Parragon Publishing India has recently announced an alliance with its long-term distributor Shree Book Centre, the leading publishers and distributors of children’s books in India. The association of the two publishers will focus on enhancing their brand credibility and providing better services to their clients. Being one of the largest licensed publishers in the world, Parragon is a leading publisher of books and gifts for all ages. For more than 25 years, Parragon Publishing has been producing highquality products and the company conceives and creates more than 2,000 new products and concepts annually and distributes over 50 million influential books and gifts to more than 35 countries globally. Parragon Publishing India is a joint venture between Vineet Sharma, managing director, and Parragon UK. The venture took off in 2006 with the aim of bringing global content to India, customized to suit the local taste of the Indian market.
Mumbai-based Shree Book Centre is a partnership firm, which ventured into distribution in 2010 and thereafter started publication of children books. Today, it publishes books for children targeting the age group of six months to 14 years, apart from a few titles targeted at the +18 bracket. Shree Book Centre owns around 2,000 titles and exclusively distributes 3,000 to 4,000 titles across India. Apart from publishing books, Shree Book Centre has been playing a critical role in the distribution of Parragon Publishing books across the country.Â
Thus, by appointing Shree Book Publisher as the master stockist for India, Parragon Publishing India has gained a wider market reach and services for their existing and new customers. Further, Shree Book Centre is planning to have an enhanced backend operating system and a modern warehouse that will help both the publication houses to build customer satisfaction on the delivery and services front.Â
For over a decade now, Parragon Publishing India has been working with distributors, local bookstores and supermarkets to online retailers including Big Bazar, Amazon, Flipkart and Crossword to make books more easily accessible. The books and gift formats include board books, storybooks, novelty books, chapter books, reference books, educational workbooks, activity books, picture books, books with cover-mounted gifts, gift sets and much more. Through the use of SAP software, Shree Book Centre will primarily provide an analysis of subsequent sales, distinguish trends and enduser behavior and use analytics to enhance the customer service. With this partnership, Shree’s distribution network would extend the existing distributor base of Parragon and reach out to various markets in metro cities and penetrate tierII and –III cities and towns. Anuj Agrawal, the chief operating officer of Shree Book Centre, brings in a lot of operational management capabilities with his experience in IT, warehousing and printing facilities. Agrawal plans to build a much larger SAP-implemented warehouse that will further empower the distribution strength of Shree Book Centre.
