Online book trading gaining ground

Online book sale getting popularity in the country thanks to the people's wider access to Internet that helps them get desired titles at market prices, insiders said.  
They said although it is a new concept in book business, the platform is developing quickly in the country. At least five online portals, including rokomari.com and boi-mela.com, are now selling books online in Bangladesh.
"Buyers can purchase books at the same discount what they usually get at traditional marketplace," said Mehdi Hasan Roni, mentor of rokomari.com, a leading online platform. He said the market is expanding with the use of Internet growing rapidly.
According to the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC), there are some 4.67 million active mobile Internet users in the country.
"At present, some 7,000-8,000 people visit the website at rokomari.com every month to buy their desired books and other reading materials across the country," he said, adding that the platform has more than 100,000 titles in its possession.
Mr. Roni said their sales usually double during the Amar Ekushey Book Fair. "We regularly upload new titles on our website that are arriving at the month-long festival every day."
rokomari has made agreement with the publishing houses to sell their books, he said, adding that rokomari maintains a rich web platform having two bilingual -Bengali and English -- interactive website where books are arranged in a classified way to facilitate distance and easy browsing of the books available.
"Anyone can browse the titles and give order electronically from anywhere as these are categorically (author, title and subject wise) arranged," he said, adding they are now taking order only at Tk 50 across the country.   
Mr. Roni said buyers also can send back or replace the ordered books in case of not getting desired books or damaged products.
 "Products must be sent back to the authorities within seven days since delivery," he said, adding that there are two ways to send back or replace the products.
In Dhaka city, they offer a free pickup service for the return or replacement of the products. In other cities, customers themselves need to send back the products at the office address.
"Once we pick up or receive the return, we do a quality check of the products at our end. If a return is invalid, we replace the products with a new one or we refund money," he said.
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