At a time when online sales and digital books are taking a toll on brick and mortar bookshops causing many to shut shop, here come not one, but a chain of four brand new bookstores — Story — positioned as “a place where people will meet to tell stories, talk stories, read stories, write stories and buy stories.”
The 10,000-15,000 sq ft stores, three of which opened in Kolkata and one in Durgapur recently, belong to Kolkata-headquartered PGE Lifestyle Ventures, an arm of Primarc Group, which also owns the franchise rights of Crosswords bookstore in eastern India.
Fully mindful of the online onslaught, the group is working out newer and innovative ways to emerge as a brand to reckon with. “Story will be the kind of social meeting place that our cities do not have much of. Our objective is to bring new value with facilities and services that will make it a grand destination not only for the book lovers but even tourists,” said Sidharth Pansari, director, Primarc Projects.
On offer are more than 1,00,000 titles and an entire floor for children’s books. But there’s a lot more beyond. Like, for instance, the STORYteller’s club that will conduct regular workshops and Sunday STORYtelling sessions that not only focus on reading habits, cognition and instillation of creativity in kids, but also on their role in society and overall personality development. And finally, CafeSTORY will be about coffee over conversations where people can also read, paint, write, draw, type or even play the guitar.
The Story bookstores are located on Elgin Road in Kolkata, Avani Mall in Howrah, Diamond Plaza Mall in Nager Bazar and Junction Mall in Durgapur.
Primarc owns and operates some 45 stores across various formats in east India including Raymond, Color Plus, Park Avenue and Esquire. It has also floated a special purpose vehicle (SPV), Primarc Pecan Retail to foray into the e-commerce space.
Source | Financial Chronicle | 20 October 2015
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