0
TQM 4 0 0
TRACY BRAIN 14 0 0
WINNING 43 0 0
ZIG ZIGLAR 5 0 0

FUTURE A.P.J.ABDUL KALAM 152 0 0

OF INDIA
ARUN SHOURIE 11 0 0
DEVELOPMENT 5 0 0
32
 ECONOMICS 71 0 0
GATT/WTO/DOHA/URAGUAY 1 0 0
GOVERNANCE 7 0 0
INDIA 1673 3 0
POLITICS 4 0 0
POVERTY 4 0 0
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 2 0 0
RBI/BANKS 3 0 0

THE ZAHIR DEEPAK CHOPRA 9 0 0

DREAM 106 0 0
OSHO 46 1 0
PAULO COELHO 204 1 0
SRI SRI RAVISHANKER 195 0 0
SWAMI SUKKABODHANANDA 10 0 0

33
The cuts for two books, ‘Life and Food in Bengal’ and ‘The Red Carpet’ were sent to the regions
of Bengal and Bangalore respectively. Hence the cuts cannot be given here explicitly.
These cuts were used to profile the customer. The profile was built for a sample size of 1000
email ids. Here an email id was taken and every book bought by that email id was examined.
Based on this a comprehensive database was built showing the kind of books that particular
email id would prefer to buy.

For example,
Consider the email id: xyz@gmail.com
Consider this mail id bought the following books:
1. Artemis Fowl
2. Harry Potter
3. Charles Dickens
4. Dr. Spocks on Parenting
5. Life and times of Einstein
6. Asterix

Based on the above books, the profile of the consumer is built.

The profile may be the following:
¾The email id is an enthusiast of fiction and hence a promotional of fiction can be sent to
this id.
¾The email id is specifically looking at books that deal with magic and fantasy. Promote
such books to this id.
¾This id has bought books on parenting and hence promote books that deals with
upbringing of children and also promote books that are directed at children between the
age of 1 and 2. The person may be interested in stocking books for the future.
¾The buyer may also be buying books for his/her child. Hence promote books for the
young adults.

34
Since the customer id cannot be revealed, this section of the analysis shall not be given in this
report and is exclusively for the perusal of the company.

6.3 BOOK STRORE NEWS LETTER AND MICRO MAILER

The following were the books that were promoted by both the news letter and the micro mailers:
1. Winning with Jack Welch
2. Success Principle
3. Artemis Fowl
4. Mathematics ( A link in Einstein)

It has been observed the sales of books promoted by both micro-mailer and the news letter is
higher than those of the books promoted by the micro mailer alone. Typically, the micro
mailer is sent after the book store news letter is sent.
The table below gives the sales of books that were promoted by the researcher.

BOOK SALES
MERMAID CHAIR AND SECRET LIFE OF 4
BEES
WINNING AND STRAIGHT FROM THE 10
GUT
SONG OF SUSANNAH 1
THE ONE THING 2
ARTEMIS FOWL 27
EINSTEIN AND MATHEMATICS 29
SUCCESS PINCIPLES AND CHICKEN 4
SOUP
CHRONICLES OF NARNIA 3
THE RED CARPET 7
LIFE AND FOOD IN BENGAL 0
Table 4: table showing the sales of the books

35
 7. MAJOR FINDINGS OF RESEARCH AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Analysis of the SKUs

¾He moving average for ten of the twelve months indicate an increased average sale in the
mid-weeks of the month. The increase is generally seen during the period between 11th
and 20th of the month. It can hence be concluded that the maximum sales for every month
of the year happens during this period.
¾This finding can be used for the purpose of timing the promotion emails. The
promotional emails are sent from every unit of the company, the groceries, electronics
unit etc each send out their own emails. These emails are presently not sent exclusively of
each other and hence there is a high probability of the emails cluttering the mail box of
the recipients.
¾The recommendation of the researcher is to send the book store’s promotional email in
the period when the sales of books are not very high. This can promote book buying in
the period when the books are not bought.
¾The book club newsletter during the period of the research was sent on the following
days:
The 25th of April and the 16th of June.
¾The recommendation of the researcher is that the book club news letter be sent during the
last week of the month and the micro-mailers promoting a particular book be sent after
the newsletter is sent and in the sales is not high.

Analysis of news letter and micro mailer combination and recommendations

¾As seen from the data presented in the chapter titled data analysis and interpretation, it is
clearly seen that books promoted by both the news letter and the micro-mailer is more
than those promoted by micro mailer alone.
¾The sales of all the books promoted by both are 70 SKUs while that of the books
promoted by the micro-mailer alone is 17.

36
¾The researchers recommendation with this regard is that every book promoted in the
news letter be promoted by a micro mailer also. The fundamental principle of
advertisement is repetition. Hence if a customer is sent the news letter informing her of
the availability of a book and with a period of a week she gets a micro-mailer telling her
the plot of the book and the editor’s opinion of the book, the re may be increased chances
of generating sales.

¾There will not be a fear of cluttering of the customer’s mail box as the genre of books
promoted in the bookstore news letter is varied and hence the base to which the micro-
mailer is sent will be different.

Analysis of customer profiling and recommendations:

¾From the click through ratios it can be clearly seen that the average click through rate
is 26% while the rate of the people who enter the website after having clicked the
mail is 14%.
¾It is the observation of the researcher that during the course of the research that the
micro-mailer contains more information regarding the book than the webpage
containing the book. There are also no customer reviews of the customers on the web
page itself.
o While buying a book or any other product, a customer is faced with the
decision of why to buy the product. If her apprehensions are reduced then the
possibility of sales is greater.
o The micro-mailer scheme gives Fabmall.com a dual opportunity to reduce
customer apprehension. In such a case the web page itself should contain
more information of the book other than pricing details and the company
should encourage customers to write reviews for the book.
o Fabmall.com, it is the researcher’s recommendation that customers be given
incentives to write reviews for the book.
ƒThe customers may be given redemption points for ever review that is
published on the webpage.

37
¾While sending the micro-news letter, the researcher noticed that prior to the research that
there were no cross-selling efforts in the micro-mailer. It is the recommendation of the
researcher that the micro-mailer have links to other books that are of the similar genre or
same author.
¾While sending the micro-mailer, it was noticed by the researcher that about 15% of the
email ids for every book were repeated. This, the researcher considers to be a high level
of loyalty to the bran Fabmall. Fabmall.com should make use of these 15% people in
order to bring in more customers. This could be a scheme for customer referral – a ‘bring
a buddy’ scheme where in for every new customer who becomes a Fabmall book club
member through the referral scheme, the customer who referred the new person shall be
given discount coupons or such other incentives depending on the marketing budget.
¾The profile of the customer that the researcher has developed should be used for
customising the promotional offers.

8. DIRECTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

¾It is recommended that the company build a comprehensive profiling of the customers.
The competition is on the rise in retail industry in general and in the book retail market in
particular. Further research should be carried out to build a comprehensive profile of
every customer of Fabmall.

38
ANNEXURE

39
 7 DAY MOVING AVERAGE MAY 04 7 DAY MOVING AVERAGE JUNE 04

60 100
AVERAGE SALES

AVERAGE SALES
50 80
40 7 DAY 7 DAY
60 MOVING
30 MOVING
AVERAGE 40 AVERAGE
20
JUNE 04
10 20
0
0
1
4
7
10
13
16
19
22
25

DATE DATE

7 DAY MOVING AVERAGE JULY 04 7 DAY MOVING AVERAGE AUGUST 04

80

AVERAGE SALES
80
AVERAGE SALES

60 7 DAY 60
7 DAY
MOVING 40 MOVING
40
AVERAGE AVERAGE
JULY 04 20
20
0
0
1
4
7
10
13
16
19
22
25
1
4
7
10
13
16
19
22
25

DATE
DATE

7 DAY MOVING AVERAGE SEPTEMBER 04 7 DAY MOVING AVERAGE OCTOBER 04

AVERAGE SALES
AVERAGE SALES

80 60
60 7 DAY 7 DAY
MOVING 40 MOVING
40
AVERAGE 20 AVERAGE
20 SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 04
0 0
1

13

17

21

25

13

17

21

25

DATE DATE

7 DAY MOVING AVERAGE DECEMBER 04

7 DAY MOVING AVERAGE NOVEMBER 04
70
AVERAGE SALES

50 60
AVERAGE SALES

50 7 DAY
40
40 MOVING
30 7 DAY AVERAGE
MOVING 30
20 DECEMBER
AVERAGE 20
04
10 10
0 0
40
1

13

17

21

25
1

13

17

21

25

DATE DATE
 7 DAY MOVING AVERAGE JANUARY 05 7 DAY MOVING AVERAGE FEBURARY 05

AVERAGE SALES
80

AVERAGE SALES
80
7 DAY 7 DAY
60 60
MOVING MOVING
40 AVERAGE 40 AVERAGE
20 JANUARY FEBURARY
0 05 20
05
0
1
6
11
16
21

1
5
9
13
17
21
25
DATE
DATE

7 DAY MOVING AVERAGE MARCH 05 7 DAY MOVING AVERAGE APRIL 05

AVERAGE SALES
AVERAGE SALES

80 60
60 7 DAY 7 DAY
MOVING 40 MOVING
40 AVERAG
AVERAG 20
20 E E APRIL
0 0

1
6
11
16
21
1
6
11
16
21

DATE DATE

7 DAY MOVING AVERAGE MAY 05

AVERAGE SALES

80
60 7 DAY MOVING
40 AVERAGE MAY
20 05
0
1
4
7
10
13
16
19
22
25

DATE

The graphs given above show the plot for the 7-day moving average sales for the above
mentioned period.

41
 B

This section contains the micro-mailers sent to the customers.

The section contains the promotional e-mails sent to the customers.
MICRO-MAILER FOR ‘THE MERMAID CHAIR’
Dear «u_first_name» «u_last_name»,

From the author of the best-selling novel ‘The Secret Life of Bees,’ Sue Monk Kidd comes back
with another poignant and engaging novel “The Mermaid Chair”.

The book is a tale of Jessie Sullivan, a middle aged woman, who returns to her childhood home
in the Egret Island, to care for her elderly mother who mysteriously cuts off her own finger.

Once she returns to her childhood home, Jessie is not only forced to confront her relationship
with her estranged mother, but with other emotional ties as well. After beings married for
decades to Hugh, a dependable and yet conventional man, her stay on the secluded island allows
her to question her craving for independence that she had never had the chance to experience.

Jessie meets Brother Thomas on the island, a handsome monk who has yet to take his final vows
at the island's secluded Benedictine monastery and is increasingly draw n to him. Jessie is forced
to decide whether passion can coexist with comfort, or if the two are mutually exclusive.

What transpires will unlock the roots of her mother’s tormented past, but most of all, as Jessie
grapples with the tension of desire and the struggle to deny it, she will find a freedom that feels
overpoweringly right.

The Mermaid Chair covers an array of emotions including redemption, forgiveness, love, and
spirituality. Kidd places an obvious importance on the role of mysticism and legend in this tale,
including the mysterious mermaid's chair at the center of the island's history
an ornately carved
with mermaids and dedicated to a saint who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her
conversion

A poignantly woven tale, it will surely make you pause and wonder… To find out more please
click on the link below.

Sue Monk Kidd’s first book was a spiritual memoir: G od’s Joyful Surprise, published in 1988.
Her second book, When the Heart Waits, published in 1990,was met with critical acclaim. The
Dance of the Dissident Daughter, published in 1996 was a bold and highly successfully memoir
and had a groundbreaking effect within religious circles, evoking an astonishingly passionate
response.

The Secret Life of Bees has sold more than 3.5 million copies, spent over eighty weeks on the
New York Times bestseller list and been published in more than 20 languages. It was awarded
the 2004 Book Sense Paperback book of the Year, nominated for the Orange Prize in England.

42
MICRO MAILER FOR ‘WINNING WITH JACK WELCH’

Hello «u_first_name» «u_last_name»

In his own words, Jack Welch’s latest book ‘Winning’ is “for people who love business and care
passionately about doing it right”. His audience includes everyone from line workers to college
students and MBAs, from project managers to senior executives

The book starts with a section on Jack Welch’s philosophy of business – the four principles
followed by Welch in his business carrier.

The first section of the book deals with the management of a company. It looks at managing
people, implementing change quickly, and managing a crisis. Welch quotes extensively from his
personal experiences, and brings his boardroom onto your reading desk.

The second section deals with facing competition. Strategy formulation, managing mergers and
drawing up a dream budget- these are just some of the nerve-wracking issues dealt with in this
section.

The third section is all about one’s caree r. Its chapters deal with getting the right job and the best
way to get promoted, not to mention the tough ones like working for a difficult boss. There is
also a chapter on work-life balance.

There is a simple clarity in Welch’s message and one feels as though in a conversation with
one’s mentor. The book is certain to bring about a paradigm shift in your approach to business. A
definite bestseller, order your copy before it disappears off the shelf.

To know more about this book, please click on the link below:

MICRO MAILER FOR LIFE AND TIMES OF EINSTEIN

Hello «u_first_name» «u_last_name»,

Its hundred years since the Special Theory of Relativity and the famous E=mc2. It is also fifty
years since the phenomenal personality passed away into the echelons of history.

Fabmall presents to you ‘Einstein: life and times’ a book by Ronald.W.Clark.

“The life of Albert Einstein has a dramatic quality that does not rest exclusively on theory of
relativity and the exciting time of history linked him with three shattering developments…” thus
begins this well researched book on Einstein.

The book begins with Einstein’s childhood and contains all the ancedotes that one loves to hear
about him. The author follows Einstein’s life through his troubled youth, as a young man not
certain about his goals in life and as a post office clerk who worked rigorously on theoretical
physics.

The author skilfully traces the inherent excitement in the world of physics during the turn of the
19th century. The anticipation of a ground breaking theory is palpable and at every instance the
brilliant minds seem to be in a race against time. The book explains relativity in a simple manner,
comprehendible even by a layman.
43
The book goes behind the phenomenal intellect to revel the human side of the legendary absent-
minded professor. Einstein comes through as a kind-hearted, humble man who wanted to know
God’s thoughts through his own scientific research. Einstein is described to be a man troubled by
the wars and the injustices meted out at those trying times and actively trying to do something
about it.

Certainly one of the better written biographies of Einstein, the book also contains some never
before published facts and   
  

Please click on the link below to find out more:

Please click on the link below to order ‘Mathematics’. This book traces the history and evolution
of mathematics, right from number theory to the most complex algebra and calculus. And what’s
more, the book is available at an amazing 40% discount.

MICRO MAILER FOR ‘THE SONG OF SUSSANAH’

Hello«u_first_name» «u_last_name»,

Stephen King is back. The sixth and the penultimate book in the dark tower series titled ‘Song of
Susannah’ makes one wonder about the fictions that life presents us with every day.

The gunslingers, the drawing of threes, the wastelands, wizard and glass, wolves of the Calla
precedes Song of Susannah.

Picking up right where "Wolves of the Calla" left off, Roland, Eddie, Jake, and Father Callahan
prepare for yet another sojourn out of Roland's world and into ours. In this saga a pregnant spirit,
Mia, from the parallel world has hijacked the crippled, schizophrenic, civil rights activist-turned-
gunslinger Susannah’s body. The baby that Mia delivers is set to eventually kill Roland.

As the Beamshake quakes the entire world, we learn that the tower is in a greater jeopardy than
ever-before.

In each chapter, called stanza King leaves us on tenterhooks and the excitement builds up with
each page. The book races towards surreal end. As any book following a continuum, song of
Susannah raises as many questions as it answers.

And to top it all, King himself makes an appearance!!

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Telling anymore would give away the plot. Order your copy now and enjoy the gripping
suspense.
Please click on the link below for more information:

MICROMAILER FOR SUCCESS PRINCIPLES

Hello«u_first_name» «u_last_name»,

Jack Canfield needs no introduction. The co-author of ‘chicken soup for the soul series’ Canfield
is world renowned for warming hearts and changing lives. In his own words his new book ‘The
success principles how to get from where you are to where you want to be’ is a blueprint for
success.

If you have already read much of the success literature and think this book isn't for you, we beg
to differ. This book is unique.

Jack Canfield will take you by your hand and lead you through a compendium of time-tested
success principles.

The book is organized in several sections to make these references easier to follow:
¾The Fundamental of Success
¾Transform Yourself for Success
¾Build Your Success Team
¾Creative Successful Relationships
¾Success and Money
¾Success Starts Now.

Some of the principles are familiar: take 100% responsibility for your life, Start now. Some are
ingenious: become an inverse paranoid, feel the fear and do it anyway. But Canfield has a unique
way of explaining each of them. He draws heavily on his personal experience and also quotes
from people who have followed his principles and succeeded.

The authors also provide many free tools to help one succeed.

Canfield acknowledges his predecessors in the success literature field, such as Napoleon Hill,
and is also clear that while he gives information, motivation, and inspiration, readers must
contribute their own hard work.

A must have book, please click on the link below to find out more:

Interested in the ‘Chicken soup for the soul’ series? Please click on the link below:

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MICRO MAILER FOR ‘THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO KNOW’

Dear«u_first_name» «u_last_name»,

“The one thing you need to know” by Marcus Buckingham is the one thing you would not want
to miss reading. After, First Break All The Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus
Buckingham is back with ‘The one thing you need to know ... About Great Managing, Great
Leading, and Sustained Individual Success.’

Buckingham focuses on three roles that are most critical to achieve something significant in

one’s life, sustain and expand this achievement. Why does a door -to-door sales person selling

deodorant after nightfall generate more revenues than the rest? Her profession during the day is

wrestling. Does that help in selling?

The ‘one thing’ for managing, leading and sustained individual success is lucidly explained in
the book. There are some exceptional points, including very important differentiations between
managing and leading: "When you want to manage, begin with the person. When you want to
lead, begin with the picture of where you are headed."

Buckingham’s core view in the book is the concept of individuality and c apitalising on the
employees’ strength and adapting to their uniqueness in order to enhance their results.

Buckingham emphasizes that great leaders need to exercise ‘extended empathy’ to sustain their
ability to lead.

The book speaks about the ‘twenty percenters’ who play a role where they have a chance to do
what they best do every day. The critical skill, according to Buckingham, is not to balance but to
create intentional imbalance.

‘The one thing..’ continues from where Buckingham left off in ’Now, D iscover your strengths’ -
place an order for this book and ‘sustain’ your thirst for knowledge.

For more information about this book, please click on the link below:

MICRO MAILER FOR ‘ARTEMIS FOWL:THE OPAL DECEPTION’

Hello«u_first_name» «u_last_name»,

He is a child prodigy. He has puzzled the greatest medical minds. He has many patents to his
name, has defeated the chess champion and has won the contest for the design of an opera hall.
He is also a criminal mastermind.

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And he is back. That’s right. Artemis Fowl is back in the new book ‘ The opal Deception’ and he
hasn’t retired as he threatened to in the last book.

His career, though, is now in peril because all the memory of the fairy people has been erased
from his mind; and Opal has framed Capt. Holly Short for the murder of Commander Root of the
LEPrechon fairy police.

The opal deception starts out summing up what Opal Koboi did in the Eternity Code.
After her goblin-rebellion failed, Opal Koboi spent a whole year in a coma.
Thats what people think. In fact, Opal Koboi has already planned what she is going to do
beforehand in case something like this happens. Yet, for a whole year she just meditates,
thinking about her comeback and her revenge.

Then she escapes,leaving her clone behind. Artemis is, in the meanwhile,plotting to steal a
priceless impressionist painting. Disaster strikes.Opal kills a major character and captures
Artemis.Well, I will not tell you anymore!! What happens to Artemis and Capt Holly? Does
Artemis regain his memory? Does his conscience come in his way? Grab the book and know all
the answers.

To find out more, please click on the link below:

If you liked Harry Potter, you will love this book. There are high-tech gadgets and gizmos, there
is the ‘other world’ and ofcourse there are fairies,trolls, mud men gnomes and evil fairies
misusing their powers. The series is a well written fantasy with an appeal for adults aswell.
The series includes:
Artemis Fowl
Artemis Fowl:The Artic Incident
Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code.

MICRO MAILER FOR ‘THE RED CARPET’

Dear < "!$#&%')(+*,!.-0/132 > < 46587 9;:<=58>?9A@CB >,

BANGalore!! That’s right, anything to do with Bangalore has to have a big bang in it. Be it
Bangalore’s IT and BT, be it Ban galore’s social life or be it the booming shopping complexes.
Bangalore is changing and it is changing fast. There is liveliness like never before and it shows.

What happened to the quintessential pensioner’s paradise? Where are the calm bye -lanes and the
famed air-conditioned climates?

This is in fact the story line of Lavanya Sankaran’s book, ‘ The Red Carpet’, a collection of
short stories about the changing values and lifestyles of Bangalore and its ‘Netizens’ efforts to
grapple with the rapid changes.
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A humorous look at the older generation’s effort to cling on to the cultural identity and the
Americanized younger generation’s effort to break away from it all; the author looks at the
nuances of the new age family and creates a delightfully funny collection of stories.

Be it the Anglo-Indian convent teachers or the ‘just-returned’ jean clad software engineers, the
people seem very familiar; not surprising as the author has drawn heavily from her observations
of the changing world. Set completely in the city and the suburbs of Bangalore, the book neatly
weaves a tale of the everyday life of India’s silicon city.

This is certainly a must read for all Bangaloreans. We will not be surprised if you think one of
the characters is indeed yourself. We got that feeling when we read this book!!

To find out more, please click on the link below

MICRO MAILER FOR ‘THE LIFE AND FOOD IN BENGAL’

Hello «u_first_name» «u_last_name»

Life in Bengal- a land of lush green paddy fields and rivers full of fish has always centered on art
and literature. A culture that appreciates finesse and enjoys life at its fullest never passes an
opportunity to enjoy the exquisite culinary of its land.

To all of you who have always enjoyed Bengali culinary and are intrigued by the Bengali
lifestyle, Fabmall offers ‘Life & Food in Bengal’.

For those of you simply interested in trying out new dishes, this book offers a wide variety of
authentic Bengali cuisine.

Spice is indeed the variety of life. More so in Bengali cooking. The book contains a dish for
every season-Basanta, Greeshma, Barsha, Sharath, Hemantha and Sheeth;the author Chitrita
Banerji , serves a superb collection of time-tested recipes that includes vegetarian dishes,
delicacies like spicy mutton rezala ,a variety of pickles,chutneys and home made sweets.

Just reading the book will make your mouth water. To know more,please click on the link below:

MICRO MAILER FOR ‘THE DILBERT COLLECTION’

Hello «u_first_name» «u_last_name»

You live in your office for most of the time in your life. You may as well enjoy it. Revelations
into the world of the manipulative office mind, written as nobody else but Scott Adams can. He
combines his experience in the cubicle with his characteristic satire.
Fabmall offers a splendid collection of the uproarious Dilbert series. This four book series is with
a special discount. The collection includes:

• The Dilbert Principle: A Cubicle's

-Eye View of Bosses, Meetings, Management Fads &
Other Workplace Afflictions
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 • Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel
• The joy of work
• Dilbert Future-Thriving on stupidity in the 21st century

Given below is a brief review to help you buy.

Awesome cynicism is all that we can say!! We could not even get past the first few pages of any
book without crying out with hilarity. But the insights are absolutely on the bull’s eye.

Adams offers some innovative and often (maybe always?) riotous strategies to cope up with right
sizing, TQM and other ‘modern’ methods of management. Explore the books and find out if
there is a method in all the madness.

Adams provides insights to everything from managing the boss, to surviving boring meetings to
dozing off in the office without letting anyone notice. The comic stripes add to all the
amusement.

Adams also dishes out laugh-out-loud predictions on technology, marketing, jobs, the future of
democracy and capitalism. Adams ‘pencils in’ hilarious conclus ions based on his experiences of
the predictions made by popular science and Hollywood and vouches for the perpetual existence
of stupidity.

And read for yourself and find out if it is possible to find joy at work (the joy is, of course, at the
expense of your co-worker).

This is a recommended set to see the mundane office routine in a refreshing manner with an
emphasis on the lighter side of everything.

Please click on the link below to know more:

MICRO MAILER FOR ‘THE ZAHIR’

Hello «u_first_name» «u_last_name»

‘What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety
and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?’
Luke 15:4

Paulo Coelho, the best selling author of ‘Alchemist’ is back and so are Santiago and the mystical
power of dreams.

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‘The Zahir’ is a novel of love, longing and obsession. The book releases on the 6th of June. You
can pre-order the book now on Fabmall and get a 10% discount on your copy.
Here is a brief summary of the book:

‘The Zahir’ in Arabic means visible, present and unable to go unnoticed. It is someone or
something, which, once we have come into contact with, gradually occupies our every thought,
until we can think of nothing else. The plot of this book revolves around this single word ’Zahir’.

After three marriages, all ending in divorce and a successful career as a lyricist, the protagonist
meets a successful war correspondent and falls in love with her. Life goes on and the relationship
hits the rocks. The protagonist’s wife compels him to follow his dream and write a book and
refuses to end the relationship until he writes the book.

The protagonist is forced by his wife to follow the medieval pilgrimage route to Santiago.
Santiago changes the course of his life and the protagonist authors a book on spirituality and
becomes a millionaire and goes back to his wife.

After ten solid years of marriage, the couple decide to go to Santiago. Once in Santiago,
suddenly, with no apparent reason, the protagonist’s wife abandons him and leaves without any
trace. The more he thinks about it the more he gets obsessed with understanding the reason for
her desertion.

The book makes one think about ones chosen path in life. Paulo Coelho’s characteristic spiritual
touch to life is ever present and the book is a moving tale about a man’s desire to be accepted by
that one person who has rejected him.

Please click on the link below to pre order your copy today and get a 10% discount:
The Zahir

Click here to order other titles by Paulo Coelho.:

‘Books by Paulo Coelho’

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