IndiaBookStore: Comparing book prices across stores is one click away

The site currently receives over 200 visits a day.

From what started out as an experiment to find the best deal for a book across various websites, manifested into something much wider in scope. Results of the experiment were very encouraging and a little bit of tweaking lead to the website, IndiaBookStore, which helps users find the cheapest price for any book across stores. This is the perfect case of landing onto something while doing what you enjoy rather than trying to dig for a gold mine. Jubin Mehta from YourStory.in caught up with the entrepreneur behind IndiaBookStore, Animesh Jain, to know more about this venture.

When was the IndiaBookStore started?

IndiaBookStore.net was launched in September 2010. It started out as a quick script I wrote to check various sites for prices of books. Since it was useful enough to be made into a website, I decided to spend some more time polishing it, and there it is!

Which online book stores are used to compares prices of the books?

Currently, the results are generated from Flipkart, Infibeam, IndiaPlaza, Crossword, Landmark and a few others. I intend to add to this list with time.Did you start out with an intention of generating any revenue? If yes, what is your revenue model?

Yes. I wanted to test if the affiliate revenue would be significant enough to support the site. So far it seems to be working. The server costs get paid from the affiliate revenue the site generates. I don't have much left over as of now after paying for the server rent.

The book review section is an interesting section as well. Do the reviews undergo some screening before getting published?

I decided to start the reviews section to generate some organic traffic. The reviews are done by a bunch of writers and get paid for the same. They are screened for quality.

What are your future plans for IndiaBookStore?

First goal is to be the easiest way to search for books across all Indian online book stores. I plan to make the search better. Many new bookstores will be added to the search results. Will facilitate importing of wish lists from all popular bookstores. We are also working on some usability improvements.

To check out the best deals for the books you want, please visit www.indiabookstore.net