Chennai-based V. Karthikeyan and wife Veena are the promoter partners of Passaro Books (estb. 2012), a proprietary firm which imports pre-owned books from the UK for children in the 1.5-12 years age group.

Newspeg. Passaro Books runs retail and online bookshops with over 50,000 titles, and has created quite a buzz in this port city, which prides itself on its intellectual and educational prowess. The firm’s growing customer base includes Indian and international schools, young parents and online buyers from across the country. “Passaro offers a wide range including story, interactive and educational books on different subjects, reference books for the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) syllabus, popular classics and best-seller titles for young adults,” says Karthikeyan.

History. An engineering alumnus of Anna University, Chennai, Karthikeyan started his career in 1995 at Best & Crompton where he worked for seven years before switching streams to study visual effects and 3D animation at Pentamedia Graphics, following which he landed a related teaching job in Dubai for three years. He returned to India in 2007 and after working for three years as a visual effects supervisor in the Tamil cinema industry, decided to fly solo. In 2010, Karthikeyan and Veena — an alumna of Madurai Kamaraj University — promoted a proprietary exports firm Passaro International and two years later came Passaro Books.

Direct talk. “Our USP is pricing. Since we import pre-owned books we are able to sell them at a fifth of cover prices. The major difference between us and others in the pre-owned books business, is that we focus solely on children’s books which are catalogued on the basis of age, authors and subjects. And we only sell titles in mint condition. Currently we have a customer base of 50 Indian and international schools apart from individual buyers across the country,” says Veena.

Future plans.  Having got off to a good start, the enterprising duo is confident Passaro Books has a bright future. “We have only scratched the surface of the market for quality pre-owned books. The feedback we have received from young parents, schools and individual buyers is very encouraging. Now we are working on establishing licenced franchisees countrywide,” says Karthikeyan.

Way to go!

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)