Flipkart ranked second in top global book sellers list

Wednesday July 01, 2015 , 2 min Read

Ecommerce major Flipkart has been ranked second among top book sellers of the world, according to a survey. Flipkart is the only Indian brand to be ranked among the top five, says the survey report 'Top 40 Global Bookstore Mind Share' (BMS Index). Amazon topped the list.

The survey, which assessed both offline as well as online book sellers across the globe, has ranked Flipkart ahead of companies like Barnes & Noble of the United States, FNAC of France, Waterstones of the UK and The Book Depository, also from UK.

According to PTI, the results were finalised by standardising data from sources like Wikipedia traffic, Google Books N-Gram and Google search term frequency. The index was based on two factors - the number of people thinking about these stores and its frequency.

The research project for BMS Index was led by Paul Xavier McCarthy, Adjunct Professor of University of New South Wales, Australia and author of 'Online Gravity'. Flipkart retails over 30 million books spread across literature, fiction, academic, biographies, business and management and self-help.

Here is the complete list (source - The Conversation)-

World’s Top Bookstores 2015

Rank	Bookstore	Twitter	Country
1	Amazon.com	@amazonbooks	US
2	Flipkart	@Flipkart	India
3	Barnes & Noble	@BNBuzz	US
4	Fnac	@Fnac	France
5	Waterstones	@waterstones	UK
6	The Book Depository	@bookdepository	UK
7	AbeBooks	@AbeBooks	Canada
8	Shakespeare and Company	@Shakespeare_Co	France
9	Books-A-Million	@booksamillion	US
10	Hay-on-Wye	@Hay_On_WyeBooks	UK
11	WHSmith	@WHSmith	UK
12	Infibeam	@infibeam	India
13	Chapters Indigo	@chaptersindigo	Canada
14	Powell’s Books	@Powells	US
15	City Lights Bookstore	@CityLightsBooks	US
16	Blackwell UK	@blackwellbooks	UK
17	National Book Store	@nbsalert	The Philippines
18	Alibris	@alibris	US
19	Foyles	@Foyles	UK
20	Eslite Bookstore	@eslite	Taiwan
21	MPH Group	@M_TWEETbyMPH	Malaysia
22	Hudson Group	@hudsonbooks	US
23	Books Kinokuniya	@Kinokuniya	Japan
24	Fishpond	@Fishpondcom	NZ
25	Strand Bookstore	@strandbookstore	US
26	Hastings Entertainment	@goHastings	US
27	Half Price Books	@halfpricebooks	US
28	Popular Holdings	#popularworld	Singapore
29	Livraria Cultura	@livcultura	Brazil
30	Higginbotham’s	#higginbothams	India
31	Landmark Bookstores	@landmarkstores	India
32	Hatchards	@Hatchards	UK
33	Fopp	@foppofficial	UK
34	Dymocks Booksellers	@dymocksbooks	Australia
35	Harvard/MIT Cooperative Society	@harvardcoop	US
36	Eason & Son	@easons	Ireland
37	NewsLink	#newslink	Australia
38	Archambault	@archambaultCA	Canada
39	Kyobo Book Centre	@withKyoboBook	Korea
40	Hodges Figgis	@Hodges_Figgis	Ireland

Ranked by Bookstore Mind Share 1.01; Paul X McCarthy, June 2015.

Incidentally, Flipkart, now a billion dollar e-commerce company, started as a mere online book ordering website way back in 2007. The founding duo, Sachin and Binny Bansal were working in the same team at Amazon where they decided to start this online website. Both pooled in close to Rs 2 lakhs each and with Rs 10,000 monthly allowance from their parents for nearly 18 months gave them the muscle to sustain and build Flipkart. They used to work from a rented 2 bedroom apartment in Koramangala, a Bengaluru suburb, which has now grown to three buildings. The first order to be placed on Flipkart was from Andra Pradesh when someone ordered the book ‘Leaving Microsoft to Change the World’ by John Wood.