Chennai: Buying textbooks is often an arduous task faced by many students. They need to hustle around the city to grab hold of the right books at a price that doesn’t leave a gaping hole in their wallets.
This was what Thilak Desingh (25), a resident of Manapakkam had to endure when he was studying.
Back in school, Thilak was preparing for his college entrance exams. That was when he came across the plethora of books that were available for students in the market.
“I saw several reference books,” he says.
“Every subjects had so many textbooks. They were all expensive to buy. So I decided to go for secondhand books instead. I went to many shops across Chennai to buy them.”
He then found that most of the book shops had few options for every subjects. “There aren’t many shops here where you can buy everything in one place,” he says.
Then he realised about the wide gap in the secondhand book business in the city.
“Buying secondhand books saves your money and also helps the environment as you are reusing the book instead of throwing them in the waste,” says Thilak.
“When I was in college I used to buy books at Moore market but then again traveling was a bit problem and also you had to bargain with the book sellers.”
Later Thilak started working for an IT firm. ‘I had learned how to create websites and I asked myself, why not create one to run my secondhand book business side by side,’ he says and added that he always wished to be an entrepreneur and wanted to experiment things.
Thus in May 2017 he started Chennai Used Books. “It was a very simple site and I didn’t expect it to have much traffic,” says Thilak. But he was surprised when he saw people visiting his site.
He then recalls, “When I was in college, I saw many students leave books in the classrooms after exams. The books either used to lie there or else the cleaners would throw them off into the garbage.”
Looking at such valuable books being thrown away into the trash also pushed Thilak to start his business.
He worked only in the weekends initially but now his mother, Pramila helps him.
“I have re-branded the site as ‘Used Books Factory.’ It’s an e-commerce site. My mom helps me to run the business while I take care of the technical stuff.”
He says his new website is way better than its older version. ‘I made it as much automated as possible to make it easier for the customers to purchase,’says Thilak.
“Now they can pay online and also track the delivery of the books they are yet to receive.”
How is the market?
Thilak talks about the market for secondhand books in Chennai. “There are many people who want to sell their books to dispose them off,” he says.
“I guess there’s no one else in the market other than me who goes and picks up the books from the customer’s doorstep. That’s a big advantage for them. All they need to do is to send the photos of the books they wish to sell via WhatsApp. We evaluate the condition and quote the price.”
He adds, once the customers agree, his team goes to collect the books. Thilak also makes sure that the textbooks’ edition he buys are not more than two years old as students prefer the latest editions to stay on par with the syllabus of the universities.
Thilak plans to expand his business further. “I wish to scale it more,” he signs off.Thilak can be reached at usedbooksfactory.com and +91-86681-45559.